American Philatelic Society America s Stamp Club Do More, Learn More, Enjoy More

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1 American Philatelic Society America s Stamp Club Do More, Learn More, Enjoy More Membership Committee Mission: Works to enhance the Society s new member recruitment successes and concerns itself with all matters affecting the long term retention of the Society s dues paying members. Committee Composition ANNUAL REPORT to the BOARD OF DIRECTORS September, 2013 July, 2014 As of July 20, 2014 Chairman Terry Dempsey, Vice Chairman Matt Liebson Members: Tony Adedze, Michael Bloom, Don Chenevert, Diane Clark, Edgar Hicks, Bill Melver, Gerry Robbins, Steven Rod, Michael Sales, and Don Schilling; the current members of this committee bring more than 27 years of combined service on this committee, an average of 2¼ each. Staff: Ken Martin and Judy Johnson offer our committee their 53 years of combined service and institutional memory. Board Liasions: Steve Reinhard and Alex Haimann Chairman s personal observations, opinions, and recommendations I have been an APS member only since I have served on this Membership Committee for 3½ years including the past year as chairman. APS membership peaked in 1988 at 57,815. Since then, we have accrued 5 years of increased membership (albeit at an average rate for those 5 years of only or barely above breakeven) and 20 years of declining membership, including 16 straight years now of negative growth. Over these 25 years, American society has undergone a dramatic change and shift in all sorts of demographics, many of which have combined to basically alter the dynamics of what it means to be a stamp collector, or not, and hence the decline in the APS. We are not alone in these dynamics, but that still doesn t make it palatable. It certainly doesn t to me and to the members of the Committee. The landscape has changed a tectonic shift. We must now change with it and adapt to the new reality. We must continue to nurture and encourage children and young people to get the bug and we must tap in to the growing demographic of boomers retiring with money and time on their hands. We continually struggle with how to do this as I m sure the Board does.

2 I recommend that APS, when the new chief staff executive is aboard, undergo deep, basic strategic planning based on a total market survey so that we can base our plans on data and actual and projected trends in society and in the collecting world. Then APS becomes a strategically planned and driven business organization. I recommend that APS get into the marketing business and enable the appropriate staff resources along these lines. This should complement the strategic plan. I am convinced that a great deal of the answers to our new realities and problems already lie in our own chapters, and to a lesser extent, our affiliates. We need to energize, activate, and involve them in solving our common problem. Lastly, I am convinced that the dealer population that serves the collectors can and should be a large part of the solution search. Two weeks ago the Wall Street Journal celebrated its 125th anniversary by publishing a special Journal Report The Future of Everything. Some 31 Leading thinkers, innovators and artists share their visions of where the world is heading. It is fascinating reading. It has relevance to APS. Connectivity, Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), A World Where Everyone Will Be Online: There have been moments in history where the invention of new technology has completely rewired the way our society lives and works. The printing press, radio, television, mobile phones and the Internet are among these. In the coming decades, we will see the greatest revolution yet, as billions of people connect to the Internet for the first time. Today, only a little more than one-third of the world is connected about 2.7 billion people. The Internet has changed our hobby and our APS. We re struggling to understand how and what it means and what we need to do about it, but it s real and growing. Music, Taylor Swift (singer, songwriter, seven Grammys), It s Too Soon to Write off the Album: The music industry is not dying it s just coming alive. Music is art, and art is important and rare. Important, rare things are valuable. Aren t many of our little pieces of paper art, and aren t they valuable? It s way too early to write off our hobby of collecting stamps. Leisure, Robert A. Iger (chairman and CEO of Walt Disney Co.), Have I Got a Story for You: In 1956, the year after Disneyland opened, Walt Disney was asked to imagine what entertainment would be like a half-century into the future. As one of the world s great innovators, Walt said that was beyond his powers One thing was certain, Walt said: The centuries-old human need for great story-telling would endure for generations to come, enhanced by new technologies that would bring these tales to life in extraordinary ways. Even as we use technology to create more individualized experiences, social interaction is still a basic need, a fundamental part of our humanity. That s why we value entertainment events that create treasured memories, strengthen personal connections and deliver shared experiences, whether at the movies, in a theme park, or at a sports stadium. you have to be there, immersed in the moment. These social events enrich our lives, and our need for them will never change. Stamps tell stories. That may well be the single largest and most important thing they do other than to sometimes pay for actual postage. Our stamps and albums and exhibits tell stories that others want, and need, to hear. Our stamp shows and bourses connect people and create memories and tell stories. All of this from the WSJ to say: yes, things have dramatically changed, and so should APS but APS and stamps still have importance and value in our culture.

