THE PREZ SAYS

by Michael Litvak

Let me begin by apologizing for falling behind in writing this column. This is only the second one I have written for the website.

I am pleased at the progress we have made with the ACPS, since we made the decision 1½ years ago to put our organization on the Internet. At that time, our treasury had been steadily declining for a few years, primarily because of the large expense involved in producing our journal, THE CEREMONIAL. Our other problems involved a decline in income because of the USPS dropping the "dealer discount" for their program subscription service (one of our major benefits for our members), and because of the decline in member interest in our supplemental program service. Last, some of our members lost interest in our society as our journal was not being published according to its scheduled dates.

Now, with our journal being produced online, it has become a growing entity, with articles being "published" pretty much as they are submitted. We don’t have to wait 3-6 months to see our articles in print. Remember, too, that any member desiring a hard-copy of our journal may do so at a minimum cost. In addition, philatelically-oriented Internet surfers can more readily access information about our organization. As anticipated, we have signed up a number of new members in the past 1½ years, most of whom joined through our website. While sales from our Supplemental Program list have continued at a very slow pace, as it had when we had no website, we have had successful sales of these programs at several ACPS regional meetings at stamp shows throughout the country. The resurrection of our ACPS auctions on a more regularly scheduled basis has been of great help, too, in helping to sustain our existence.

Consequently, not only has the "pre-website" drain on our treasury come to an end (at least for the present time), we have actually seen a rise in our funds because of our new venture. We must thank 3 of our officers for being the most instrumental in keeping us alive and well . . . John Peterson, our Membership Secretary/Treasurer, Scott Pelcyger, Director and ACPS Website Gatekeeper, and Dave Rosenthal, Vice-President and Auction Chair. In addition, Heather Lazeroff has been most helpful in drawing attention to our society by making presentations about ceremony programs at last year’s AMERICOVER and at other shows throughout the country. If all of us spread the word, especially when attending First Day ceremonies, perhaps we will see an even greater number of new members, hopefully ones who will stay with us for a while.

One of the biggest problems all organizations producing a journal have is getting their members to submit articles for publication. As the story goes, very few members (typically the same small group) take the time to put their collecting interests and experiences into words. Believe it or not, it doesn’t take much to write about one’s recent experience at a First Day ceremony, or about finding an interesting ceremony program at a bourse, or about any other personal experience. And, if you are more adventurous, you might consider writing an article requiring a bit of research into the history of a particular subject. I have found that almost all collectors enjoy reading about, or listening to a story about, another collector’s experiences or interests, even is one doesn’t share the same collecting interests. So, I challenge you . . . to submit one article (short or long) to Scott Pelcyger, an article to share with the rest of your fellow collectors. Are you up to the challenge???