I, like all of us, have been reading the ChipBoard and the comments therein about the CC>CC's Official Condition Description Plan. Clearly it is difficult to accomplish anything without some sort of backlash, inappropriate as the backlash may be.

I think our collective position is straightforward, a number of us were elected to, among other things, create a Club sponsored chip condition program to, in part, help thwart the slabbing/grading initiative.

The plan presented was taken from samples offered by both Jim Reilly and Archie Black. Samples that were published online long before the election.

The concept of an oversight committee to nurture the system and recommend changes was born from the opinion that it was more important to start the program and gather the input, rather than not have one in place until it was completed. Which could take a very long time.

And though the desire is to keep it simple for the newbie collector we recognize that it clearly needs to be fleshed out for the more sophisticated collectors.

That finding fault without offering constructive input is easy but not helpful. That finding volunteers to willing to sit on an oversight committee and subject themselves to the abuse is getting harder - and why is quite understandable.

There are more new proposals already in the pipe that will be announced as soon as it is practical. That some of those new ideas will, likewise need tweaking.

That we are the Board you elected, some of us even ran for office unopposed. We claim to be nothing more than fellow collectors who are willing to donate the time and effort to help run our club along with all the other volunteers.

That perhaps the last Board was wiser, they were blasted for not doing anything. This current Board appears to be getting blasted for doing anything.

That, unfortunately, not everything is fixable in the short time it takes to mention it.