What has SDCOA been doing? Here’s a glimpse into the office. It’s purely a glimpse since a complete list would take away from precious time working on more projects for our members. We’ll keep January on the top, adding each month below it.
JANUARY
Stormin’ Normans RV Park in Hill City (owner is Mitch Brown)
January is a lot about activating, reconciling, balancing, and processing every aspect of SDCOA.
Updated our Facebook page and created our Pinterest and Instagram pages. We’ll be using all of these this year, posting about Kansas. If you’re on any of those pages (especially if your business is!), please make sure we know to follow you. Don’t overlook our B2B Facebook page! (These links were all updated on 7/30 to reflect our new CampInSouthDakota name.)
Filled a huge amount of early requests of our 2021 camping guide! I’m still getting new pics uploaded to our website and social media sites. (January always has more duties than minutes!)
FEBRUARY
Dove fully into our CampSDakota marketing campaigns for the 2021 camping season. It gained full attention to ensure we’re inspiring people to book while most parks still have availability.
Added hashtags to every campground photo album on our Facebook page. (We also noted which albums are needing more photos, having put a few more road trips through the lens of a camera. Many of the newer pics have been used in other manners, but doing this hashtag project let me see which albums were lacking.)
Hosted more online sessions, stepping up the networking opportunities for members.
Prepared for the 2/16 meeting of the Board of Directors and the upcoming annual meeting, election and other 2021 projects.
Wrote letters in opposition to SD 2021 HB1133 and HB1138, per the request of SD GF&P and the full support of the SDCOA Board of Directors. HB1133 failed in committee. HB1138 passed committee and House but failed in the Senate committee (click to read article).
Began working on several projects with Black Hills State University and their Tourism & Hospitality Management curriculum.
MARCH
Monitored legislative affairs, visited repeatedly with GF&P, ensured members received more ideas to consider for the upcoming camping season (EVs, retail, propane, etc.), prepared for & hosted the 3/11 online session with BHSU, and prepared & hosted our 3/24 annual membership meeting and Board meeting, and prepared for our 4/1 Board meeting.
Pushed our marketing efforts.
Prepared for and hosted our annual membership meeting & election. Prepared for the New Board’s orientation and first business meeting.
Worked closely with ARVC Board and other executive directors as ARVC prepared for its Board meeting.
Began preparing for National Travel & Tourism Week is May 2 – 8. We encourage you to take a few moments on National Travel & Tourism Week to assist our industry as we all restore the U.S. economy, rebuild our workforce, and reconnect America. Show your social media audience some inspiring posts! If you’re into hashtags, consider using these that week: #NationalTravelandTourismWeek, #nttw21, and #PowerOfTravel You could get far more elaborate by using the toolkit created by the US Travel office: https://www.ustravel.org/toolkit/national-travel-and-tourism-week.
APRIL
Wrapped up the final segments of our online sessions! Recordings are available through our office.
Encouraged members to use the Care Camps toolbox to create a simply yet effective fund raiser. They even have ways to help you get free labor to do some of your events FOR you! What better timing than when our campgrounds are expected to be busy this summer!! Here’s a quick video that shows you how: How to do more with less: Campground fundraising made EASY! You can email Jennifer Mercer from Care Camps with any questions from the training video: jmercer@carecamps.org.
Launched the SDCOA / Care Camps program. Check your email (4/15 afternoon) for our super simple process (or click here for the scoop).
Finished the intense season of marketing. Naturally, it continues year-round, but a huge effort is always done in the first few months. Guide orders have been flowing in, website traffic looks great, and social media has been doing well (especially considering we launched Pinterest and Instagram a few months ago).
(I’m not yet done adding the April content to this page.)
MAY
Welcomed Les & Jackie Wolff (photo below) to our membership. They own Wickiup Cabins LLC in Lead.
FYI: The industry publication Woodall’s Campground Management (WCM) has changed its name to Woodall’s Campground Magazine (WMC). You can read their press release by clicking here.
Learned that the storm that pushed through Custer on 5/23 took out 39 trees, an RV and a truck at Fort Welikit Family Campground. I saw reports of the damage reported at Custer State Park and hoped everyone else had been spared but that wasn’t the case.
We have been filling individual requests of our campground directory. Orders are beginning to wind down to a decent flow now. It’s unworthy to compare to 2020’s numbers but we’re well over 25% more guides going out than this time in 2019!
JUNE / JULY / AUGUST
Dove into wrapping up 2021’s admin and began the strategic planning of 2022 (membership benefit packages and such). Launched our membership drives (outdoor hospitality, industry supplier, and associate) and began the administrative process of documenting and launching their individual benefits.
Launched the project of creating a new URL to host our consumer-driver website. As I type this, we know it as CampS Dakota.com but in a few weeks it will be known as CampInSouthDakota.com (although we’ll keep the original domain for the marketing that’s been put in place and will remain in circulation for some time).
Launching this project simultaneously launched the creation of new logos and a new email address for us.
On 7/14, I spent the day at the SD Governor’s Tourism Advisory Board Meeting in Pierre. I was a guest at this meeting but still they asked if I had a report from SDCOA. HA! Of course I was ready for an impromptu report because I live and breath this stuff every single day! Industry meetings take place all year, even while our industry is feverishly serving the current tourists. Here’s one pic I took for a FB post:
Updated our blog post on maintaining your ARVC and SDCOA data.
