12/19: Who are the Sooner J's?
The Sooner J's are having their annual Christmas dinner party tonight and our whole family is going. We play Dirty Santa every year for fun and/or useful gifts bought for $10 or $20. Our oldest, Preston, is home from college and looking forward to seeing some of his camping friends again. From an infant, he went on our monthly camping trips with the Sooner J's. It wasn't until he was about 9 or 10 that we started missing campouts because of school activities. However, I remember quite a few times pulling a Jayco 5th wheel to a campout with our family of 6 riding in a crew cab dually!
The Sooner J's are a camping club for Jayco owners. There are over 100 such clubs in North America. We got the ball rolling in 1986. I had owned the dealership for 7 years and worked a lot of hours. Patricia and I got married in 1983 and loved to camp. We really liked camping in a tent trailer, but found it hard to get away. Every year we would say we were going to do more camping this year, but were lucky if we got away more than 2 or 3 times a year. That's when I got the bright idea to start a Jayco chapter. I figured if there was a scheduled campout each month, we would go camping more.
We advertised that we were going to have an organizing meeting at the old dealership in Midwest City and about 10 or 12 couples showed up. Jayco sent a couple down from Jayco International to tell us how things worked.
Everyone is a member of Jayco International and eligible to go on factory sponsored caravan trips throughout the year. The local clubs are called chapters and are usually sponsored by individual dealers. The chapters name themselves and elect officers. The dealer is an honorary member, but can't be an officer or vote.
Well, they elected officers and scheduled some campouts. It was an immediate success. It worked out great for Patricia and me, too. We made virtually every campout for several years and watched the club grow and grow. We've made great friends over the years and we still have several charter members in the club.
Sadly, we rarely make the campouts anymore. It's very hard to work in the campouts with activities going on with 4 kids. Patricia and I plan to start making more campouts as the kids move off to college. Our youngest, Parker is in 7th grade this year, so we've got about 5 years before all will be gone. In the meantime, we usually only go for a couple of weeks on Christmas or Spring Break. We are really looking forward to going on monthly campouts again.
If you would like more info on being a member of the Sooner J's, just call or email me and I'll get you the info. I think dues are only $20 per year and Lee's RV will pay the first year. They are a great group who like to have fun and you'll end up with friends for life!
Go camping more--have more fun! Lee
The Sooner J's are a camping club for Jayco owners. There are over 100 such clubs in North America. We got the ball rolling in 1986. I had owned the dealership for 7 years and worked a lot of hours. Patricia and I got married in 1983 and loved to camp. We really liked camping in a tent trailer, but found it hard to get away. Every year we would say we were going to do more camping this year, but were lucky if we got away more than 2 or 3 times a year. That's when I got the bright idea to start a Jayco chapter. I figured if there was a scheduled campout each month, we would go camping more.
We advertised that we were going to have an organizing meeting at the old dealership in Midwest City and about 10 or 12 couples showed up. Jayco sent a couple down from Jayco International to tell us how things worked.
Everyone is a member of Jayco International and eligible to go on factory sponsored caravan trips throughout the year. The local clubs are called chapters and are usually sponsored by individual dealers. The chapters name themselves and elect officers. The dealer is an honorary member, but can't be an officer or vote.
Well, they elected officers and scheduled some campouts. It was an immediate success. It worked out great for Patricia and me, too. We made virtually every campout for several years and watched the club grow and grow. We've made great friends over the years and we still have several charter members in the club.
Sadly, we rarely make the campouts anymore. It's very hard to work in the campouts with activities going on with 4 kids. Patricia and I plan to start making more campouts as the kids move off to college. Our youngest, Parker is in 7th grade this year, so we've got about 5 years before all will be gone. In the meantime, we usually only go for a couple of weeks on Christmas or Spring Break. We are really looking forward to going on monthly campouts again.
If you would like more info on being a member of the Sooner J's, just call or email me and I'll get you the info. I think dues are only $20 per year and Lee's RV will pay the first year. They are a great group who like to have fun and you'll end up with friends for life!
Go camping more--have more fun! Lee