Good Morning -

Here are my thoughts and observations on the club and hobby at this time.

- The hobby is more vibrant than ever - Collectors appear to be younger, more plentiful, and more affluent today, than at anytime in the past.

- There is definitely an old guard, and a rising new generation, and they think differently about the hobby. The new generation thinks in terms of racks and barrels (groups of twenty) of chips, and wants to collect playable sets instead of individual chips. They can’t understand why someone will have fifty of a chip, but only sell them one each. This new generation is responsible for the recent phenomenon which causes chips that would once would have remained unsold at $2 each to now sell for $10 each.

- The new generation isn’t opposed to the club, but doesn’t necessarily see value in the club. They don’t get their information from a quarterly magazine, but instead from lively conversations on other websites. This new generation outnumbers the current users of this forum, and appears to be growing be leaps and bounds. They welcome new people rapidly, and let them use alternate screen names. They willingly pay for the privilege of belonging to other forums, yet they don’t see value in the CCA.

- The club needs to figure out what it wants to be when it grows up. I would posit that the current club best represents the needs of members from the 1995 to 2005 period. They offer a paper magazine, a website that is seldom used (and which has to post notes here to tell people to look there), and an annual convention. My opinion is that the convention is the glue holding the CCA together right now, and if it were to go, the club would shortly follow.

- We have a problem with attracting leadership in the club, as evidenced by Jerry Vergatos serving as president and convention chair. Either job is a lot of work for one person, and having both would be truly challenging. We, including me, need to thank those who volunteer their time and talents so that we can have a convention and club.

- Perhaps it’s truly time to reimagine the CCA as a whole. What is really the core mission? What can we cut, what can we expand? For example, the CCA currently has a three day plus convention, with lots of side events. I would imagine that we could lose a day from the schedule, and trim back some associated events, and be just as successful. I think that the new generation would be happy to simply pick aweekend in Vegas each year, informally host some trade/sales sessions throughout the day, and play poker in someone’s suite throughout the night. Yes, there would be less structure, but it would still happen and be successful.

- I took about six months off of the board last year, and almost didn’t renew my club membership, because of the way one of the members of the CCA treated another over a simple misunderstanding. Each of us needs to be a little kinder to other forum users, especially those who are new, as the more people we run off, the fewer people we will have left.
There are many nice people on both groups, and if we can bridge the two, and adjust course accordingly, the CCA has a long future ahead of it. If we stay the current course, I doubt that the CCA has a decade left. Again, I think that the chip collecting hobby will remain strong, but the club will become a relic of the past.

- Finally, I thank all who have serve or have served the club in one way or another. I know that it takes time and effort, is mostly thankless.

Thanks,

John