ECBA

President's Message

Greetings Members,

It almost feels like yesterday when I accepted the candidacy and was elected president of our club. With few exceptions, it has been an interesting and eye-opening ride. At our Mid-July convention in Rochester I'll turn the gavel over to a new ECBA President, and he will use his many years in the hobby to steer us a few more years into the future.

During the past three years I tried to apply some business principles to our direction, and I feel our treasury is improved. Profits from several recent conventions and shows, member participation in club fundraisers and several cost cutting measures have helped. But we are far from financial freedom.

When you spend a large percentage of your dues income on our quarterly magazine, the Keg, not much is left for the day-to-day costs of operation. This is an area which must be watched closely because the membership is not growing, not only in ECBA, but the other clubs have the same issue facing them. Colorfile has been kind to keep our Keg costs in check.

Because health issues have forced me to leave office a year early, some items I had hoped to address just did not get done. I am truly sorry, but I no longer argue with doctors. I’m hopeful the incoming president will look closely at:

**A change in our club’s classification with the Internal Revenue Service, from a collector’s club to an educational organization, to provide easier years ahead. This change is not easy, but can be accomplished.

**A serious second look at publishing our monthly magazine, or perhaps just one issue, in PDF format. More and more groups our size and larger are accepting this format as less expensive and more flexible. The savings is great enough that the Keg could be published this way more frequently, providing more service to our members.

**Development of a program to involve micro brewers and brewpubs in our club as a dues classification. Face it, we collect breweriana largely from extinct brewers. Today’s micro brewers provide our future, and we absolutely must get them on board. We need innovative ideas. Who has one?

**Improvement of and better promotion of the fund raisers now in place to supplement membership income. We cannot, and will not, survive without new members or other revenue streams. Roughly a quarter of our membership will be 80+ in a dozen or 15 years.

I am still amazed that we cannot grow our membership. It seems like such a simple task, but from personal experience, I’m well aware of the difficulty. All of us have at least one very close collector friend. For our very survival, our task is to convince he or she to spend the few dollars it takes to join ECBA.

I’ve said it until you’re all tired of reading it, but I’ll repeat myself one more time: The contacts, friends and networks of collectors are the greatest assets of ECBA. I have found more things for my collection from PEOPLE than from any other venue. I am associated socially with more people in ECBA than in any other club – and I belong to all of them.

Again, it has been an honor and a pleasure to serve as your president. I hope my few years at the helm have been noticed, and some years down the road, may stimulate some conversation.

	Ein Prosit!
	Bob Gornall President robtgornall@yahoo.com