Great Ideas for Winnebago Owner Events from the Mods, Maintenance, and Merriment Meetup

Great Ideas for Winnebago Owner Events from the Mods, Maintenance, and Merriment Meetup
Learn why this annual gathering of compact coaches has been such a big hit!

By: Brooke Baum

Since 2022, a group of Winnebago compact coach owners (Class B vans and smaller Class C RVs) have been meeting in Amana, Iowa, to share DIY tips, modification tutorials, and lots of laughs. This year, the group grew to almost 100 RVs in attendance!

The aptly named, “Mods, Maintenance, and Merriment Meetup” has become a favorite annual event in the Winnebago owner community, and it beautifully showcases why Winnebago’s owner groups are so beloved. The camaraderie, kindness, and helpful nature of RVers truly shines as you see these passionate owners putting together detailed seminars or climbing on top of roofs and under chassis to give a fellow RVer a hand. (Watch a video highlighting last year’s meetup here!)

Noel Fleming and Chris Miller, Winnebago EKKO owners and co-hosts of the first-ever meetup, explained why this event is so special: “This meetup broke the mold and created a new format option for meetups in three significant ways: inclusion of multiple rigs, owners helping owners do mods and maintenance, and giving back to a local non-profit. The activities extended beyond the usual inspiration of viewing neighbors’ mods. Attendees actually worked together to complete mods and maintenance!” (Read more about the first meetup here.)

Kathleen Hansen has led this event with various co-hosts over the last five years and has been excited to see it grow and improve each year. What started as a unique idea has become a cherished annual tradition. However, with this latest meetup being the final one, Kathleen and her co-hosts hope that the greater Winnebago community will embrace some of the ideas and traditions owners have loved at MM&MM to continue spreading the joy of helping others and promoting creativity. 

Note: If you are planning a Winnebago owner event or are starting a new owner group, please let the Winnebago team know! Please fill out this form to share about your events and request support, and inform Winnebago of your new group using this form.

Check out all Winnebago groups and owner events on the GoLife Community page, and learn what you can gain from attending an owner meetup in this article.

Why Winnebago Owners Loved This Mods-Focused RVer Meetup

“These meetups have been a great way to meet fellow van campers, learn about our van and traveling, and experience this wonderful community,” shared Ed Hampe, 2023 Winnebago Solis PX owner and co-host of the meetup.

“The overarching theme of this meetup, People Helping People, is what drew me to being a co-host. I am a ‘backyard mechanic’ and I enjoy helping people learn to do simple DIY maintenance and modifications to their vehicles, houses, etc. This meetup takes away some of the fear, and it supports people gaining confidence to work on their vans.

One of my favorite parts was seeing a few Facebook comments after the meetup where someone would post they ‘had the courage’ to work on one of the maintenance or modifications they saw at the meetup. That is such great news!” 

Winnebago “SPREKKO” owner Eileen Brown shared a great story about just how helpful and encouraging this community was to her and her husband who wanted to install new window coverings at the event but knew they would need a lot of help:

“Our challenge is that my husband and I are just not handy—like, at all. He jokes he has two left hands, and I joke that my favorite tool is a credit card. Imagine my excitement when Winnebago Ambassador and EKKO royalty, Stefanie Adinaro, replied to my request for help in an EKKO owners Facebook group and volunteered James to do the install for us!” (Eileen had actually chosen this install based on James’ recommendation on The Fit RV channel!)

“The day came. James was there—all business—and it suddenly occurred to me that perhaps he expected me to have brought the appropriate tools. But thankfully, all I had to provide in the end was some scotch tape, a pair of scissors, and, because it was James, a band-aid. (He has a t-shirt he is known for wearing that says, ‘It's not a project until you bleed.’) He even coached me to use his power drill and supervised while I did part of the install, myself!” (To see this install, check out the video on TheFitRV Instagram.)

Carl and Jane F., 2024 Winnebago Travato 59K owners, shared that the seminars were the highlight of this meetup for them: “There were so many interesting sessions, given by people who had first-hand experience with the mods they presented: from upgrading to Lithium batteries, changing to a Smart Plug, cleaners that work best on our vans, and even something as simple as how to position the flip-up table in the K model so it can be used without turning the driver seat. Even though we love our Travato, we both also enjoyed being able to see the set-ups people have in their EKKO and Solis models.”

