Future C4OA Regional Meetings - An Open Letter to Members
From C4OA Life Member Bruce Thayer
I'm sure everyone who has attended any of the C4OA meetings in Carson City along with the traditional banquet dinner at Adele’s would agree that these events are nothing short of terrific. Since the first one I attended a few years ago, each subsequent meeting has included more participants and more all around flavor than the last. The sheer amount of high quality coins, ephemera, personal experiences, and friendships derived from common interests in all things Carson City related, has simply been extraordinary.
If asked whether we should continue having such meetings, I am certain that any past participating C4OA member would respond positively. So then, why aren't such events planned at least a couple times a year?
Last year, with quite a bit of direction from Rusty and support from the Southgate Coins staff, I personally spearheaded the August 27, 2010 C4OA meeting, which was held in the old Carson City Mint building, now the Nevada State Museum. Senior club member, Michael Parrott, helped me with the table and chair rentals, which we had to pick up north of Reno, in Sparks. Jeff Shaw, Mike Wagner and a few others helped us lug the tables and chairs out of the trucks and up to the auditorium’s second floor, and then reverse the process after the meeting.
Other meeting details included: Publishing regular notifications about the upcoming event, scheduling speakers, planning the meeting's raffle, printing raffle tickets, soliciting raffle prize donations, organizing the show-and-tell session, arranging the traditional post-meeting dinner banquet, requesting and collecting RSVPs for same, collecting dinner deposits, coordinating each individual dinner reservation with Adele's (including seating arrangements and specialty food items if necessary), and a host of other tasks.
Admittedly, none of this work is rocket science; but it requires a time-consuming organizational effort and at least eight months advance planning in order to smoothly host one of our jam-packed meetings, followed by the members’-only banquet.
I own and operate a complex, multistate business that does not leave me with much personal- or family-time. While I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of coordinating the August C4OA meeting in Carson City last year, I will not be able to commit to the planning and coordination of a similar C4OA meeting in 2011. The Nevada State Museum, as far as I know, will sponsor a coin show in Carson City in 2011, although it has not yet announced the dates.
You might wonder if a regional C4OA meeting in Carson City in August is scheduled for 2011. The answer, unfortunately, is no. You see, our club president, Rusty Goe, can no longer carry the full responsibility for planning and carrying out C4OA meetings and, as I mentioned above, I cannot commit to the task.
The bottom line is this:
There is currently no organized group of volunteer members within the C4OA to assume this responsibility. Unless previously unheard-from C4OA volunteers step forward and take charge, totally independent of Rusty's and Southgate Coins’s guidance, there will be no future regional meetings.
I was honored to contribute my small part, in spearheading the 2010 regional meeting, to the C4OA's continuing mission statement:
To increase knowledge on the subject of the Carson City Mint and the many fascinating coins produced there, and to promote camaraderie among fellow "CC" enthusiasts.
This club has such great potential and so much to offer everyone from the expert numismatist to the complete novice. I hope other members will step up and keep the ball rolling. If they do, I will be there to help, though only as my business obligations allow.
Kindest regards...Bruce Thayer
Seattle Washington
Life Member #25-0496