3 These thoughts are mine and not necessarily of the Committee. Committee Report During this program year, we have conducted 11 one-hour-long telephone conference call meetings with average attendance of 9 people. We have participated in the February Little Rock Board meeting with a Committee member in attendance and the chairman on the phone and the May 14 Board meeting with the chairman on the phone. We meet the second Monday of each month and now utilize the GoToMeeting software tool. Just as with last year, our strength is in our vested, involved, and dedicated members and our staff advisors. This team is well-rounded, in both the world of philately as well as in the business and association arena. These people truly care about APS, the overall hobby, and in helping to solve our nagging membership decline problem. Our charge from President Reinhard is to take a proactive role in saving this Society - which is to reverse our 25 year continual decline in membership. The staff will provide current membership data at August meeting in Hartford, but it appears that we have either bottomed out or are close to doing so. We continue to maintain a 90% retention rate which is excellent in the association world. For the first time in recent memory, new member applications are running ahead of the prior year numbers. But we simply cannot attract enough new members (at the present time) to outpace those who quit or who die. We currently have two action items at the Board level: our suggested Proposal for the Conduct of a Stamp Collecting Hobby and Industry National Stamp Collecting Membership Problem-Solving (or Strategic Planning) Summit [approved by the Board 5/14 with Steven Zwillinger appointed as Board representative] and the proposed epam program (ebay Pathway to APS Membership). Michael Bloom will present the proposal to the Board at your August meeting. The Committee has also worked alongside the Stamp Buddies committee as it has launched its initiative first at APS summer shows and subsequently piloted the program at WSP shows. The Summit will be held at an opportune time after the new executive director is in place. Our Committee stands ready to take a leadership role in this important initiative. We continue to strongly urge the Board to budget for a marketing survey (sometimes called a membership survey, but this is much more than just a membership survey) that would be conducted after the new executive director is in place so that the market intelligence and data obtained could form the basis of overall strategic planning decisions as well as provide this Committee market-driven facts upon which to plan and organize our activities. Currently we are operating on educated guesses, and other proposals (particularly those that may require significant staff or monetary resources) have been on hold until the Executive Director search is complete and until a meaningful survey can be conducted. A well designed survey, in particular, may provide critical insight into identifying new services or other attributes of the Society that could attract current non-members. We are gratified that the whole area of membership, and specifically our decline, has had much more visibility throughout the Society over the past several years. We are convinced that the solutions to our problem will be found in our membership, including our chapters, but the Society as a whole needs to be aware that we do indeed have a problem, and a properly mobilized

4 membership can do far more to increase membership than can a board or a committee acting in isolation. We may not return to our 1988 level, but we sure don t have to keep sinking. Over this past year we have spent a good deal of Committee time talking over the issue of dealer involvement. Dealers (traditional and online) are oftentimes the most direct connect to collectors, including those who are not aware of the benefits of organized philately. We were pleased to have ASDA President Mark Reasoner join us for one of our meetings where we discussed mutual concerns and possible solutions. We invested a good deal of time investigating the Boy Scout Stamp Collecting Merit Badge and the counselors needed to provide this service. This is an area where we can influence potential future members. We identified non members in ASDA and NSDA ranks and solicited their membership. A new 10 Ways to be an APS Ambassador is published monthly in AP. APS staff (specifically, Ken Martin) started conducting online new member orientations in May. The committee views these orientations as a valuable resource and important tool to engage new members. We are in the process of developing a handbook for chapter use in conducting events and operations in support of National Stamp Collecting Month, with a particular focus on resources for the creation of introductory stamp exhibits that can be deployed at libraries, post offices, and other public spaces as a means to raise public awareness of philately and direct interested viewers to APS resources. Three members of this Committee addressed the attendees at June s Summer Seminar on membership involvement and recruitment matters. We recommend that this discussion occur annually at Summer Seminar, as well as during volunteer workweek, as a mechanism to take already-engaged APS members and encourage them to act as recruiters. We are anxious for Board to complete its Executive Director search, for the Director to be in place and to support her/his initiatives centered around membership strength and growth. I would like to thank Ed Andrews for his past membership in this Committee and his numerous contributions, most notably for leading us on developing a Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities- Threats planning matrix. Thank you for the trust you have placed in this Committee. We welcome your questions and suggestions. Respectfully submitted, Terry Dempsey Chairman Grayson, Georgia Matthew Liebson Vice-Chairman

5 Solon, Ohio