President's Message by BCCOCO president Ted Campbell

December 2011 — Hi Folks! Couple of things, Don't forget our coin club meeting December 20th, next Tuesday, at the High Desert Community Grange. Meeting starts at 6:30 pm. I will be bringing some new flyers and if you have a place that you can put one up, please take one. The E-Board had a meeting Saturday December 3rd in Redmond at Keith and Annett's home. Some changes have been made that should help us all out. Some will be explained at our meeting but one of the big changes is our coin auctions and sales. From now on, our regular meeting will end at 8:00 pm as usual. From 8:00-8:30 pm will be our monthly coin auction. It will work best for sellers if you send me a list of what you want to auction off so customers will have an idea of what's coming up and can do their research and be prepared to have the money they will need to buy your item. But with the designated time from 8-8:30 for the auction it will give us the time we need to be more consistent with our auctions. Its still OK to just bring an item for the auction even if you haven't sent me the info. If you sell a coin at auction it is subject to the five percent rule (5% of the auction selling price goes back to the club). What if you have a coin you just want to sell (without using the auction process)? I forwarded a list of coins Harold wants to sell at the meeting. If you sell a coin, that does not come under the 5% rule. It's yours to keep. Club members have been very good at supporting the club in the past. So if you sell a coin to someone at the meeting, you are not required to give anything to the club. But a gift would always be a nice thing to do and would be gladly accepted. What we don't want to happen is that someone selling a coin gets into a mini-auction at the meeting. So set your price and please sell it at that price. Yes, I know that people might not put coins in the auction vs. selling them, but I believe in the generosity of our members and want this to be a benefit of being in a coin club.

Saturday I am meeting with a woman that has display cases for sale, $10 a piece. They are made of wood but are perfect for displaying your coins in to sell publicly. Some need a bit of touch up, or a piece of glass replaced, but for $10, it's a great buy. I will bring it up for a vote, but I would like to see the coin club buy a few and have them as loaners to members that might try and sell their coins at a sale somewhere. I will be sending out the agenda for next week's meeting and there is more E-board info to share. A committee has been established to look into our club sponsoring a coin show in June. Lots to talk about there my friends. So see you Tuesday. Thanks everyone. Ted.

November 2011 — Hey all, Ted here. Just wanted you to know that all the current officers would like to be reelected for another year. Our next meeting is November 15th, same time and place. But it's chili feed night. So bring your best chili and some corn bread if you can and let's have fun. It will also be our fundraiser for the year. The Big Auction!

October 2011 — Hi folks! Just a reminder that next Tuesday at 6:30, Oct 18th, at the Grange, is our coin club meeting. Walter is all ready to give a nice presentation. He also showed me some coins he picked up at the mint and the coin show from Colorado springs. Will be very enjoyable. As always cake and coffee and raffle tickets for prizes. At some point in the meeting I would like to hear from some if not all of you, about what you are collecting and what the market is doing in the area you collect in. What I'd like to see, is those that want to tell the whole group what you are seeing in your field of expertise. Even if you're not an expert!

A couple of more things, our November meeting. That is the time of nominations and the election of club officers. If you have a desire to run for something, let me know now and write me an email of interest, and I will pass on your email to everyone in the club that has email. November is also our laid- back meeting. it is also our big fundraiser with a nice auction of coins. If you have something to donate for the auction that the club would keep all the proceeds, or want to just auction off letting the club keep 5%, bring it to the November meeting. If you want to make known that you want to run for an office in November, feel free to announce it at next week's meeting. Here is the really fun part for the November meeting. We are going to have a chili feed! So bring your best pot of chili and some cornbread and let's eat. Cheese and onions will be provided, along with butter and honey for the corn bread, and some coffee and soda pop.

November is also our third anniversary for the club, and we'll be taking some pictures! Also, if you have an idea or suggestion for something you would like to see or try for the club, I always want you to feel comfortable in suggesting it to me. I am not afraid of trying new things and look forward to your suggestions. Remember, chili feed is in November, NOT next Tuesday.

I have decided that I would like to run for president again. I really love the coin club and feel honored to have you all as my friends. Keith has made up some really great flyers and I am starting a drive for new members. I also plan on going to a couple of other coin club meetings to see what they do and get some good ideas. To be honest, our coin auctions have never really worked the way we want them to, and I want to see how other clubs are making it work for them. So that brings us all up to date, and see you next Tuesday my friends. Thank you all, president Ted.

September 2011 — Hey Everyone, Ted here. Just a quick reminder that our September meeting is the third Tuesday, which is September 20th. Meeting starts at 6:30 pm, at the same place ... High Desert Grange, 62855 Powell Butte Highway right in Bend. Hope you all had a great summer and found everything you were looking for in the coin world. Thank you to all that have contacted me over the summer. Right now I'm excited to see you all at the club meeting. There is so much going on in the gold and silver coin market, it's hard to keep up with. But by far, all the coin markets are doing just fine. We have much to talk about, and can't wait to see you!

