On a mission to improve club meeting-Requesting input
Barbercoin
Posts: 1,013 ✭✭✭
Preface: I know somebody has been in my shoes before and will have many wonderful suggestions on how to proceed in my endeavor. I am looking for information in other places as well but wanted to give the Board a shot.
So, I joined two local coin clubs this past summer and was pretty excited about entering the collector’s community again after a decade+ hiatus. I’ve attended several meetings as well as both of their annual shows. Although the clubs have nice people, welcoming new members and making them feel like “part of the team” is NOT their strong suit. Their meetings are underwhelming, unorganized and I leave wondering why anyone would attend because they offered numismatic value.
Keep in mind please, all I want to do is make the clubs exciting, numismatically fulfilling and to keep the members wanting to attend the next meeting. I am also willing to roll my sleeves up and get busy doing what needs to be done. My plan is to develop a dynamite presentation which aesthetically lays out “best practices” of successful organizations and other ideas and options that would give us a “shot in the arm”. I’m not looking for anyone to solve my problem or to disparage my initiative.
My hope is that this presentation material has already been created by others before me, and I won’t have to “reinvent the wheel”. I tried calling the ANA today but, they were closed.
Assumptions:
1. I’m the new guy. (trust, credibility, etc.)
2. People not receptive to changes
3. People in charge are wary of losing control
4. Board members are not always as productive as you’d expect (sorry)
5. Volunteers can be hard to come by
6. All volunteers are not 100% reliable
7. Too much change at the wrong speed could cause more harm than good
8. Each member has different numismatic interests and reasons for joining
9. There are others who may agree with me (one friend wholeheartedly does)
10. I can assume that I missed many more
Goals:
1. Conduct meetings IAW norms
2. Designate and form small committees to meet in furtherance of special topics
3. Increase membership
4. Develop a simple but functional and desirable website
5. Produce a newsletter
6. Create a role for club historian
7. Increase communication: Email distribution and club contact list
8. Improve the annual Coin Show, for vendors and for attendees
9. Develop and maintain club sponsors
10. Develop a community and business network
11. Make meetings enjoyable and productive
12. Implement a suggestion box for those who are shy about speaking up.
In closing, I’d like to add a thank you to anyone who can offer positive and maybe award-winning comments. And hopefully, I will be able to make a difference in my club(s) for others. I have many good ideas but will keep them to myself so I can hear all of the suggestions. I just don’t have an ACTION PLAN.
John
WTB: Barber Quarters XF
Comments
How large are the clubs?
My local club is fairly small, and the part of the meeting I enjoy the most is "show and tell".
We sit around a big table and pass "show and tell" coins from members to the left or right.
I don't have membership numbers but approximately 80+ in one and maybe 50+ in the other? But so far only about 18 to 20 actually attend. I wrote your idea down. Thnx!
WTB: Barber Quarters XF
I am fortunate to have two clubs within driving distance. One is well-established and has a few decades of interesting tales to tell. Monthly attendance is 25 - 50. The other is less than a year old and is going through some growing pains. Monthly attendance is 5 - 15.
Your post shows that you've thought it through, know there can be many facets involved, and want to help. Everyone is different, but here are my thoughts:
Summary:
I like member-conducted auctions.
I liked the only show and tell I witnessed; I think there are others I would enjoy.
I don't want to sit through a meeting or listen to a presentation.
One guy's opinion. Good luck.
If we were all the same, the world would be an incredibly boring place.
Tommy
Club members can help one another with whatever challenges they are encountering in the hobby.
Our meeting recently moved because the community center doubled the monthly fee to $125; one of the members found a fire station meeting room that was around $75. They do have a fairly big kitty but coin folks are frugal.
We have the usual; an auction, announcements of a numismatic nature, club governmental discussions; for example one of the members wanted the "show and tell" called "presentations", so a motion was made to adopt that.
