From: Association of Collecting Clubs
18222 Flower Hill Way #299
Gaithersburg, MD 20879
301.926.8663
Info@Collectors.Org
 

To: Digital Reprieve, Inc.
From: Association of Collecting Clubs
Subject: ACC Partners'Update, Vol 4, No 8A, May 1, 2006

Collectors Trade Show - Serving Clubs and Collectors
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The leadership of ACC's 2400 member clubs seek information from the aisles of the Trade Show...along with their millions of members representing the most serious & dedicated collectors in the antiques, art and collectibles industry.

If you are a vendor with collector needs...from shipping supplies to display cases...alarm systems to price guides...collector software to training courses, appraisal or restoration services, you should have a booth in the Trade Show.

If you have services of interest to club leadership such as club customized logo merchandise, membership incentives and club management tools, event planning, convention sites or meeting facilities, printing options and internet services, you should have a booth in the Trade Show.

If you are an antiques mall or gallery manager, a show promoter, flea market owner, auctioneer, appraiser or have an Internet business of interest to collectors, you should have a booth in the Trade Show.

We look forward to hearing from you and having you as a Collectors Trade Show partner. Contact us at info@collectors.org or call 301.926.8663.

Auction and Show Calendars Directory Launched
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One of the most frequent questions we receive is "How do I find information about upcoming shows and auctions?" This is particularly true about specialty shows and auctions relating to specific collecting areas.

While there are a number of show calendars and auction calendars in collecting publications and on the Internet - some excellent calendars for specific geographic areas or for specific collecting areas, no single calendar seems satisfactory for fulfilling everyone's interests in general.

It is for this reason that Collectors.Org is initiating the Auction and Show Calendars Directory - a compilation of links to specific calendars. In addition to general show and auction directories, there are links to schedules for specific events relating to bottles, coins, paper, postcards, stamps, breweriana, toy soldiers, railroads and more. If you are aware of auction and/or show directories, particularly specialty directories, which we need to consider adding, please send information to: info@collectors.org

Collecting Clubs Have a Bigger Role to Play
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Looking back to the 1960s, 1970s, even the early 1980s when many of our collecting clubs got their start, things seemed a lot simpler.The primary goal of collecting clubs in those days was to establish a way for collectors in a given collecting area to communicate with one another, get to know each other, and to perhaps buy, sell and trade among the members. A newsletter got started, and usually some form of "gathering" which for many clubs developed into an annual convention and/or a series of shows. Later some clubs started local chapters and perhaps doing projects or offering other resources for their members. Often a member or two started a mail auction or sales list which provided additional opportunities.

The evolution in the antiques & collectibles industry has made major changes during the past decade or more, and particularly since 1995. In fact, most everything has changed...except collecting clubs which often times seem to be resistant to change.

Yes, the Internet has a major role in this change. The way we buy and sell and trade has been influenced big time by the Internet. But collecting, itself, has also changed. We have new types of collectors who are far from being traditionalists. And, for sure, they do not understand collecting clubs...and collecting clubs do not understand them.

This is why so many collecting clubs today are fretting over a decline in membership and an aging membership, while at the same time we have more collectors than ever, and more younger collectors.

Collecting clubs still have a significant role to play in the collecting industry, perhaps more so than ever. As clubs mature, there seems to be an evolution that takes place within the club, itself. Whereas it may have started out simply as a way for fellow collectors to get to know one another and to foster this communication, over the years the knowledge base of many of our collecting areas comes to rest within the membership of these collecting clubs. Hence, clubs now have an additional area the club serves - and not only to their own members, but to anyone who has a need for information relating to their particular collecting area, i.e. the entire collecting community.

Bottom line, many of our collecting clubs must start thinking differently and doing things differently. Club leadership needs to be asked: As an important resource to your collecting area are you fulfilling your role? Are you truly interested in reaching out to new audiences - collectors who need your help and expertise - and not only bringing them in but serving them in the ways they need to be served? These are the challenges of today's collecting clubs and the challenges in which ACC is trying to help.

It has been documented that every generation seeks out and uses resources with which they feel most comfortable...and that these resources are quite different from one generation to another. If the bulk of a club's membership is in the age bracket of 50 or higher (which is true for a number of clubs), chances are that these clubs are not providing club information in either the correct context or using the right vehicles for reaching younger generations.

ACC is dedicating a good share of our efforts to helping our member clubs do a better job of marketing and managing their groups to reach new audiences and better serve the collecting industry with the knowledge base their club members possess.

Internet Provides More Options for Collector Information
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Websites offering helpful information in specific collecting areas are growing...and getting better and better. Many traditional collecting clubs offer excellent websites, many of them rapidly becoming the best value of club membership. There is a major growth of internet clubs - all their activities centered around their site. And, there are some very good individual collector sites offering a wealth of information.

Noting that joining ICON is "free", we asked Bill about the relationship between ICON and the National Insulator Association from the standpoint of membership. (NIA is a strong traditional club serving collectors for over 30 years with information programs, shows & conventions and local chapters - having over 900 members.) Bill's current statistics show that only about 20-25% of the ICON members (over 1,350) are also NIA members.

