AROUND-OZ MOTORHOMES

Laurie Smyth

Laurie Smyth is the head honcho of the CMCA website. She was born in the USA, but we won't hold that against he. She moved here in 1972 - in fact, she says, "Australia was always my dream - I even have photos of me when I was two with my hopping kangaroo toy".

For ten years, Laurie and husband Keith had a business that designed fundraising software for agencies throughout Australia and New Zealand. Somewhere in there they managed to finish raising four children. Then came the ubiquitous, sea change, and they ran away in a motorhome!

Six months in rig number one - a 23-ft Bedford bus - was spent having long service leave along the East Coast of Australia. They loved the lifestyle so much that they specified the conversion of a 36-ft Hino bus into a motorhome so they would have more room for the three dogs and the two computer systems. Then they went on the road full-time. Like so many guys with their "sheds" Keith really started to want a base, so they bought a ten-acre property on the coast of eastern Victoria. Then he wanted to live there, so niche-market holiday cottages for people with disabilities and people travelling with pets were built - a bit of a world first in Australia for this wonderful idea. How many places do you know of where you can take your dog with you to breakfast, lunch and dinner? Two years ago they sold the big Hino and car trailer and bought a Toyota Coaster to make it easier to get away whenever they could find time. "This also meant I could drive and head off on my own, said Laurie".

The first website design Laurie did was for their holiday cottage business Merindah Holiday Cottages and reaped immediate bookings. Further work flowed from there. When Keith was a candidate for Local Government here in East Gippsland, he was the only candidate with a website. Perhaps it helped him get elected, as he was a relative newcomer to the area.

Laurie, Keith and Harry!

Board Member Don Eldred wooed Laurie into helping with the CMCA site. They both wanted to make it one of the top motorhoming sites on the net. Since Don and Laurie got together, the site has gone from strength to strength. They see direct links from the sponsorship banners, and logo links to the advertisers own site as a member benefit, as well as providing an income stream to support the expansion of the site. The CMCA Board endorsed this recommendation at the Griffith Rally and advertisers are coming on board steadily. In November 2001 they put Members Market on-line. So if you are looking for a pre-loved campervan or motorhome or want to sell your "baby", then this is a good place to start.

Happy holiday makers in the Studio Cottage

Laurie does a lot of her work on the road, using a Toshiba laptop and recently updated her phone to a Kyocera 3035 CDMA, which is Internet compatible. Mostly she uses the Telstra data service, which she has found to have the best and most reliable connections. Sometimes she can use friend's and CMCA member's phones. Uploading text based pages into the Club site is easy on the digital connection, but to actually download large attachments and photos is impossible. The digital connection only operates at 9k/13k compared to 56k for normal phone lines.

The growth in the site is running parallel to the increase in membership numbers of the Club. And the more people like Tom Kayser - the BISCUIT's man - have their way, the more people will be accessing the Internet.

So next time you go on line to the CMCA site (www.cmca.net.au) you never know where the information has been typed or uploaded - it could even be somewhere on the road around-oz.

Chrissy Eustace