Our meeting is typically
show and tell / person to person interaction before formal meeting, business portion of meeting, 50/50 and door prizes all profiting the club. Then Not every time, but a presentation of somekind by one of the members on various topics. Then club auction. Quarterly they do bingo with coins as give way. every so often we have an outside speaker on a topic.
I can say this for planning, I know business portion of the meeting is a must and sometimes it can get long, but keep it too a minimum if possible. The general folks do not like when it drags on. Lots of ours is done (discussed/voted) during the quarterly board of directors meeting, then summarized or voted on at actual meeting . Keep the presentations short and sweet, and varying in topics. Make the auction intresting, with various members stuff, we limit 10 items per person. it not only gives a variety of stuff, but also keeps one or two people dominating the auction sale.
Alcohol 😆
When my wife and I were members of a coin club, I remember really liking the show and tell, the auction, the door prize drawing and the presentations, but one of the great things is that members also used to be able to lay out coins on the table in front of them they wanted to sell if they sat in the back. Also having quarterly coin shows and the planning of the shows was exciting. We also had guest speakers which was great fun too.
Mr_Spud
It depends on the type of club that you want. Is education a driving force? Maybe the social aspect is more important to you. Show and tell is normally a good draw as are the member auctions.
I belong to quite a few that range from very formal to very informal, large and small. Each has their own draw and excel at the type of club they want to be. So my first question is, what does the majority of the existing club members want? What is the predominant focus of your club?
You should talk to other clubs before moving ahead with your plans.
Have a show and tell session at each meeting for anyone who wants to discuss a new item in their collection. Offer a small prize to all who participate ... maybe a G-VG common date Indian Cent or Liberty Nickel.
Like the "show and tell" too!
Some good ideas coming in, thank you. And please continue. I like Mr Spuds idea.
I'm not doing anything without member approval, just looking for a little spark in the atmosphere. The presentation I mentioned is basically, to keep my thoughts structured. Definitely concise but still offering options of where we COULD go. My initial goal is to help them determine what, if anything they'd like to see and maybe pursue.
I haven't attended enough meetings to judge whether they have done any of these fun things or not. Just observation of a new guy (4 meetings) at this point. I'm gonna try to help wherever I can.
WTB: Barber Quarters XF
One thing we also did that was great fun was to help design a medal. It was for when we hosted an ANA show, we helped Jamie Frankie design an ANA medal. Did research to find pictures of Bechtler and information for an educational leaflet that was included with the medals and helped make a lot of the decisions on the metal to be used, the relief, the finish etc…
Mr_Spud
Now we're talkin!
How cool!
WTB: Barber Quarters XF
I hope you don’t mind me showing it off, but great Coin Club memories
Mr_Spud
This might be worth a listen on the NNP:
Running a Successful Coin Club: Part 2
Pat Flynn (2024)
Multi-Media Summary
This will expand on Flynn's past presentation about how his club has grown to over 170 members in just seven years since its founding. Flynn will discuss things they have done to keep engagement and retain membership along with new ideas for other club officials. He will also go into their Young Numismatist involvement. Speaker: Pat Flynn.
https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/book/638075
Food and drink by volunteers. Presentations and show and tell (there is a difference) is key. Our annual show. The annual show was the Greater Houston Coin Club Money Show, a pretty large regional. A quarterly show in a smaller community should engage a number of members in many roles as well. We always welcomed new members as putting on our show took a lot of work and needed volunteers. Holiday pot-luck dinners were nice. We had a club library that a volunteer kept at their home. If you don’t have enough enthusiastic volunteers to handle these things, forget it.
As far as presentations, other hobbies can be presented as well to keep things fresh. It’s amazing how the collector DNA appears across disciplines.
If you raise money from shows, consider using it for a YN scholarship to send the recipient to the ANA summer seminar or use it to send a deserving volunteer. I wasn’t a YN, but my club sent me one year and it was a fabulous experience.