The March winds are blowing, bringing with it promises of spring and camping weather. The Ontario government is rolling out vaccines in earnest now, and hopefully most of us will have received at least our first dose by summer. However, because the variants of the virus are on the rise, we caution everyone to maintain your safety protocols of mask wearing, hand washing and social distancing to prevent our healthcare system from becoming overwhelmed.

On Sunday March 7, 2021 the OPA Voting Delegates meeting was held virtually via Zoom. There were some very important issues raised and announcements made that bear repeating for your information.

Spring OPA Campout has been cancelled to allow for more vaccines to get into more arms before we start to gather again. However the Voting Delegates meeting will take place virtually on Sunday May 16, 2021 at 1:00 pm. Voting Delegates will be emailed an invitation. Anyone else who wishes to attend, to listen and learn, are most welcome but they will have to request an invitation from Lew Acre. His email address is lewacre@gmail.com.

The Retiree Rally in Norwich, Ontario has been postponed until September 6 – 10, 2021 to allow life to return to normalcy following the vaccine rollout. It will take place immediately after the Fall OPA Campout. Registration forms will soon be available on the OPA website.

The Fall OPA Campout is still on schedule to be held in Tavistock, Ontario on Sept. 3-6, 2021 hosted by the Oxford Rovers and the Tri-County Travellers. Registration forms will soon be available on the OPA website.

Clarification regarding OPA Membership dues and International FCRV membership dues need to be repeated. OPA membership dues are historically collected in the Fall of each year to cover the following year. In 2020 no meetings or campouts were held due to Covid 19, and the Board decided to waive the membership dues that would have been collected in Fall 2020. Any member in good standing from Fall 2019 will still be in good standing now. It is expected that membership dues will be collected this Fall 2021 to cover the year of 2022.

International FCRV membership dues were not waived. The Trustees discussed this option at length, however since no other income was collected due to cancelled campouts, and since they have regular ongoing expenses, they could not realistically allow their only source of income to be waived for the year. FCRV International membership dues can be renewed online by visiting fcrv.org and clicking on the “join/renew” button to pay by credit card.

Well folks, that’s a lot of information to digest, and we thank you for giving it a good chewing over. We’re expecting March to leave “like a lamb” and for April showers to kick start some spring growth and some early camping. Many private campgrounds are starting to advertise spaces available so hopefully we’ll be able to dust off our RV’s and get out camping soon. We encourage you all to check out the OPA website regularly to watch for campout registrations and other notifications. Kudos to Dave Warrington for his website management.

Looking forward to when we can meet face-to-face again,
Lynn and Lew Acre