Encouraging Younger Generation To Be Interested In Stamps

This past year, I have been attending several stamp shows in my area. I have noticed many older gentleman collectors attend these stamp shows, however, not many younger individuals showing interest. There is probably 60 men that attend these events with more than 20 vendors, and only 3 ladies I have seen go to it.
I have heard many seniors concern that once they pass away, they do not have anyone in their family that shows interest in stamp collecting.I have met many woman that are concern of being taken advantage due to their lack of knowledge of the hobby.Are YMCA's giving evening class sessions to a woman's group on the field? Whenever I speak to a group of ladies, I always encourage them to join different clubs in our communities.
I would like to know, do many of your community stamp clubs have many young people participating in them? Do you have in your Parent Teacher Associations announcements to have students know where they can learn about it? We did not even have a stamp club in our school systems when I attended school years ago. My own children who attended private and public schools had no stamp clubs when they attended high school years ago.Many young ones do not even know that they can be a future investment for them. A volunteer guest speaker might be able to be scheduled to talk directly to classrooms in your school districts or other community organizations. I would suggest to speak to your PTA's or principals to see if this can be arranged. I have spoken to many students that never even heard of Linn's stamp news, but they all know about other popular magazines in their school libraries. Maybe your local popular newspaper in your towns can do an article once a week for people to learn about rare stamps? Many in the younger generation read the sport pages, why not an article about stamps? Exposure with knowledge about a subject, encouragement, and support is the key! Lets get children to be more diverse instead of watching videos, learn about stamps! What other suggestions do you think we can encourage the younger generation to be interested in a such a great wonderful hobby?

Scout Merit Badge

I've offered to our village an after school program and it has been accepted for the winter schedule. This is in Minneapolis

Nice to think someone that is 60 is a young person.

Over the past few months, I have been slowly dispositioning a lot of my philatelic stuff since I don't want to burden my wife with this. A lot of my literature, especially old stamp magazines, auction catalogs, newspapers which I was holding on to was originally headed for the garbage can.

But since I have seen more doctor's waiting room in the last year than anyone one person should see, a thought occurred to me… Why not bring these into the waiting rooms and distribute them with the other magazines. I quickly noticed that they seemed to be taken home as they soon disappeared; I've replaced many over the months.

Of course, this is probably only reaching older adults due to the nature of doctor's offices I frequent. But I assume that this could also be done for doctor/dentist offices that cater to younger people. Simply check with the nurse or office manager and make sure they are ok with you leaving the literature in the waiting room.
Don

Hi all

I will be right to the point and say, make the hobby of stamp collecting appear more interesting to the younger generation than their computer games, and, especially, their cellphones. I think those items are a barrier to the hobby at present, but, could somehow be used to promote the hobby as well (?)

My opinion of course.

Chimo

Bujutsu

Don - that's a simple yet awesome idea! Hope some of us will remember 'next time'. Wishing you a full recovery.

Bujutsu - I think you are on to something. The young are - and will remain - 'attached' to their pc or mobiles. Hopefully some geek may invent a super-app or fancy software that might appeal to them. Personally I am making 'digital collections' in msproject, which could also be more attractive to the young than the 'old-style' albums.

The American Philatelic Society (APS) has an active youth program: http://stamps.org/YSCA

An app that identifies stamps and allows ppl to trade/sell/buy stamps is a cool idea. If the cell or laptop can't do it then most kids aren't interested. Postage is done thru the computer now anyway.

You've hit the nail on the head. I'm going to approach this project with a completely open mind.

I think the key is three fold.

1) You have to collect with them. My girls (6-year-old twins and a 5-year-old) view the hobby as something we do together. I take them to stamp shows, I sometimes take them to auction night at the Nashville Philatelic Society. Yes, it eats into my more serious stamp collecting time, but I think I'm building something.

2) Let them collect on their terms. They have Vario pages in their notebooks. They have pages where they've (dare I say it?) glued stamps to a page. One girls collects flowers and butterflies. Another collects pretty kitties. Another just anything pretty. Related, about 10 years ago, I was observing a gentleman speaking at the library to children and he was HARD CORE about not touching stamps, hinges vs mounts, etc. Teach the mechanics slowly and over time. It'll come around. Early on, let the kids just have fun and collect their way. That leads to:

3) They'll likely drift away. But the hope is after college and once they've gotten a start on their adult life, their minds will turn back to that childhood collection and the great hobby. Maybe they'll revive their interests and possibly pass along to their children.

My girls right now are being influenced by me, by the Nashville Philatelic Society who takes them seriously when they attend auction night with me, and folks like M&S Hobbies in Indiannapolis, who ALWAYS treats them like serious customers when they go to his table at local shows. Take their interest in the hobby seriously, let them collect under their terms, and if they drift away, they'll come back.

And yes, the photo is two of my three at M&S Hobbies' booth at the show in Nashville this past March.

Stepping off soapbox now.