your post REALLY rubs me the wrong way.

The club should BEG Al to run for office ?????

If I am not mistaken Al was not even a club member when he made that post which kind of precludes him from running.

Secondly its a slap in the face of all the current and former BOD members who have given countless hours trying to make the club a better place for all. You infer that everything that was done previously was nothing compared to what Al can do.

Now don't get me wrong, I like Al. In fact I was the one that suggested we ask him to speak at the volunteer reception. I think he is a fantastic writer and has an amazing knowledge of history.

Al also had some good ideas for the club which were all discussed by the BOD and we decided to move forward with ones we thought were acceptable. the problem is that most of the ideas were just not feasible.

Do you think the club hasn't discussed numerous times already about attempting to bring younger members into the hobby ???
That's an easy idea to come up with but one that's much harder to actually accomplish. Any thoughts on how to do that?

Anyone can say take out a full page add in Sports Illustrated or Get a booth at the WSOP. Only one problem, where is the money doing to come from to spend $100k-$500k on advertising? Make member fees $100 a year?

The club has already started a junior members program to help get younger members interested and we did this even though some of our members were against that idea.

Some of the other things Al mentions are make admission to the convention free. Convention fees are discussed each and every year among the BOD (yes the same BOD that does nothing but wait to Beg someone to come lead us). Do you know admission to the convention on Saturdays IS free? Did you know that Friday admission is $5. that means someone can attend 2 full days of convention activities for $5. Are we really driving away potential collectors because they have to pay $5 for 2 days?

Registration fees bring in about $10,000 a year. If we allow everyone in for free how do we make up that $10k? How about double the table fees and lose 90% of the dealers? That way we can have a free admission to a show with 10 dealers. Although there wouldn't be 10 dealers because it costs is $15K just to rent the room so there would be no convention.

Other ideas were to promote the hobby thru TV and radio adds. Does anyone think those are new ideas? We have had TV news coverage and podcasts for several years now. We are constantly trying every avenue including giving away free passes to radio stations. Amazingly enough those ideas we came up with ourselves and didnt have to Beg for a leader.

What about give away the current magazine to all attendees? We already give away a convention program which costs us nearly $3 a person to produce. Giving away a magazine would costs us another $5k-$6k. Once again where is this money going to come from.

Now once again all the ideas were not bad ones and I can guarantee they were ALL discussed at a BOD meeting just like everyone else's suggestions.

Maybe instead of Begging for someone else to come lead us we would BEG current BOD, Chairpersons, and Volunteers to remain as they are what makes the club strong. It is actually posts like this that make good people who want to help the club think that maybe its not worth the effort. It really is no wonder that we cant keep people on the BOD for any real length of time.

I look forward to seeing your name on the next ballot. Or at the very least a list of feasible ideas to accomplish what you suggest.

Sincerely,
Douglas P. Smith
LM-3209-147