From the Secretary - Jerry Lebo
Winter - 2012 - 2013
Dues notices were mailed during early November to more than 1,300 members. We have another 1,000 members who are either life members or who have paid several years in advance.
If past experience holds true, we’ll have to mail second notices to several hundred people and eventually drop about 200 for non-payment of dues.
A feature we began several years ago has proven to be relatively popular. We mail guest registration cards to people living within driving distance of the convention. Cards returned to the show are placed in a drawing for gold and silver coins. There were nearly 200 returned last time, and 20 were drawn as prize winners.
These are mailed two or three weeks prior to the convention. If you don’t live in Illinois or an adjoining state and would like to pre-register, let me know and I’ll mail a card to you.
Elsewhere in this issue you’ll find the usual list of membership applications, etc., and one other list. This other list is of life members we can’t locate.
Every seven or eight years we mail to these individuals at their last known address. Our most recent mailing failed to locate four members, so they’ve been added to the original list, which now numbers 16. This exercise over the years found out for us information that seven or eight were deceased but whoever received their mail didn’t bother to notify us.
As you may have heard, I am giving up my position as convention bourse chairman but would like to remain another year or two as secretary.
My feet and legs aren’t physically up to the task at the convention itself. Patricia Foley has been named bourse chairman beginning with the 2014 convention.
Patricia already has done a survey of dealers who have not signed up for the 2013 convention. Several dealers said they just aren’t doing as many shows these days. I know that several dealers just plain don’t like me, but only one came right out and said so in his response to Patricia. You simply can’t please everybody, and there’s no getting around that fact.
Carolyn and I recently represented CSNS at the Indiana State show in Indianapolis. It gave me a chance to renew old acquaintances and meet new people. Among those in attendance was Charlotte Linville, widow of Howard Linville who chaired Indiana State shows for a number of years, as well as several CSNS conventions when they were in Indianapolis.
The bourse was an active place. The few dealers with whom I spoke said they were having really good shows.
Several ISNA board members (friends of mine for years) lamented the fact they can’t seem to get enough individuals to serve on the board. If you’d like to become part of the so-called “inner circle,” contact ISNA at its website: www.indianastatenumismatics.org.
I recall during my ISNA days that an individual told me I was part of the “inner circle.” I said you, too, can be part of that group by volunteering to serve on the board and work at the convention. He changed the subject.
