Some thoughts after about a month of membership.

I’m writing this blog post mostly because I said I would elsewhere. I’ll try to keep it brief.

If you’ve been following my blog, you know I’m interested in completing the Great Loop. In an effort to learn all I can about it in preparation for the year-long journey, I began looking for resources online. The American Great Loop Cruisers’ Association was one of the resources I found.

At first, there were just two organizational resources that interested me: videos about the Loop and the Rendezvous.

The Videos

There are a lot of videos and most were tagged $25 each, which really put me off. I honestly couldn’t imagine them charging members a fee to watch existing content, many of which appeared to be narrated PowerPoint slide shows. I assumed that the videos were free to members and it was one of the reasons I joined up.

I was wrong. The $25 per video fee was on top of annual membership. Yes, there are a handful of videos that I could watch for free and my registration to the Rendezvous (see below) included credits I could apply to two (I think) more. So simply joining the organization wasn’t going to get me much closer to seeing educational video content unless I was willing to dish out more money.

Is it worth paying another $25 to watch this webinar? I don’t know.

Understand this: I don’t mind paying for content I can learn from. But the price has to be related to the actual quality of the content. $25 to watch a 45-minute narrated PowerPoint slide show seems excessive to me. I understand that videos cost money to produce and host, but I also believe that they’d get a lot more views and likely take in a lot more money if they made the price more reasonable — maybe $5 or $10 each. At this point, I’m not terribly interested in spending $25 on a video that might or might not provide information I can benefit from.

The Rendezvous

The Rendezvous is an event held twice (or maybe three times?) a year. Normally, it’s held live at a location along the loop. For example, they’re planning an autumn rendezvous in Alabama and a new (I think) winter rendezvous in Florida. It’s designed for folks getting ready to start the journey, but it also seems like a good way to just pack in a lot of information.

Because of COVID, this spring’s rendezvous was held as webinars. That was actually good for me because it meant that I could attend without having to travel.

The Rendezvous includes social and educational activities: “docktail” parties, seminars, a vendor expo, etc. It seems like a good opportunity to network with other cruisers, learn about new products, get route briefings, and build a base of information about the trip.

I signed up for the spring rendezvous. It was conducted over a three week period with sessions on Tuesdays and Thursdays. There was a midday (EDT) “Lunch and Learn” which was basically a vendor talking about his/her products. I learned about Waterway Guide, which I wound up subscribing to. In the evening (afternoon for me), there were route briefings, each segment focusing on a different part of the loop. The presenters were actual loopers who narrated their slide decks either in a recording or live. Some were excellent — the couple who talked about the Chesapeake Bay and the guy who covered the Erie Canal were very good. Others were good but could have been better. (These were not professional speakers.) At the end of each presentation, they answered questions we’d ask either live or via text.

There were also two “small group” sessions, which were handled like Zoom meetings. Those were nice because you got a chance to chat with a small handful of other loopers. In person social events would (of course) be better, but this was a good substitute.

There was an online Expo and Q&A sessions concentrating on specific topics. Unfortunately, they were held at the same time. I chose the Q&A session for the Erie Canal so I missed other sessions I might of benefited from, as well as the Expo.

I did learn a lot and the good presentations really fed my desire to do the trip. Unfortunately, I missed or arrived late for some presentations. I didn’t get the links I needed a few times and had to scramble to contact the office to get them. Other times, I simply couldn’t take time off to attend — after all, this was in the morning or afternoon for me because of the time difference. What’s good is that I can apparently watch (or rewatch) any of the presentations as videos without having to pay for them again.

Overall, I think it was worth the cost to attend: $165 (on top of the $89 AGLCA membership fee; you must be a member to attend).

Other Benefits

Of course, the annual membership fee includes other benefits that are listed on the website. The funny thing about membership benefits is that they’re really not worth much if you don’t need/want/use them.

But one of the benefits is discounts at certain sponsor locations. Waterway Guide is one of those sponsors and I used my AGLCA discount to buy my Waterway Guide membership, thus getting two very detailed guides about parts of the loop. I also used the discount to buy another book about the loop. If I use enough discounts, it should (theoretically) cover the cost of membership.

Another benefit is access to a member forum where members ask and answer questions. This is a typical forum like you’d find for any group, but these folks are mature adults who don’t troll and act like assholes. So if you have a question — no matter how basic — you can be assured that someone will give you a good answer for it without humiliating you. They also share information about problems along the route — for example, lock closures or fuel unavailability. They even share opinions about marina service and anchorages. There’s lots there and it can be found on the website or delivered to you via daily emails.

Full access to classified ads is also a benefit, and it’s one I took advantage of to get on the crew of a boat doing part of the loop starting later this summer.

There are Looper Lifestyle seminars held a few times a year at various locations along the loop. I suspect that these have been put on hold during COVID, but they do appear on the calendar for the future, so they might actually happen. Keeping in mind that a lot of folks live full-time on their boats, this is probably pretty informative for them.

Worth It?

I’m pretty leery of “associations.” I’ve been conned into joining more than a few that weren’t what I expected them to be.

Helicopter Association International (HAI) is a perfect example. This organization seems to cater to big helicopter operators while pretty much ignoring the needs of the little guy. I honestly believe that it was started by a bunch of guys who saw a way to make a living traveling around the country to host events while occasionally acting as spokespeople for the helicopter community. I got sucked into joining twice and let my membership lapse with a very bad taste in my mouth both times.

I’ve also had an unsatisfactory experience with Whirly Girls, an organization of female helicopter pilots. I blogged about my experience here, so I won’t cover it again.

So while I like being part of groups of people who share similar backgrounds or interests, I’m not the kind of person who will just pay up to be a member. I need the organization to satisfy my needs.

In this case, my need is for information. The AGLCA does satisfy my need, but there’s a lot of pay-as-you-go along the way. I’m starting out, my knowledge base was nearly blank. They’re helping me fill it in and I believe the forums will be very useful for getting questions answered.

The fee is $89/year with discounts for longer terms or a lifetime membership. Is it worth it? I think it might be, at least right now. If those videos were free to members, it would definitely be worth it.

Footnote:

Last night, I watched one of the webinars that normally costs $25 but was free for AGLCA members. To watch it, I had to follow a link to get a promo code, then log into Vimeo, click to Rent the video, and enter the promo code. It took about 10 minutes for the video to appear in the Vimeo app on my television, but when it did, was able to watch it on the big screen.

It was an Aqua Map app demonstration by the developers. Although the video quality started out pretty bad (on a 4K TV), either I got used to it or it improved because it didn’t seem so bothersome after the initial shock. The developers had recorded and edited a tutorial style video that showed finger tapping on a smaller screen and results on a bigger screen. That was pretty effective, despite the strong Italian accents of the presenters. They gave a good tour of the app, but spent (in my opinion) too much time on the “Master” features that I don’t think will appeal to average users. I still don’t know how they got river mileage to display; they showed the feature but not how to enable it. When the tutorial video was over, they answered questions that had been posted live during the webinar. This didn’t go as smoothly as it could have, but they were definitely trying hard.

On a scale of 1 to 5, I’d give the webinar a 3. That score reflects the length of time they spent on Master features and the difficulty they had answering questions quickly and effectively. It wasn’t a waste of my time, but I sure wish it hadn’t been 90 minutes long.

Was it worth $25? I say no. I hope the other ones I get a chance to view are better.