Stamp Collecting in the East Bay
In today’s Contra Costa Times, there’s a story about the East Bay Collector’s Club, one of the stamp clubs that is in my local area. It’s not the one I belong to, but it’s still good to see a full-fledged story about the club in the local newspaper. If you’re trying to build membership in your club, then this is an excellent way to go about it.
Contact your local newspaper and see if you can get someone there to write a piece about your club or stamp collecting in general. Alternatively, you or someone in your club can offer to write the piece yourself for publication in the paper. Many clubs complain about the lack of new members coming in, but few clubs go as far as trying to get the word out through the mainstream media.
This story does an excellent job of appealing to the typical collector. You’ll find several examples of a story that may sound familiar to you: you start collecting when you are a child, it goes by the wayside as college, work, and family become the priorities, and then sometime after the children get older or leave, you pick up the hobby again. I believe that there are many, many collectors out there now just waiting to pick up the hobby again, if they are just prodded a bit through stories like this.
Oh, in case you are wondering, the club I belong to is the Diablo Valley Stamp Club.
I’d love to hear from some of you on ideas for bringing in new members, particularly those who are itching to start back into collecting after a long hiatus due to other life pressures. Click the comment button up top and let me know what you do.
philately, stamp collecting, stamp clubs, stamps