Many of us are bewildered by recent developments in the CCA leadership. The president resigned and a vice-presidential candidate pulled out of the election. Are you wondering: What is going on? This post is meant to “Clear the Air” by giving you some insight into recent events. Also, I am fully aware that if I say anything that is not 100% truthful, I am very likely to be sued for slander. The post is also not meant to demean anyone, my purpose is to restore the peace through understanding. I will not speak for anyone else; I speak only for myself.

First and foremost, I want to thank Mr. Vergatos for all the hard work that he did for the CCA, which is considerable. I, like most of you, got along very well with Mr. Vergatos. That was until an incident that occurred in 2020. In that incident, I came into conflict with Mr. Vergatos. Briefly, Mr. Vergatos wanted me, as the ChipGuide Webmaster, to not enforce the ChipGuide Usage Policy when his friend used images from the ChipGuide on his eBay auctions. My response was that I did not have the authority to do so, that it was a legal matter and suggested that if there was any question about the Policy to have an attorney with expertise in intellectual property weigh in. The result of not agreeing to Mr. Vergatos’ request was that I became his enemy. Since that time, I have been treated by Mr. Vergatos with the kind of behavior that one might expect from an enemy. To say the least, the last couple of years have been very unpleasant for me.

While Mr. Vergatos did considerable good for the CCA, he sometimes acted on his own, ignoring the established procedures of the organization. Here is an example, and this is the only example that I will provide because it has already been published, but this is certainly not the only time that something like this happened. Mr. Vergatos proposed to the CCA Board to eliminate all but one trade session at the convention. The CCA board voted against approval of the proposal. And yet Mr. Vergatos went ahead with plans to eliminate the trade sessions. The CCA Board is elected to represent the membership in their decision making. To go against a CCA Board decision is to go against the will of the membership.

By the time of Mr. Vergatos’ resignation, others that he worked with in the organization had also become his enemy, because they would not agree to his decisions which at times seemed to be more for his own personal interests rather than in the best interests of the CCA and the membership. Some CCA officials quit their positions or decided not to run for reelection rather than suffer the consequences of being in conflict with Mr. Vergatos.

Mr. Vergatos was very hard working. Perhaps he took on too much responsibility with being president of the CCA and the convention chairman, I do not recall anyone else taking on both roles at the same time. He also is the president of the SNCCC. Maybe that is just too much responsibility for anyone to handle? Mr. Vergatos is a nice guy, that is, until you come into conflict with him which, my understanding is, was not uncommon.

In private emails and in public posts Mr. Vergatos made unkind statements about me and my leadership of the MoGH. I will briefly respond to just one allegation in order to present the other side of the story. In 2019, the MoGH board, which included both Mr. Vergatos and I as board members, voted to hire a consultant to help us understand what is involved in the opening and operation of a museum and to develop a business plan. At this meeting the board learned two very important things: 1) A museum should not rely on covering its expenses by paid admissions, the plan should be to cover expenses through patronage (donations and fundraising); and 2) The cost of opening a museum is well beyond the MoGH’s current finances.

That in mind, what has the MoGH been doing? All our regular activities: six exhibits, the ChipGuide, lending library and convention activities continue. Since I became the Chair in June of 2021, my immediate goal was to get our house in order by attending to some long-neglected areas. We cleaned up the library and are in the process of moving it to a better facility. A website was created for the library using a database to facilitate the lending process. Duplicate books have been removed from the library and will be on sale at the convention. A website was created to allow tracking of MoGH expenses down to the transaction level. The MoGH membership was migrated from a spreadsheet to a database that all MoGH board members can access. Plans are in place to clean up the storage locker and inventory the contents. As a pilot project, the MoGH is now selling merchandise on consignment at the National Atomic Testing Museum. The MoGH is not stagnate, we continue our current activities while making improvements for the future.

Many years ago, a very well respected dealer and contributor to the hobby, someone who was destined for the Club’s Hall of Fame, became embroiled in controversy. It was shocking to the membership, but Club officials figured out what needed to be done to fix the situation and the Club moved on. Again, a well respected club official and an outstanding contributor to the Club has become embroiled in controversy. I have full faith and confidence that Club officials will be able to figure out what needs to be done to fix the situation and that we can move forward and once again enjoy the hobby that we love.

In summary, again, I wish to thank Mr. Vergatos for his many contributions to the CCA and I wish him the best in his future endeavors.