Quote:
Originally Posted by Donna D.
What does one get for $20 paid to the rally organizer? Is that a participant's fee or is there a swag bag of some sort with maybe a t-shirt?
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Hi Donna! Its a participants fee (per camper not per person). If you have ever been to our other rally "Eggs on the Hiawassee" you would understand how much work we put into our rallies a year in advance, including contacting past and potential sponsors, coordinating with the campground on reservations, cancellations and the waiting list, providing catered food on Thursday for the Fish Fry, coordinating live seminars, coordinating door prizes (everyone get a door prize) as well as the Campers Choice Awards, Corn Hole Competition and more. I also custom design t-shirts which we offer
for sale as well. Ian Giles even consulted me for advice when he was planning the
Boler 50th which regretfully we could not attend. We also work hard to keep it molded fiberglass to retain our sponsors so there is a lot of work that goes into this rally behind the scenes than most people don't realize. The rally fee is for our time invested in making this great rally happen. We are not the only one that charges a rally fee and for the first four years we didn't charge at all. Our participants was the ones that suggested we charge as they saw how much hard work we put into it. We book out the entire campground in Hiawassee and its booked for the following year when it ends on Sunday for the past 4 years now.
My wife was asked to take the Falling for Fiberglass rally over by the previous hosts and has handled it for 2 years now with no rally fees. She pretty much does this one by herself as I can't come up until Saturday due to our son is in school. She is working hard to make this rally comparable to our other Hiawassee Rally. She took time off from work to do this including spending several days in Bryson City, Murphy, Silvia and Waynesville seeking out a new campground before and after the rally as the previous one in Cherokee was not meeting our expectations. She is working on sponsors for this rally as well and this year she added
Escape as a sponsor in addition to having
Casita sponsor us again. I personally wood smoked 15 lbs of pork butts as we provided our homemade Brunswick Stew on Thursday night for everyone including all bowls, utensils, etc. All of this we paid for out of our own pocket. She also had door prizes and giveaways and did a movie night with the help of the Hunt's. We also offer rally shirts that I design as well. This rally will continue to get better each year and as of yesterday there was only 17 sites left available. 2022 will be the first year she charges a fee for this one and participants recommended she to this.
We hope you can join us at both rallies in the future and see for yourself how hard we work to put these on.
Thanks,
John
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