Central States Numismatic Society

Our 71st Anniversary Convention, held at Milwaukee's Midwest Airlines Center, is now history. The 251 booth bourse area was totally sold out. Our Thursday Professional Preview Day had 279 registrants. Public attendance on Friday was 1,406 and on Saturday 809. A total of 694 individuals were officially accredited to booths. Heritage once again held significant auction sales of both rare coins and paper money. Indeed, I believe that Milwaukee was truly the centerpiece of the numismatic trade during the period of our event.

Twenty five individuals played significant enough roles in the convention to be listed on the masthead page of the convention program as staff members. As part of our Gender Proportionality Initiative, 12 were women. Indeed, seven of the eight members of our Properties Staff were women. I was particularly pleased with the performance of our Properties Staff, a part of the convention that tends to take place in the back of the house and before our convention opens and is often not noticed to the extent that it should be. If not done right the first time, this aspect of the event can be seriously disruptive.

Not listed individually in the program were the two key staff members of our convention decorator, George Fern and Company, Tom Drullinger and Charles "Speedy" Woods. These two individuals have provided decorator and setup services to CSNS since 1988. Their quiet competence is one of the reasons our event takes place without the disruptions I've noted at other numismatic affairs. Also deserving recognition are the members of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades AFL/CIO, whose members set our event up. They clearly came prepared to work and did their jobs quickly and with considerable attention to detail.

I couldn't help but notice the motto on the back of the shirts they wore, "Organize or Die". As I was engaged in various post-convention errands and cleanup tasks on the Tuesday after our convention, May 4, I remembered that it was the 124th anniversary of the Bay View Massacre, where seven members of the building trades were fired on and killed by National Guardsmen during a march on the Milwaukee Iron Company demonstrating for an eight hour day. My great grandfather, who I knew as a child and remember well, was alive then, so 124 years ago is not as remote as it might seem. The relatively easy lives we enjoy today were provided by the sacrifices of others who came before us and who deserve not to be forgotten.

One aspect of the convention that seemed to generate more than its share of controversy was our implementation this year of a bourse schedule with Thursday reserved for Professional Preview/Early Bird activity and public hours confined to Friday and Saturday. This change was made by our Board after the Cincinnati convention last year in the face of booth-holder complaints that our traditional Thursday-Friday-Saturday public schedule did not allow sufficient time for dealer-to-dealer activity. The change was made by the Board specifically to be responsive to these booth-holder concerns.

During the Milwaukee convention an even larger number of booth holders, as well as public attendees, made known both to myself and elected officials that they felt the new schedule employed for the first time this year did not meet their needs. CSNS genuinely endeavors to be sensitive to the overall needs of our convention attendees and participants, some of whom have differing and conflicting objectives motivating their attendance. The Board's decisions are made on the basis of an effort to strike a balance between these sometimes disparate objectives. The reactions to our schedule this year demonstrate that this can sometimes be more of a challenge than anticipated. What seemed quite a reasonable decision in theory, did not prove to be as reasonable as expected on an operational level.

At our Board meeting on Friday, April 30, I conveyed these concerns that had been brought to my attention about our schedule. Board members had also received similar concerns. I recommended that we revert to the more traditional Thursday-Friday-Saturday public schedule for our 2011 72nd Anniversary Convention, to be held at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, IL, a Northwest Chicago suburb. The Board accepted that recommendation.

I trust that this change will meet with a favorable response. Having been associated with the Central States Numismatic Society in one capacity or another since 1980, I have always found our Board collectively, no matter who the elected officials may be at any given point in time, to be genuinely interested in hearing about and being responsive to the expressed needs of our members, whether they be dealers or collectors, as well as other interested members of the numismatic community. Quite simply and bluntly, the CSNS Board has never been possessed of an inflated sense of its own importance, an arrogant pomposity or annoyingly expanded egos, with associated defensive and rigid responses to expressed concerns about its decisions.

We can't please everyone. Indeed, those who favored the schedule this year will no doubt feel aggrieved to one extent or another. You all might want to consider, however – How many other numismatic event sponsors or organizations would have responded as promptly as our Board did to issues raised by their constituency and reversed itself so quickly and decisively when it became clear that the concerns expressed were correct and deserved to be implemented?

Our Board wants to hear from you. Their collective attitude is one of service. They all remember that they represent you and have an obligation to you, so if there are aspects of our operations that you feel the need to communicate with them about, do it. Likewise, I hope all of you will always feel free to contact me with inputs about our convention and associated activities. Sometimes people tend to complain everywhere except to the people who can do something about their concerns. Don't let that happen in the Central States Numismatic Society. The decisions of our Board may not always be what you want, but your views will receive careful and thoughtful consideration.

Next year we will be in Rosemont, a city where I've managed upwards of 30 numismatic conventions. Chicago was the site of our first Central States Convention and we've met either there or elsewhere in the greater Chicagoland area no less than eight times in the past. For 2012-2016 we are scheduled to be at the Renaissance Schaumburg Hotel and Convention Center, a short 10 miles to the Northwest of Chicago's O'Hare Airport. There is no more attractive convention venue on the entire United States numismatic event circuit than the Renaissance Schaumburg. I'm really looking forward to having our Central States conventions place their indelible brand on the Chicagoland market. Chicago is the Central States city. Basing our convention there, in the home state of our original incorporation, will enable us to take advantage of the ease of air transport access afforded by O'Hare Airport's multiple airline hub status, as well as its central location within our region and the country. In addition, our dealers and collectors will appreciate the fact that numismatic material and associated bullion are statutorily exempt from sales taxes in Illinois.

In a very real sense CSNS will be coming home when we meet in Rosemont next year and in Schaumburg in subsequent years. I couldn't be more excited about what will no doubt become a close identification between Chicago and the Central States Numismatic Society. Plan now to join us next year in Rosemont, for our 72nd Anniversary Convention, with convention related events taking place April 25-30, 2011. Watch our website, www.centralstates.info, for details.

Kevin Foley
Convention Chairman