Florida Van Council
The Florida Van Council (FVC) was organized in September of 1973 to promote the van club movement and statewide truck-ins.
In October of 1975 the organization was restructured to:
1. Provide coordination and sanctioning of statewide events held by the member clubs. 2. Provide statewide communication to all member clubs at and during the interval between regularly scheduled meetings.
Coordination of events was necessary to avoid having different clubs hosting events on, or nearly on, the same weekend. It was also decided to limit the number of events so that the vanners didn’t get “burned out” and not support the events occurring near the end of the year. Considering today’s conditions, it’s hard to imagine having to limit the number of statewide events held each year
Sanctioning was considered important for statewide events because some of the initial events didn’t meet reasonable standards. Some clubs volunteered to host events without really knowing what they were getting into, and some events were canceled when the host club realized that they couldn’t deliver what they promised. It was decided that “FVC sanctioned” would mean that the FVC would be sure that the member club has selected a site with adequate facilities and will provide assistance in the way of advice to the member club regarding activities, security, gate check-in, etc. This would give each club a free hand in deciding on site location, activities, judging (except that the FVC judging rules will be used), etc., but would ensure that minimum facilities will be available for everyone to have a good time.
This sanctioning system was chosen to provide continual upgrading of statewide sanctioned events. The term “events” was used because, at the October 1975 re-organization meeting, some clubs felt that competition for trophies had almost destroyed the good times to be had. Those clubs planned to host “party-ins”, with no official competition or trophies, much like an informal picnic, the activities optional and often impromptu. Overall, there has been a very good mix of informal parties and “full blown” van-ins for the past 40+ years
Statewide communication is accomplished by having 5 regular business meetings a year and via the FVC newsletter. The FVC newsletter has been exchanging information with about 50 other councils worldwide since 1979.
In 1977 FVC started actively contacting other councils to share information and solve mutual problems. This effort led to the first regional council meeting in 1978. As these annual meetings were expanded to include more councils and moved around the country they became known as the Council of Councils. These meetings have been the major focal point of national contact for vanning for the past 45 years.
FVC Presidents
1975 – 1976 Dick Hodges
1977 Ron Williams
1978 – 1979 Sam Crawford
1980 – 1981 Pat Costello
1982 – 1983 Ralph Petersen
1984 – 1985 Dave Pilon
1986 – 1987 Mike Limper
1988 – 1989 Judith Pilon
1990 Lew Skoko
1991 John Ventimiglia
1992 – 1993 Steve Capps (Iceman)
1994 – 1995 Quinton White (Q)
1996 – 1997 Ray (Pa) Bell
1998 Chris Ennis (Scooby)
1999 – 2000 Tony King
2001 – 2003 Randy Fleming (Gnarly)
2004 – 2005 Russ Stumpf
2006 – 2008 Cale Capps (Shogun)
2009 Dan’o Werry
2010 – 2012 Linard Morris
2013 Buffalo Bob Collet
2014 Richard Kleszczynski
2015 – 2016 Leslie Stanziani
2017 – 2019 Richard Qualters (Spooky Tooth)
2020 – to present Bruce Guertin (Konehead)
Visit the Museum of Vanning
| Vanners Creed I don’t try to explain why I’m a Vanner. For those who understand, no explanation is necessary. For those who don’t, no explanation is possible. |