As of 15 December, 2025!
Your Executive Board has been in-place and hard at work together now for just approaching one year.
They continue to meet by Zoom to address ongoing concerns for the club, identifying and resolving:
1 - How to restart publication of the Safari Trails; The Safari Trails now has a new editor! Mark Reel stepped forward this past summer to assume that role for the club and has now produced three issues, the most recent of which is the Winter 2025 issue now ready for distribution in mid-December. His contact information is posted on the website Officers page and he is accepting inputs for all upcoming issues. If you have photos to share or a proposed article on ANY topic of interest, please feel free to contact him....he would love to hear from you!
2 - How to best address our need to gather socially at rallies while no longer having ANY Regional Vice Presidents to organize and run events in direct support of our scattered International membership across all of the United States and Canada; The Board has initiated contract and planning commitments for a dedicated Safari International rally in Branson, Missouri in late April-early May 2026. Linn Crocker, having received such posiitive feedback for his successful efforts in hosting the 35th (East) Anniversary rally in November of 2023, has graciously agreed to host and coordinate our next rally there....and in addition, Tim Keppler will be assisting! Look for progress details in the Trails. Registration forms are now available. As to how to provide rally opportunities to the Safari International membership in the interim, please take a look at the recently refreshed Rallies page here on our website. We have included every Family RV Association Area Rally as well as their International Conventions...these events will provide opportunities within easy range for our membership where we can gather and participate and socialize together. With just a little prior planning and effort, we can even arrange to meet in advance at a suitable venue for either a Pre-Rally or an overnight dry camp, then caravan into the FRVA event where we can be parked together. The Board discussed how it would be possible to provide supplemental funding in support of such group efforts to encourage participation....again, look for further details and discussion in the Trails.
Now let me put on my Webmaster hat and let's talk about the website upgrade migration process. As I have mentioned previously, the underlying software that makes our website work has reached its' end-of-life and is no longer being supported or maintained by the development team. Our website was first put into service in the early 2010's and following many updates and upgrades since then we've reached the point where a MAJOR migration to newer and more capable software is required.
I have been able to successfully begin the migration process with a functional offline developmental website using our online website data to populate what will become our new Joomla 4.4.12 upgraded site. There are still many internal adjustments and formatting tweaks required to make the look and feel as close as possible to what we all know...and it continues to be thoroughly stress tested to ensure that it won't collapse by mistake once it goes live, but the basic website construction, page layout, and internal data management features are ALL working correctly (so far...) as I continue to test and refine the implementation on the new current release software. The initial plan was to go live with the new website software this past summer, however, there were many unresolved issues that pushed that date back...to the point that I am now holding off on going live until AFTER we finish this years' membership renewal cycle. I do NOT want to introduce a potential pay portal failure right in the middle of that time! The website, while still running smoothly, is no longer being supported with security updates and bug fixes....so this is not an open-ended solution and our transition to the new software package WILL need to take place soon.
In my time in the Navy, I was always taught to finish a presentation on a high note....
So on a personal note, my cancer journey continues with close monitoring and repeat oncology appointments. Things are stable and I am planning an extended RV adventure this coming year starting in January departing the Northwest from Vancouver WA immediately following my latest ophthalmology appointment, proceeding South to SOCAL for planned events with the FRVA Western Area in Indio and then with the Safari of Southern California Chapter in 29 Palms...then on to Quartzsite! From there I have several intermediate stops planned, but the next major event will be East to the Perry GA FRVA International Convention in mid-March. From there I have plans to attend the major aviation event, Sun 'n Fun, in Lakeland FL in mid-April before back-tracking to Branson MO for the Safari International Rally. To make a long litany of travel plans shorter (I know, too late!) I plan to attend another major aviation event in Oshkosh WI in mid-July before starting the long trip home. It will be late December of this year through mid-late August of 2026 with close to 8,000 miles anticipated. Should my oncologist at UW Fred Hutch Cancer Center want to see me face-to-face along the way, I will park the rig, find guest accommodations for my four-footed travel buddy, Antonio, and fly back to Seattle as needed.