Evaluación de los Formulados a Nivel de Invernadero.

Although I interviewed many senior movanners both in their houses and in their vans, I had two key informants: ‘Barb’ who is a single female movanner and was the new secretary of the Freewheelers Club when I first met her, and ‘Peter’, a single fulltime movanner male, who was not in the club. Barb had typically engaged in friendly conversation with a group of senior cyclists at Long Bay Regional Park where she was staying for a couple of nights and among the group was my father. He mentioned my research and through him, she invited me to knock on her van door and introduce myself. She is a friendly, dynamic and capable woman, independent and outgoing with contacts all through the movanning community. Peter is a previous teacher of mine and a family friend of my parents, so we had an historical connection and he trusted me when I asked him to carry a GPS device in his van. Barb is aged in her 70’s and Peter in his 80’s.

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Every informant I interviewed over three years was a member of the NZMCA and

proudly displayed their ‘wings’ on the front and back of their vans and endeavoured to live by the values of the association when they were on the road. The structure of the

NZMCA is a regional one. There is a ‘Far North’ sub association, a ‘Northland’ sub association and so forth all the way down to ‘Southland’ sub-association. This rather ironic subdivision of an organisation devoted to mobility by sedentary home area developed from area representatives in the early 1960’s, which became area committees with representation on the NZMCA (Spain 2006:32). These regional

associations organise their own rallies and events, although any member of the NZMCA can attend any event, and in fact are especially welcomed (Green 2010) when attending an out-of-area event, which happens frequently because they are of course, travelling. Their website states:

The NZMCA is a membership based organisation representing the interests of private motor caravan owners in New Zealand. Members receive benefits including, but not limited to, discounts on services and products, free and low cost overnight sites, a dedicated insurance scheme and a range of handy publications.

Fellowship, camaraderie, and information sharing are also valued attributes.

FFIGURE 44 WWINGS DISPLAYED ON THHE REAR OF A VAN

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However, inside the NZMCA, and crossing regional boundaries, special interest groups have developed and the Freewheelers is one such interest group of single motor homers. Other special interest groups include ‘Good News Vanners’ who have a

Christian focus, ‘Fifth Wheel Group’ who own ‘5th Wheelers’12, ’Heavy Weights’ who own

large vans and ‘Vantrampers’ who focus on tramping at pre-arranged destinations.

Freewheelers are comprised of both single men and single women and they can be full-timers or part-timers. Most of the Freewheelers I encountered were retired. Single movanners are in the minority within the total movanning community according to NZMCA statistics which show about 14.7% of memberships were single and 85.3% were double memberships as at April 2012 (email from the Membership officer, NZMCA). The reality behind this statistic means that a single movanner can feel uncomfortable at NZMCA rallies and one informant related a story of walking into her first rally and not having a welcoming experience. Another informant whose husband had died told me “you lose two things if your husband dies and you give up motor homing because of it”; she knew how to drive her motor home (some women cannot or will not) and had joined the Freewheelers so she could keep movanning and be part of a group that had no partners travelling with them.

Death and illness were constant partners in my interaction with informants and I had to be sensitive to changing circumstances. One informant had her husband die suddenly and subsequently did not wish to talk to me. Sometimes older movanners were just too tired to see me numerous times. The stories senior movanners told me often contained personal accounts of partners dying or suffering, or exposed economic losses which had led to their current mobile lives, so there was a need for anonymity. Another ethical consideration was the need to conduct myself appropriately on my own journeys around the North Island as a representative of the NZMCA and not misuse the trust that membership bestowed on me. For example, I could not share information contained in the Travel Directory with non-member ‘outsiders’ (such as tourists) and

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had to make sure I emptied grey and black water appropriately, pulled over so as not to let a queue of traffic build up behind me, and generally abide by the written and unwritten rules of the association. I had learnt that reciprocity is important to senior movanners in New Zealand (Green 2010:57-60) just as it is in North America (Counts and Counts 1992, Mills 1999, Jobes 1984, Counts and Counts 2001) and so made sure there was mutual exchange in my ‘conversations’ with them to reduce any perceived inequalities in the relationship between researcher and researched (Marcus 1998:121) which they would not have appreciated. The ethics involved in the use of GPS is discussed with the method itself.