Motorhome club founder honoured

The founder of Australia’s largest campervan club has been recognised on the 2012 Queen’s Birthday Honours List.

Campervan and Motorhome Club of Australia’s (CMCA) founder, Don Whitworth has been awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for service to the community.

After travelling thousands of kilometres throughout Australia in a Volkswagen Combi Campmobile with their three children and later touring Europe and USA in larger RVs, Don along with his wife Erica Whitworth set up the Club in Tweed Heads, NSW in April 1986, with the first ‘branch office’ operating out of the back of their van.

The club celebrated its first Anniversary Rally at Swansea on Lake Macquarie in NSW in May 1987 and by July the following year, membership had reached the 1000 mark.

The club was incorporated in 1988 and today is the largest and most influential RV club in Australia, with around 63,000 members (and 27,900 motorhomes) and 97 chapters Australia-wide.

In 1996 CMCA acquired its own premises and begin employing paid staff, and today the national headquarters is located in Newcastle, NSW, and is behind numerous campaigns and programs supporting the RV lifestyle.

On learning of the award, Mr Whitworth said, “I have participated in many different areas and given my time to a variety of clubs, but for the past 26 years CMCA has claimed most of my time.

“It has been an incredibly gratifying journey and the support, enthusiasm and personal affiliations formed with members have made it a truly wonderful experience.”

Reflecting how popular the motorhoming lifestyle had become since he started the club, he also said: "It's funny. Back then anyone investing in a $2000 campervan was considered eccentric, to say the least.

"Now it's so popular and many people have literally taken their house on the road. There's so much to see in Australia.”