Try Before You Buy Free Trial (Part 1)

Motorhome “Try Before You Buy” (Part 1)
 
This story starts, not in a Motorhome or even a Caravan, but on the discussion pages of the Caravan & Motorhome Club. Specifically in a thread dated 4thJuly 2018, posted by Rowena. Rowena Becker is the Community Manager at the Caravan & Motorhome Club. In a nutshell Rowena was announcing the launch of a new “Try Before You Buy” scheme for both Caravans and Motorhomes. For the full post, follow the link below;
https://www.caravanclub.co.uk/club-together/discussions/welcome-hobby-talk/caravan-motorhome-chat/try-a-caravan-or-motorhome-before-you-buy/
 
So why you may rightly ask, is a regular member of CMC writing a story about the same topic. Well I will explain fully in a moment, but as they say before all well organised presentations these days, I just want to address a few ‘housekeeping issues’. Don’t worry, I won’t go into where the fire exits are or even the toilet facilities, I just want to touch upon some modern day writing conventions.
 
Abbreviations; Some like them, some hate them but for simplicity and to keep this post down to a few thousand words, I shall henceforth refer to the Caravan & Motorhome Club as CMC. In the main this means less typing but it also means my fat fingers won’t have to keep going back to change “7” into “&” because of a sticking shift key.
 
However, I will resist the temptation to resort to Moho as the common abbreviation for Motorhome. Firstly because I don’t like it and secondly because a Google search of Moho, reveals it to be an extinct genus of birds in the family Mohoidae. My knowledge of which is somewhat limited, almost as limited in fact as my knowledge of Motorhomes at the start of this story.. see what I did thereJ
 
Anyway, I digress and you should be warned I may do that a lot during this story. Going back to the question “why is a regular member of CMC writing a story about the Try Before You Buy scheme. Well if you followed the link above to Rowena’s thread, you did follow the link didn’t you?, You will have read that as part of the launch they were looking for someone coming into caravanning to take up the offer of a free week on the Try Before You Buy scheme. Similarly they were also looking for someone who already has a Caravan and is wanting to change to a Motorhome, to again take up the offer of a free week in a Motorhome.
 
To avail yourself of this free offer, you had to email a brief biography and some pictures to Rowene and one lucky couple would then be selected to avail themselves of the respective free trials. You can see where this is going cant you??  Having seen the thread dated 4thJuly 18 and commented on 11thJuly 2018 I then compiled an email with photos to Romena. On 24thJuly 2018 we were stunned and delighted to receive an email from Rowena stating we had indeed been lucky enough to be selected for a free trial in the Motorhome.
 
I should probably explain at this point that “We” refers to myself, a 59 going on 60 year old retired policeman, now a self employed part time handyman. My wife Barbara, a human resources manager and very talented artist of similar age . It also includes Ben & Jerry, our two 6 year old Miniature Schnauzers, who go on every caravan holiday with us. In actual fact, it was when Ben & Jerry, henceforth referred to as “The Boys”, joined our family that we bought a caravan so they could be with us. I mentioned this in my email to Rowena because I believe, given the vast number of dog owners in CMC any meaningful trial would include dogs.
 
Returning to the tale, I had been attracted to the title of Rowena’s thread which said, “Try a Caravan or Motorhome Before You Buy”. Not because we wanted a free trial, as that wasn’t mentioned in the title, but because we were in fact looking at changing to a Motorhome. We had just spent 10 nights at Chatsworth, one of our favorite sites, returning home on 8thJuly 2018. Whilst we were away, we called in at a Motorhome Dealer, which was on our return route from a day out in Clumber Park. We looked in wide selection of Motorhomes and found what on initial impressions was a layout that we liked. We said then that before we changed from our beautiful Unicorn III Cartagena, we wanted to be sure a Motorhome was for us.
 
All that Rowena has asked is that we compile and post a ‘blog’ in the Club Together section of the CMC website. At first I was a little concerned that this would become an arduous task, but we notice I am now on page two and we haven’t yet agreed a date for the trial J. We will try to be as clear, concise and constructive in all aspects of the trial in order that those who are considering Try Before You Buy can benefit.
 
This is the end of part one, Please look out for part two which will include the administration, pre departure briefing and journey to site.