The Chicago Coin Club has been voted as the host for the 2013 World’s Fair of Money.
This is an anticlimactic type of announcement. With so many World’s Fair of Money shows scheduled for Chicago, is there really anyone else who could be the host club? What many people do not know is that if a club is designated as a host club, they automatically earn Life Membership in the ANA. With the shows being concentrated in Chicago and the decision to rotate the spring National Money Show between three cities, the chance for others to not only be part of the experience but earn life membership has diminished.The board has just voted to hold the 2013 spring National Money Show in New Orleans.
I know where I will be in the spring of 2013! I love visiting New Orleans. There is no place like it in the world. Aside from the French Quarter, there are world class restaurants, the Audubon Zoo, the music, and more. Have you ever been to a Voodoo museum? I have, and it is an interesting sight. Have you ever ridden on a steamboat on the Mississippi? That is a lot of fun, too. Then there’s definition of heaven: sitting at Café Du Monde at the French Market while drinking café au lait and eating beignets, getting powdered sugar on your shirt, and watching the crowds. Try doing this at 2 AM while an event is in town.The board has voted to reinstate early admittance (aka early birds) at future ANA conventions.
Why did they stop early birds in the first place?The board OK'd an exhibit award for women in numismatics. An anonymous donor will sponsor the award on a 3-year trial basis.
As I said in a previous post, the hobby has to do better at diversifying. While this announcement is a good start, I think there should be more. What about exhibit awards for minorities? How about something to help the “Lost Demographic” (as I previously discussed)? I realize that this was probably initiated by the anonymous donor, but what about working with those in the donor community to sponsor a program for minorities or the Lost Demographic?Last update: President Hallenbeck announced that NGC will continue as ANA’s official grading service for another five years.
As someone who has taken advantage of the self-submission benefit with NGC with much success, I feel this is a good decision.Someday the ANA will have a better information management and communications policies so that this information is more accessible to the membership in ways other than relying on Twitter. While I appreciate the information appearing on Twitter, too many people cannot handle the level of noise generated on Twitter and how to separate real information from the noise. In fact, if I had not checked Twitter for realtime sports information, I would not have seen the ANA tweets about the Board meeting.
4 comments:
Hi Scott,
Just wanted to drop a quick comment about our communication efforts in regard to these board meetings:
Twitter is certainly not our only outlet for communicating with the ANA membership -- it's an outlet I hope to see grow in the coming months (we're at 432 followers and slowly growing), and it's a great outlet for news as it happens. Follow us at http://twitter.com/anacoins
Another outlet is our Facebook page, where we published a roundup of our tweets as soon as the public portion of the meeting was over. You can "like" us on Facebook at Facebook.com/Numismatics.
We'll also be issuing the "official" press release, which will appear on Money.org later this week. That release will also be emailed to members who have opted in to receive press releases.
Thanks for the blog. I, too, am very excited about New Orleans. Never been there myself, but I've always wanted to go.
Thanks,
Jake:
What I am saying is that there has to be more than Twitter and Facebook as communications platforms. I don't use Facebook and using both is not going to reach the majority of the members. A better solution is needed.
Also, there should have been some announcement about the board meeting. In fact, if the board is not discussing something sensitive that requires it to be held behind closed doors, the meetings should be public with the ability to listen-only on the telecom line.
These are policy issues the board should be working on.
Scott,
A couple of comments regarding your post.
1) There has not been a decision to rotate the Spring Money Show between three different cities, as far as I am aware. The board looked into five cities for the 2013 Spring convention.
2) Early birds were eliminated by Larry Shepherd in 2010. The decision to reinstate them was made after a survey of our ANA member dealers to ensure that a new policy meets the needs of both the dealers and the early birds.
3) Tom Hallenbeck has started a new policy of issuing press releases the day of Board meetings (or calls) in order to get the word of our actions out ASAP.
Greg
Greg:
1) See http://bit.ly/sJvu7V where I first read the idea of the rotation between cities. However, I do see it was for the fall show.
2) It doesn't matter that Early Birds were taken away. They're back and that's a good thing.
3) I think live blogging along with Twitter, addition p.r. for this, and even a listen-only telecom hookup for all Board meetings except when there needs to be a private session for personnel and other sensitive issues, is appropriate. Even webcasting the audio with the ANA Twitter feed running on the same page would also be a good idea.
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