For more RV tours and reviews by owners, check out the showroom section of the GoLife blog.

Smart Ideas Other Winnebago Owner Events Can Incorporate

Over the last five years, the MM&MM hosts have tried out multiple creative ideas, and some have worked really well to make the event run smoothly and boost attendee engagement! Here are some of the standout ideas that these passionate hosts hope other groups will incorporate in future owner meetups: 

• Host Hub: A designated area where attendees can connect with one of the event hosts to ask questions and review the day’s schedule. This helped the meetup run smoothly and allowed for some spontaneous seminars to be created as attendees discussed their needs or areas of expertise. 
• Section Hosts: Having a section host for each group of RVs (ideally one host per 15 RVs) really helps foster community and makes the newbies feel welcome, which the main hosts simply can't do alone for rallies with 100 or more people. 

• Shuttle Service: One of the volunteers created a brilliant way to help shuttle people from their campsites to the Annex Building where seminars were being held. For people with limited mobility, or just simply wanting a ride, there was a text message process to assign a golf cart driver to help with the requested rides. This “on demand ride” was a huge success at the latest Amana event and was structured in a way that made it very simple (only one phone number to text, then requests were distributed privately to the golf cart volunteers).
• Coordinating with Winnebago Techs: The event hosts for MM&MM coordinated with Winnebago ahead of time to have technicians come to assist attendees with more complicated, or more Winnebago-specific issues. Of course, this was a big hit! While this isn’t always possible, depending on tech schedules, Winnebago always tries to help as much as possible when event support requests are received.
• RV Tours: Events with RV tours are always a hit since owners are all very curious about what others are doing in their RV. This can mean setting up a formal, organized tour of RVs or just having attendees put up a simple “Visitors Welcome” sign outside when they are available to show their rig.

• Giving Back: Multiple RVer events have started to find ways to give back to the local community or another organization by volunteering or fundraising. At the latest Amana MM&MM event, they were thrilled to be able to collect $3,000 for Shelter House, which aims to help break the cycle of homelessness.
• Tracking Tools: If you have ever met her, you know Kathleen loves a good report! Keeping things organized by tracking the mods and maintenance tutorials attendees were happy to share, or hoping to learn from, helped everyone know what to expect prior to the event and made planning the schedule easier. 
  • This year, there were more than 150 people registered, and they had more than 200 submissions for mods owners were happy to share with others! Plus, a list of about 150 things attendees wanted to learn while there and more than 100 they wanted help doing to their rig. This made for a very productive event!

• Educational Seminars: Setting aside time for owners to share their expertise regarding a maintenance task or modification is a great way to create connection within the community and empower owners to gain confidence as RV owners. While DIY and mods were the main focus of this meetup, other groups could simply plan a few hours or a day for sharing this type of information at their events. It is always a hit! (For example, many Winnebago EKKO owners had a blast sharing about their mods at a recent meetup! See the video.)
  • Some of the tutorials that were popular at this year’s Amana meetup were:
    • Replacing headlight and fog light bulbs on a 2023+ Ram Promaster
    • How to “mouse proof” a rodent access area 
    • Lithium battery upgrades and understanding basic electrical systems
    • Replacing cabin and engine air filters on a Ram Promaster
    • How to install VanMade window shades on a Winnebago EKKO
    • Washing, waxing, detailing, and how to add sealant to exterior window frames
    • Adding Rockwool insulation to Ram Promaster rear doors and slider
    • Replacing the Furrion 30amp electrical plugin with a SmartPlug RV plugin

For more how-tos, modification inspiration, and tips for your Winnebago, make sure to check out the educational and gear sections of the GoLife Blog. You can also greatly benefit by joining your model-specific group for more insights from other owners!

If you are interested in organizing an owner meetup, this article has some great beginner tips to get you started! 

Special Thanks to the MM&MM Team from Winnebago!

The Winnebago team would like to thank Kathleen Hanson and her co-hosts (including Ed and Anne Hampe, most recently) for all of their hard work on this event over the last five years. We know they have all put so much love and enthusiasm into this meetup, including countless hours of coordinating, planning, and figuring out how to make their dreams for this event a reality. 

We hope this article will inspire other groups to continue their culture of creativity and generosity by implementing some of their ideas in your next owner meetup!