Bill explains, "ICON is really a "virtual" club. It only exists on the Internet. The primary communication vehicle is a mailing list, which you can subscribe to in single message mode (you get the messages as they are sent), or in digest mode, where you get all the days messages rolled up into a nice package. I'll challenge anyone to find a better e-mail digest format than that provided by ICON. Simple navigation, links, mail addresses, etc. The mailing list is pretty free form...people ask questions, provide information, tell about new finds... All virtually in "real time" - it takes weeks or months before it makes it into the hobby's magazine (if at all). The members of ICON include all the insulator book authors, the hobby's magazine editor, dozens of the most experienced and knowledgeable collectors, as well as "old timers" who can tell you how it was "really done" back in the old days, being retired linemen, or early hunters of insulators. It is an extremely diverse group of people, and a group of people that exists nowhere else. The knowledge and daily transmission of that, is definitely unique within the insulator hobby, and possibly even unique across all hobbies.

"There are other benefits of being an ICON member. I won't list them all, but they include being able to post pictures in our photo library (now up to about 23,000 photos submitted by members) and the ability to sell insulators for FREE.

Bill explains, "When I started all this 10 years ago, I had a dream. Get people into the hobby, and provide a forum, via a mailing list, to educate collectors of all ages, and all interest and knowledge levels. I had NO idea that it would grow into what it has today. For a collector of insulators, where can you ask a question, and get an expert answer within hours? Find a collector in your area to go and visit with the click of a mouse? See insulators you never dreamed of, or just ask some basic questions about insulators without leaving your house?"

And, there are some projects in progress for this internet club site: the world's most complete patent database for insulators and related items with over 2,300 patents, all searchable with a dozen criterion and over 8,500 pages of drawings and text; and, the world's largest reference library of newspaper articles and trade journal articles related to insulators, completely searchable. This is still a work in progress, but nearly 6,000 articles have already been identified.

Another major ICON service - sharing. Free web hosting for local insulator clubs. Insulator shows calendar shared with other sites. Both the Antique Telephone Collectors Association and the Telephone Collectors International use the ICON PicturePoster system on Bill's server.

So how is ICON funded? Bill does most the work and owns the server, however most of the information comes from the ICON membership. Also, although membership if free, a lot of the members make donations. Bill says that today he annually gets about $3,500 donated from 135 members, which represents about 10% of the ICON membership. Clubs and show managers also donate money. This covers the out-of-pocket costs.

CVB's Helping with Guidelines for Collecting Clubs
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ACC has been pleased with the offers for assistance that are coming in from Convention & Visitors Bureaus to help develop guidelines for collecting clubs.

In an ACC national survey of club convention chairmen, one of the priority needs was how to select a site and how to select a facility...what questions to ask...how to negotiate. With many clubs being volunteer-operated and frequently changing officers, often on an annual basis, the "learning process" is ongoing. We also realize maintaining current data on clubs can be nearly impossible for CVB's to do on your own. Collecting clubs and associations which hold major conventions and shows need to become acquainted with CVB's and the services you can provide; the assistance you can give in planning and implementing successful events.

We recently heard a story from a rather large collecting club about their choice of facilities for their annual convention. They decided what city they wanted to meet in and appointed a committee of local members to visit various hotels to select a facility - a process taking several months and several weekends. Finally a decision was made and the convention is approaching. They have just been surprised to learn that the hotel they are using is undergoing a major renovation project. Why the surprise? Because they didn't ask! Perhaps one single call to the city's CVB could have prevented all the weekend trips to various facilities and other pitfalls.

Collecting clubs are certainly a strong potential customer base for CVB's and major facilities - large and small. No matter whether a club has 300 members, 3,000 or 30,000, they have needs for hosting events. Collecting groups make excellent guests to host in your city. Club members often bring their families and friends along. Shows are usually open to the public. Events can often be arranged for "off peak" periods for your city's facilities.

The ACC plans on developing guidelines over the summer months with two major goals: 1) assisting club leadership in learning more about CVB's and what services you can provide for selecting a site and facility and for assisting with planning and implementing successful events, and 2) assisting CVB's in getting to know collecting groups better, including a viable data bank of specific club contacts for clubs seeking event sites and facilities...and often this will be different contacts for conventions than for shows or other events. A number of CVB's have volunteers to help with these guidelines and we welcome your expertise.

ACC will continue to seek other ways to enhance the CVB-club partnership. Many CVB contacts have already been added to this ACC Partners' Update electronic newsletter. Granted, there may often be news not of direct interest to CVB's however we hope it will help you learn more about the entire antiques, art and collectibles industry and particularly collecting groups.

We also encourage all CVB's to have a presence in the specific aisle for CVB's in the virtual Collectors Trade Show on our Collectors.Org website. A booth in the Trade Show cost $100/year with direct links to your own website...and we can help design it at no additional costs. The site receives 100,000 visitors monthly of the "right" people. Can't do much better than that.

Again, ACC looks forward to working with CVB's in a variety of ways and welcome you as new partners in support of collecting clubs and their memberships.