Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
We are going to take donations from all our members of bags of kiloware remainders and overstocked duplicates and make up grab bags. Every child who attends will be given a big bag of stamps plus one for each of the first 50 families who attend or so depending on how much material we receive. We will advertise the free gift on show flyers to act as an incentive to attend.
I volunteered to assemble the grab bags. It is a good job for me because I can do it at home (I’m often homebound due to illness).
Many American charities no longer accept on paper donations and some material is a bit too collectible to turn into Holocaust Project artwork so this might be a good use for all of those bags of stamps. It also has the beauty of avoiding shipping expenses because you can hand deliver material when you attend club meetings. And - if we encourage and nurture the next generation of collectors we ALL win!
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Q/ So if I bribe a kid to come along to your stamp club meeting, I get a bag of stamps?
Cheers,
/s/ ikeyPikey (who likes to bribe his grandchildren, and knows a two-fer when he sees one)
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Why sure! And one for gramps if he gets there early enough!
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You may try to make it a two tier approach - first is free, more is given after some goal as achieved. This may weed out some of the want something for nothing type (want free stuff).
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Good point - freebie hoover’s are a pain, but if they are willing to drive over to the stamp show to get a free bag of stamps then they must really like stamps haha! The dealers love to see folks coming through those doors though.
Maybe we should make the Free Stamp desk at the BACK of the room so they have to walk around before they get the goody bag.
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Are there really that many hoovers out there? I only ask because in this area i am completely ignorant. I have collected for 50 years and been to exactly 1 stamp show and 1 auction. There is no valid excuse from a stamp collecting viewpoint. Priorities priorities ... The ideas sound good to me all the same... Its all about the objective : if the objective is to raise interest the cash value of trash is of no real interest, if the object is to raise membership then the trash is well invested... I have never organized a stamp club but i organized many chess clubs and whatever you throw in the kitty to bring out the youth is well invested. Its not always a success but you do what you can... If you really want them to walk around ... do a stamp visit . each location stamps the ticket .. at the end you hand in the stamped page you get the reward
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Our local stamp club had our annual show at the end of October. We had about the same number of people sign our attendance sheet as last year, and the dealers reported having good sales.
We had a free table in the back with miscellaneous items (old catalogs, literature, etc) - almost all of this stuff was gone at the end of the day.
We had a free stamps for kids table (have done this every year) - not one person under age 40 came to the show this year. We also had a free drawing for kids to enter (a nice starter collection) and individual envelopes of stamps to give to any youth who came close to the door of the show. Our USPS postmaster had items to give away as well. No kids in sight, not even the 3 who are club members.
Overall the show seemed to be successful as we had two people sign up to join our club and a very active and profitable silent auction. We are planning for next year's show - it's just difficult to attract the young people.
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Thanks for the great feedback, Sally. Much to think about!
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"... If you really want them to walk around ... do a stamp visit . each location stamps the ticket .. at the end you hand in the stamped page you get the reward ..."
I had much the same thought, but then I wondered how dealers would feel being pointlessly interrupted, again & again, as they worked their regular customers.
If you can't stand to see stuff given away to the undeserving, don't give stuff away, period.
Sorry that I did not save it, but I recently read a rant by someone who went to an antiquarian book fair, and did not see a youth table of giveaway books to tempt youngsters to take up rare book collecting, and did not see dollar boxes of cheap books on every dealer's table, etc.
That ocean of near-worthless stuff is our tactical advantage, right?
Cheers,
/s/ ikeyPikey
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That was one of the things we did at our club's stamp show last month -
handed out packets of stamps to all the kids.
We also gave away albums - we have so many used ones in our clubs holdings
that we just handed those out to anyone that wanted one. Not everyone took us up
on free albums, but some did and seemed quite excited to have one.
Not the greatest turn-out, but fun nonetheless;
here are some pics -
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I think this a universal issue in the traditional hobbies today, kids aren’t interested.
In my model car hobby it’s the same. Pictures of shows and contests in the early 1960s it was all kids. Today? No kids attending on their own initiative dragging along a parent any more. The only kids we see are those with a father who is the hobbiest and built a model or two with their kid. Some clubs have a “Make it,Take it” table where members will help kids build a snap kit, and it’s a $10-20 investment per kid for the club, with no to few takers.
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I’ve been discussing a new idea with my local stamp club leadership and we plan to try something new starting with our next club show. This might be something other clubs could do so I thought sharing the idea here might be fruitful.
We are going to take donations from all our members of bags of kiloware remainders and overstocked duplicates and make up grab bags. Every child who attends will be given a big bag of stamps plus one for each of the first 50 families who attend or so depending on how much material we receive. We will advertise the free gift on show flyers to act as an incentive to attend.
