From the Secretary - Jerry Lebo
(Summer - 2011)
Our 72nd Anniversary Convention is now history and by most accounts was a glowing success. Elsewhere in this issue you'll find more information, such as the exhibit winners etc.
We mailed about 2,600 postcards to likely convention attendees prior to the event. Recipients were invited to present the card at registration and be entered in a drawing for gold and silver coins. About 200 of the cards were submitted, from which the following names were drawn for prizes: Brian Fanton, Donald Fasano, Robert Fattore, James Higby, Steven Howery, David Jones, Marty Kemp, Lisa LeBlanc, Paul Masters and Frank Olesuk.
Congratulations to Vice President Jim Moores who was honored during the convention by ANA President Cliff Mishler, who presented him with an ANA Presidential Award. This occurred at the start of the Board of Governors' meeting. We'll mention a few other honors later in this column. Some of the highlights of the board meeting follow. See minutes of the meeting elsewhere in this issue.
In a continuing effort to help dealers keep expenses down, the board approved continuation of two ways we reward dealers, including more possible money in their pockets.
Dealers who operate their bourse booths until the close of the convention will receive a voucher worth $100 toward the cost of their 2012 booth. That will increase to $150 with the 2012 event, payable on 2013 booths. Dealers who stay three or more nights under our host hotel room block will receive a $250 refund from CSNS. That's up from $200 this year.
The board approved, subject to fine tuning, the concept of providing up to $20,000 a year for authors and researchers. The maximum grant would be $10,000. Education Director Ray Lockwood and Legal Counsel Steve Bieda are to do some fine tuning and report back to the board.
Elsewhere, James Cain won the Bradfield/Finner Literary Award for best article in The Centinel. Gayle Pike was second. The Daniel Parker Literary Award for best article by a YN was given to Hayden Rose.
Georgian Mack Martin took Best of Show in the exhibit area. Mack and wife Sandy have been CSNS exhibitors the past couple years and have become personal friends of yours truly, as well as Exhibit Chair Fran Lockwood and hubby Ray. Our sympathy goes out to the family of Louisville collector C.W. "Bill" Snider, who passed away during March. Bill was a life member of CSNS and was well known among wooden money collectors. He was a past president of the Dedicated Wooden Nickel Collectors.
Finally, under the "Learn to Write Your Own Name" category: About 50 individuals joined CSNS during the Rosemont convention. Another 14 made the effort, but fell short because their membership application contained illegible handwriting. I’ve used the Internet, phone books, etc. in an effort to identify their scribbling, but to no avail.