June 2011 — Hi one and all. Are you ready for our last meeting before summer time? The meeting is Tuesday, June 21st at 6:30 pm at the Grange. This is our laid-back meeting, with a modified potluck. The club is providing the hamburgers and buns. My neighbor Bob is the "grill king" and has agreed to cook them on his grill at the Grange. So here is the rest of the plan. I will bring my brown sugar baked beans and a bag of chips. What we need is some potato salad and macaroni salad, home made would be the best. If most of you could bring your favorite bag of chips and whatever else you would like to share, we will be almost set. I like Miracle Whip so I'll bring a jar of that. If you like mayonnaise, let me know you are bringing a jar. I also have ketchup and mustard. Does someone want to bring a jug of BBQ sauce? Or maybe even a watermelon?

We will have our tickets for the drawings with prizes. if you have any coins you would like to sell, bring them to the meeting too. it would be in your best interest to send me an email of what you have and how much you want for them. I will forward the email to the club members for you. There is no 5% rule for this sale. Sell it, keep it!

One more thing. In the kitchen is a tip jar that has been labeled "for the kitchen." Some of you have contributed to that fund. Since we pay rent for the building and use our own supplies we don't need to do that. BUT, the board agreed, that because Melissa does so much in opening, running, and closing the building down for us, she makes sure everything is put away and clean, any tips will now go to her. This is not mandatory to tip, just a nice thing to do for someone that helps us out so much.

May 2011 — Don't forget our next meeting on the 17th of May. We will be having a follow-up class to last months meeting, how to find what your coin is worth. This meeting we will be working on our grading skills using Morgan silver dollars. They are big enough to see what you're looking for and the same principals apply to grading any coin. This will be a very valuable class and anyone can learn to grade coins with the proper instruction and tools. I had an instructor tell me once, grading coins is as much science as it is art. So let's learn the basics on how to grade a coin. We will be working in teams on this, should be a great class. We are also going to have a coin quiz from Keith. The prize is a free drawing ticket. Keith has some great questions for the quiz. Bring something to write with and keep notes. And to all who have gone out of their way to help at the meetings, thank you so much!

So see you the 17th, and have fun collecting those coins. Thanks everyone, Ted.

April 2011 — YES, we have a coin club meeting Tuesday the 19th at 6:30. That is next Tuesday, folks. Feels like it has been forever. Time to get back to learning some new things about coins. So this month's agenda is going to look at how and where to find the value of a coin. Bring something to write with, we will be looking at publications and web sites using the computer and the digital projector. Cake and coffee as always. See you there. Also, Eric will have some "Red Books" for sale, new ones, at a good discount. Some spiral, some hard cover. If you don't have a "Red Book," you NEED one and this is a great opportunity to get one at a good price. Thanks everyone and can't wait to see you! Ted.

March 2011 — Now that the snow seems to have stopped falling, here is the plan for next Tuesday's meeting. It is our laid back, show and tell, visit and have fun meeting. So to add to the meeting we are going to try something new for us. It has been approved by the e-board and I got good feed back from the members. So, our March 15th meeting will be a POT LUCK. There are a number of ways to do this but I like and want to try this approach. If you have a dish you are pretty proud of that you make, just bring that. The club is going to buy a nice big ham, and also provide dinner rolls and soft drinks. I will bring the cake for desert. We have all the necessary disposable plates, coffee cups, and plastic utensils. All you need to bring is what you like to eat and think others might enjoy. If you could, email me back with what you think you are going to bring, that way I can monitor what is coming in and make sure we don't wind up needing anything. And its OK to just stop at the store and buy what you want to bring, I do that all the time, ha ha! We will have time for announcements and current events, like the prices of gold and silver. WOWSERS. So see you at the meeting, regular time 6:30 pm at the Grange. Thanks all, Ted.

January 2011 — Hey everyone, Hope you all got what you wanted for Christmas and gained as much weight as I did! After polling the members, we will start meeting on the third Tuesday of each month at the High Desert Community Grange. There was only one person with a conflict in their schedule for meeting the third Tuesday of each month. Thursdays were not available, so let's start with Tuesdays and see how it works out and maybe later get back to Thursdays if it opens up.

The address to the Grange is 62855 Powell Butte Highway. It is only four miles, five minutes, from where we met before, and will work for us very well. Here are some directions. At Neff and 27th head east on Neff. That is away from the hospital. You just go straight and don't have to take any turns. You will come to one or two stop signs, just keep going straight, east. When you get to the stop sign at Powell Butte HWY, approx 3.5 miles from Neff and 27th, you have to go left (north) or right (south). Turn left and head north a short distance and it's the white building on your left hand side. The other way is from 27th and Hwy 20/Greenwood; the road on the south side of Barnes and Noble, also where the Safeway and Costco are. Head east about four miles and turn left, north onto Powell Butte Hwy. Big sign, can't miss it. Go about a mile and the Grange is on your left hand side. The Grange is 1/2 mile south of the Bend airport. (Not the Redmond airport!)

Meeting time is still the same, 6:30 pm. Hope to see you all there. Lots of parking on either side of the front doors of the Grange. Last month's auction raised $160 for the club, and we are now selling raffle tickets instead of giving them away. Three for a dollar, I believe it was. And as always, cake and coffee! The cost to the club is $20-25 a month, and it should be no problem to cover that. I know some of you got coins for Christmas, so be sure and bring them to "show and tell." See you soon my friends!

See previous messages: 2010.