I volunteered to assemble the grab bags. It is a good job for me because I can do it at home (I’m often homebound due to illness).
Many American charities no longer accept on paper donations and some material is a bit too collectible to turn into Holocaust Project artwork so this might be a good use for all of those bags of stamps. It also has the beauty of avoiding shipping expenses because you can hand deliver material when you attend club meetings. And - if we encourage and nurture the next generation of collectors we ALL win!
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re: An idea for your local Stamp Club’s Shows
'
Q/ So if I bribe a kid to come along to your stamp club meeting, I get a bag of stamps?
Cheers,
/s/ ikeyPikey (who likes to bribe his grandchildren, and knows a two-fer when he sees one)
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re: An idea for your local Stamp Club’s Shows
Why sure! And one for gramps if he gets there early enough!
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re: An idea for your local Stamp Club’s Shows
You may try to make it a two tier approach - first is free, more is given after some goal as achieved. This may weed out some of the want something for nothing type (want free stuff).
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re: An idea for your local Stamp Club’s Shows
Good point - freebie hoover’s are a pain, but if they are willing to drive over to the stamp show to get a free bag of stamps then they must really like stamps haha! The dealers love to see folks coming through those doors though.
Maybe we should make the Free Stamp desk at the BACK of the room so they have to walk around before they get the goody bag.
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10:46:36pm
re: An idea for your local Stamp Club’s Shows
Are there really that many hoovers out there? I only ask because in this area i am completely ignorant. I have collected for 50 years and been to exactly 1 stamp show and 1 auction. There is no valid excuse from a stamp collecting viewpoint. Priorities priorities ... The ideas sound good to me all the same... Its all about the objective : if the objective is to raise interest the cash value of trash is of no real interest, if the object is to raise membership then the trash is well invested... I have never organized a stamp club but i organized many chess clubs and whatever you throw in the kitty to bring out the youth is well invested. Its not always a success but you do what you can... If you really want them to walk around ... do a stamp visit . each location stamps the ticket .. at the end you hand in the stamped page you get the reward
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re: An idea for your local Stamp Club’s Shows
Our local stamp club had our annual show at the end of October. We had about the same number of people sign our attendance sheet as last year, and the dealers reported having good sales.
We had a free table in the back with miscellaneous items (old catalogs, literature, etc) - almost all of this stuff was gone at the end of the day.
We had a free stamps for kids table (have done this every year) - not one person under age 40 came to the show this year. We also had a free drawing for kids to enter (a nice starter collection) and individual envelopes of stamps to give to any youth who came close to the door of the show. Our USPS postmaster had items to give away as well. No kids in sight, not even the 3 who are club members.
Overall the show seemed to be successful as we had two people sign up to join our club and a very active and profitable silent auction. We are planning for next year's show - it's just difficult to attract the young people.
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re: An idea for your local Stamp Club’s Shows
Thanks for the great feedback, Sally. Much to think about!
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re: An idea for your local Stamp Club’s Shows
"... If you really want them to walk around ... do a stamp visit . each location stamps the ticket .. at the end you hand in the stamped page you get the reward ..."
I had much the same thought, but then I wondered how dealers would feel being pointlessly interrupted, again & again, as they worked their regular customers.
If you can't stand to see stuff given away to the undeserving, don't give stuff away, period.
Sorry that I did not save it, but I recently read a rant by someone who went to an antiquarian book fair, and did not see a youth table of giveaway books to tempt youngsters to take up rare book collecting, and did not see dollar boxes of cheap books on every dealer's table, etc.
That ocean of near-worthless stuff is our tactical advantage, right?
Cheers,
/s/ ikeyPikey
Login to Like
this post
re: An idea for your local Stamp Club’s Shows
That was one of the things we did at our club's stamp show last month -
handed out packets of stamps to all the kids.
We also gave away albums - we have so many used ones in our clubs holdings
that we just handed those out to anyone that wanted one. Not everyone took us up
on free albums, but some did and seemed quite excited to have one.
Not the greatest turn-out, but fun nonetheless;
here are some pics -
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like this post.
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re: An idea for your local Stamp Club’s Shows
I think this a universal issue in the traditional hobbies today, kids aren’t interested.
In my model car hobby it’s the same. Pictures of shows and contests in the early 1960s it was all kids. Today? No kids attending on their own initiative dragging along a parent any more. The only kids we see are those with a father who is the hobbiest and built a model or two with their kid. Some clubs have a “Make it,Take it” table where members will help kids build a snap kit, and it’s a $10-20 investment per kid for the club, with no to few takers.
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