STATISTIC: Earlier this year, ARVC shared with us the results from a survey they performed. It produced 516 responses from both members and non-members. One specific detail was that the average number of sites from those was 185. In reviewing SDCOA’s database, South Dakota members average a total number of sites is 112.
We welcome Alan Hanks and his Heartland RV Park & Cabins (Hermosa) into membership. He says he was a member until 4 or 5 years ago. We’re glad to have him back! FYI: Alan served in the SD House of Representatives from 2004 to 2007, and as mayor of Rapid City from 2007 to 2011.
CampSDakota to CampInSouthDakota
By the end of July, we were up to our eyeballs in tweaking the B2C marketing from Camp S Dakota or CampSDakota to Camp In South Dakota or CampInSouthDakota. This was a huge project that impacted every page of our website and many pages of content, SEO, social media sites, and even our email. The new email address: info@CampInSouthDakota.com.
The old and the old URL and email remain alive, but we hope everyone will quickly transition to the new.
The members, industry and media were notified by 8/5, the date the logos were implemented.
It’s quite possible not every existing link was caught. I’m not going back too far on this page to changes references, but I hope we caught all the B2C consumer-visible links and references. If you see anything I missed, feel free to pass it along to me (please provide a link when possible to ease my search).
More of what we’ve been up to:
Continue meeting with the state parks, and other industry partnerships.
Continued our social media marketing efforts.
Began preparing for the September Board Meeting.
We were happy to see this article by the USA Today. Yes, we had a part to play in getting Beaver Lake Campground mentioned. 🙂
(The last half of August and the first week went by with lightning speed without time to update this list.)
SEPTEMBER
Early September in our office is like Independence Day at the busiest campground in the state!
- Final push for industry supplier memberships and associate memberships that launched on 9/1;
- Launching industry supplier member benefits (intro videos, listings, session schedules, etc.);
- Preparing for the Autumn Gatherings, the September Board meeting, and several industry meetings;
- Renewing park members for 2022 (and inviting many who aren’t members to join);
- Coordinating the upcoming events and getting things revamped on this .ORG website for our formal announcements to the parks after they’ve recovered a bit from summer and Labor Day;
- Evaluating options for grants for us and our members;
- and … quite simply … multi-tasking like crazy. It’s all exciting and fun, but this year I admit I’m challenged with a sinus problem that makes sitting upright a challenge. So please, I beg of you, be patient and considerate if you find that I didn’t sufficiently dots the i’s and crosses the t’s. Just kindly point out any broken links or whatever and I’ll repair it.
OCTOBER (just a tiny glimpse!)
Membership renewals continue all year but this month is when we assemble the 2022 Camp In South Dakota Guide, so it’s a month of ensuring all the data is in place.
Distributed the marketing materials from our industry suppliers to our 2022 outdoor hospitality members (via USPS and email).
Online sessions continue.
The Board had its first meeting since spring, allowing us to all get onto the same page for our busy season of industry events. Guests speakers: Kevin Robling, Secretary of the SD Dept of GF&P, and Scott Simpon, Director of Parks & Recreation. They expressed their plans for proceeding with an expansion of the campsites at Custer State Park. They’d like to meet with our members in person or via Zoom. (10/26 Update: we haven’t yet been able to coordinate these meetings).
Given the current financial reports, the Executive Committee added funds to our travel budget. Mary will now be in Raleigh for ARVC’s OHC, and in Branson for the first annual Campground Owners Expo. [If you’re attending, please understand I’m on orders to follow some medical guidelines (immunocompromised), so I won’t hug (elbow bumps are allowed).]
The Board of Directors authorized Mary to nominate Stephen Saint to the Board of Directors for the Custer Chamber of Commerce.
The Board of Directors has nominated Mary Arlington to the Black Hills & Badlands Tourism Association’s Board of Directors. The election is 10/27. UPDATE: For those who heard I didn’t win, well, there’s been a development. Some uncounted ballots were found the following day which changed the outcome. That association’s Board now has two from SDCOA: Ed Miller (Rush No More RV Park & Cabins) is the Chairman, and I’m a Director under the Trade Association’s category. Click here to read the BH&B news from their annual meeting.
The Visitor Industry Alliance met and the industry reps, including yours truly, provided many summaries of summer. Additionally:
- Their long-standing lobbyist, Lorin Pankratz, is retiring and a search for his replacement has been started.
- Rep. Derby shared about the ongoing special sessions for redistricting and marijuana legalization. He also touched on billboards (draft from earlier year but no current activity).
- Sen. Duvall shared the same as well as the allocation of $80-100M in one-time funds, and workforce housing issues.
- Other mentions: fireworks lawsuit continues, and school start dates (Mary provided a link that contains info about the states that have achieved this).
Preparing for the fall line-up of industry meetings.
NOVEMBER & December (just a tiny glimpse!)
Attended the ARVC Outdoor Hospitality Conference & Expo in Raleigh, along with some of our members. (See pics on the CCLOA.org page by clicking here, and use the arrow buttons to scroll through.)
The Board opted to finalize our budget in January, given quite a few unusual factors.
Added the page for our 2022 legislative affairs updates. Worked with our Legislative Affairs Committee to prepare to meet with our members the first week of January.
Attended the Campground Owners Expo in Branson. (See pics on the CCLOA.org page by clicking here, and use the arrow buttons to scroll through.)
Participated in my first Board of Directors meeting with the Black Hills & Badlands Tourism Association.
Deactivated 2021 membership benefits and began preparations of activating 2022 membership benefits.
Processed our fiscal year-end taxes.
