It has been a wonderful first day at the RV Owners Lifestyle Seminar. If you’re anywhere near Kelowna in late June, it’s worth paying to attend!

My only quibble is that some of the courses I’m interested in overlap, so I can’t do it all! 🙂

First up this morning was info about the Canadian Snowbird Association. They are the advocates of Canadian travelers. I got some updated info for Full-Time RVing in Canada, but saw that I’m very accurate in the information I present about health coverage for full-timers. I spoke to the presenter about adding a full-timing component to the CSA and he said that there is talk about it, or at least a recognition that we need major help, but the government is reticent. Again, my experience. Now that I have my property, I am going to officially present myself as a snowbird, a term that doesn’t scare the government as much, and I will be joining the CSA.

There was a coffee break after with baked goods and coffee, which was great since I wasn’t equipped to make my own and had planned to do without all weekend (I just didn’t see myself setting up my camp stove in the parking lot!).

Next up was a seminar by Sheila, who owns the RV Times magazine. We had met back in 2011, but she didn’t remember me. Her seminar was about sharing your RV stories and how to contribute to the magazine. I have been instructed to send her something!

We had our lunch break after and I talked to a bunch of people and sold one copy of FTRIC!

The seminars after lunch didn’t inspire me. There was one on electricity that I knew would be too basic, one on Alaska, and one on RV safety. I went to that last one and am glad I did. It was a good refresher on all safety aspects, from fire extinguishers to water treatment (I can’t wait to try hydrogen peroxide in lieu of bleach!) to handling a blowout.

We had another coffee break, this time with several kinds of cookies, all homemade.

My final seminar for the day was Spain in an RV. I was really happy with it as it was both a ‘how to’/’stuff I wish I’d known before I went’ and a travelogue.

Coming out, I went to find an organizer to ask if my handouts had been printed, but failed at that since an organizer came over to tell me that my handouts had been printed and that I could pick them up in the morning. 🙂 I then went to find another organizer to asked about borrowing a PC since my Mac can’t hook up to their projector system… and they were already on top of that and knew I was coming in with a USB stick. WOW. What a huge difference with the 2011 seminar.

I’m pleased that my seminar tone is in line with what I saw today, very conversational and less of a speech like I did in 2011. I don’t think it’s quite long enough, but I can pad tons and suspect I will be interrupted. Several people have told me that they can’t wait to attend it and have tried to get teasers out of me.

We have a live music event at 7PM tonight. I appreciate the full day seeing as I’m living out of a truck!