I want it completely understood that before you go on any further reading this message that I am NOT (I repeat NOT) trying to bad mouth or be critical of the CC and GTCC or it's board but it seems to me that holding the annual convention in one place every year (i.e. Las Vegas) is completely unfair to those members (Which I should point out I am not) who are loyal to the hobby but cannot afford or cannot take time out from their jobs to fly to Las Vegas to attend.

Would the board consider the following suggestions:

1) Each year hold the convention a different gambling market, Now I know one of the main issues and controversies will be money, My feelings on this is that the cost is not prohibitive and most of the budgeted funds for the convention can easily be recouped on several levels including new memberships taken at the convention and a small increase in the admission fee for non-members (visitors) to the convention. This is how I would set the yearly convention schedule:

Year One - Las Vegas Nevada
Year Two - Tacoma Washington
Year Three - Tucson Arizona
Year Four - Blackhawk Colorado
Year Five - El Paso Texas
Year Six - Detroit Michigan
Year Seven - Savannah Georgia
Year Eight - Atlantic City New Jersey
Year Nine - Biloxi Mississippi

Of course the cities would change each year to a different market.

If you were to look at a U.S. map you will notice that the convention gradually moves across the U.S. to at least one market where a CC and GTCC member or members could be able to attend.

2) Consolidate the CC and GTCC local chapters into Regional Areas boards. For example if you lived in Connecticut, New Jersey, New York or Pennsylvania the Mid-Atlantic Regional board would be the responsible for and oversee four chapters, Atlantic City, New York Metro, Casino Chip Collectors Club of New York and Slab-Free, If you live in California, Nevada or Arizona the West Coast Regional board would be responsible for and oversee three chapters Las Vegas, Nor-Cal and Southern California and so on and so forth. The local chapters would report to the Regional CC and GTCC board who in turn would report to the National CC and GTCC board.

By consolidating all of the chapters into one regional board you would prevent duplicate memberships in one regional area and also be able to pool all monies together which would provide large amounts of funds to promote the CC and GTCC and casino chip and token collecting further by allowing mass advertising and sponsoring CC and GTCC conventions and meetings locally.

== Rick ==

BTW it took me a total of four hours to type the text of this entire message! I did a lot of editing and deleting of the text.