By Ken Potter

I want to extend a great big Thank You to CONECA’s Membership Coordinator and Board Seat holder, Al Raddi! When he took over the seat less than two years ago he said his goal was to bring the membership to over 700 which at the time it was 650 give or take a few. As of yesterday I learned we had 789 members and were closing in on 800 fast. Just two weeks ago or so I talked to CONECA VP Jim Motley and learned we had about 765. So Al not only reached his goal of 700 but will undoubtedly reach 800 within a week or two!

With that said this goal could not have been reached without the untiring efforts of all of those dedicated members out there that have been promoting CONECA—in some cases for many years! George F. Winters has been one of those untiring recruiters and at this point has brought in more new members than any other individual person in the past year or maybe more!

At our last CONECA table together at the Michigan State Numismatic Society, JimMotley was able to bring in a record number of new members (and one renewal) obtained at any one show that we have done since we started on this mission together (with CONECA Michigan State Reps Al Raddi and Mike Howard) about a decade ago. Jim and I double-teamed ’em with me showing attendees actual working dies with errors, hubs, punches, a broken collar and actual error coins and Jim taking over with the “why not become a member” and then reeling ’em in. We set a record at this show last Spring!

Additionally, thanks to the very timely processing of applications and constant follow up by our Membership Chairperson, Maria Rickert-Kittell, who works under Al Raddi, retention of new members, via renewals has increased dramatically. There are far too many others factors here to credit for the dramatic increase in interest in the club to bring it into the new millennium in an ever changing landscape, the efforts or our new website and ErrorScope Editor Allan Anderson along with many other factors and persons that are too many to mention here but includes our ErrorScope writers.

Seven-hundreds members was a RECORD NUMBER of members for the club in its entire history and 800 was unthinkable a year ago!
For a club that charges dues in an era where everybody expects to find everything on the Internet for free this is just fabulous!
Lets all give Al and everybody involved in making CONECA a better, bigger club a big hand of congratulations!