Need Help With Stamp Club.

That might be OK, as long as you don't have to make direct contact with the responders.

Here is another nutty idea. When you order a pizza, there's usually a round piece of waxy paper between the top of the pizza and the lid of the box. That paper could have a wonderful and comprehensive ad for a new stamp club, even a map.

Small pizza joints might run your ad IF you bought the papers and had the printing done yourself, then given to the pizza guy. That would get your ad in front of a lot of kids. You might halve your cost if you found another small business that wanted to advertise on half the paper, trailer rental or dry cleaners or comic book store or barber shop, etc., etc.

Wow! Floortrader , that is some story,
hard to believe, most collectors are really nice, esp to youngsters.

I was at a bourse a few years ago, and a dealer was caught with stolen stamps
tucked in his long socks.
Fortunately tales from the dark side are not common.

ROD ---It would be intertesting to have a page just for stories about the dark side of Philately ,some true and some filled with half-truths which can't be verified by anyone .

Stamps and stamp collecting have been a constant positive in my life !

Our stamp club would act just the opposite of Floortraders experience..if a young person came in they would receive gifts of philatelic items I could not even dream of when I started collecting !

When I was a kid, the real deal was Captain Video: a hero, a leader, a pioneer, and an explorer of the great unknown. More about that in a minute.

Now, at your new stamp club, you need a friendly, motherly type who will gather together all those newly-hatched newbies and march them toward philately, all in a row, like a duck leading her ducklings into the pond, away from danger and distractions.

Yes, you'll need an Auntie Video.

Some fine suggestion for down the road.
Doug222 believe it or not I have a complete mint original Captain Video game.

Pictures from the net but the exact same one.

Floortrader- that is quite a story - so sad and I could feel your pain; I am not sure I saw, though, in your comments - did you ever wind up joining a stamp club? And have you enjoyed it.?

I agree with the comments about finding a reasonable time or times to meet.

In my city, the club has been meeting on Friday nights for many many decades! (here, we also have a history club that meets something like Thursday afternoons! DUH, kind of automatically eliminates a LOT of working folks). I am sure it is a tradition that the members are used to and enjoy. But I have to think that meeting on Friday nights kind of automatically cuts out younger people who might want Friday nights for family, other pursuits. I have worked Friday nights for years so I don't belong, though, I probably would if they met on another night, or more ideally, alternated their nights (I know - difficult for a meeting place to adjust to a rotating schedule).

Unfortunately, you are never going to please everyone.

Centerstage----thanks ,did join the group and made wonderful friends ,stopped in often over the years as I went on to college and moved away ,but always made a effort to meet them at club meetings or stamp shows .

STAMP CLUB of the Future --------It will be run by one major organization ,like the APS.It will be on-line with a limited time window,each club will be given a window time frame of lets say 2 hours and only accessed by club members of that subject To give you a idea it will be Monday nights for PRE-CANCEL CLUB members between 6:00 to 8:00 and INDIA and States between 8:00 and 10:00 ,you have to join the club to get a access code but can read what the members are talking and posting about .
This will give fellow collectors a specific time to meet and discuss the subject without any outside interferance.This would increase both APS and speciality club membership.It would also make for a long time referance source for all kinds of subjects related to your club interest .
Stamp clubs on line would give it worldwide appel and membership would jump for the subject club and the APS.

I started a stamp club in our town and tried to keep it going for an entire year. The only people who came to the meetings were people who just wanted to sell their stamps. After looking back. Hindsight is always 20/20 I wish we/I would have done what Doug suggested. The first 30 minutes would be for anyone to display and sell any of their stamps or supplies. We only had two people come to more than one meeting. Sometimes I drove 80 miles for a meeting and there would only be one or two other people show up. The three of us that were at that meeting decided to shut it down.

Tinman, with all due respect, your town is too small for a stamp club. The whole county only has 25,000 residents, and it is a center of outdoors recreation, both summer and winter, which is formidable competition.

You "might" make a go of a stamp and coin club, alternating the focus from meeting to meeting.

To take the idea a step further, you might simply organize a "hobby" club, once again alternating between stamps and coins "in charge," but also welcoming model railroads, baseball cards, postcards, antiques, whatever. For this, you need a BIG room where the interest groups can migrate and schmooze in relative privacy after the (short!) business meeting. But the crossover effect sometimes yields surprising benefits.

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By the way, we used to go fishing at Rainbow Camp in Mio, year after year.

That's the price you pay for living in "God's Country".

I guess? There are both advantages and disadvantages. We do have a Model railroad Club and it has done very well. We tried combining the Stamp Club with A Coin Collectors and couldn't find anyone interested. Guess we will just spend our winters here at SCf and Summers on the Lakes. Yea I'm only five miles from N Higgins State Park and about seven from Houghton Lake. The two of the five largest lakes in Michigan.

TinMan. I'm a Michigander too. Live about 100 miles south of you. Same thing down here. They tried to get a Stamp Club going but only a couple people would show up. I never went, my interests are too specialized.