Stamptrotters Society of the Hudson Valley
President's Message
To read prior years President's Messages CLICK HERE.
STAMPTROTTER NEWS - March 2025
March 13, 2025 Business Meeting - 11 Members were present last night. Phil and Jopie were front and center as usual after a long absence. Welcome back.
Craig reports our balance sheet at just over $7400. Upcoming expenses for rent, consignment payouts and a small donation to the APS Mighty Buck club are the only debits on the horizon.
All were reminded of the upcoming FOSC show in Albany on 13 April. Craig, David, Phil, Jopie, Tom and I will attend to man the table and sell personal material. Feel free to join us. 930-4 at the Albany American Legion, 4 Everett Rd Ext just off I-90.
Our current consignment is nearing completion and with a little housekeeping the we will soon be out of new material. Our updated Procurement committee, so far David, Craig and I, are actively looking for new club lots.
Members present decided to hold our summer dinner meeting in July instead of June. Our hosts son Daniel is graduating college in California in June and they will be attending. David will still be organizing and would like a headcount. Contact him via email or at the next meeting. Next up was the new constitution. This was sent out to all on 2 emails and printed copies were made available last night. I highlighted some of the changes – late payment of dues, new fiscal year, new election term and voting schedule.
I received no comments via email prior to the meeting and there were no questions or comments from the floor. David made a motion to suspend the normal waiting period to vote adopt. Ron seconded.
A show of hands was unanimous in favor of adoption.
Big news is we all get an extension on our dues until 1 Jan 2026. Term of officers in now 2 year. Due to our November and December holiday schedules nominations will start in August with voting in October. Elected officers will be installed 1 January.
Nice group last night, thanks to all for taking the time to participate.
STAMPTROTTER NEWS - February 2025
Minutes from the 13 February meeting of the StampTrotters of the Hudson Valley
A difficult and disappointing start as some members were, we understand, turned away. Brad, Craig, and I talked with VFW staff who had been told that our meeting had been cancelled to make room for a VFW Valentine’s party, or so they told us. We found Mike “the Juiceman,” who said we could use the big room (you know, the one we always use) as it was free. So, we did. All three of us.
I had an agenda from Charlie, to which we turned our attention.
1. What to do for our June dinner? We discussed options; and all three of us were in favor of accepting Ron and Liz’s offer to host the party, in its entirety, there. Craig and Brad are both familiar with local establishments that might serve some of the fare, leaving us to attend to the rest. Details will be established later, but likely we’ll have main course delivered and we bring everything else. I will coordinate, as I did with last June and last December. Happy to hear any thoughts on how might like this to go: for instance, what things might you like to bring (or have brought).
2. We noted that Fort Orange will host three events this year: Second Sunday of April (Palm Sunday), plus July and October. StampTrotters will fund tables if members are interested in manning them and bringing their material to sell.
3. We NEED a content manager or six for the web site. Don’t need to know icky HTML or web stuff; just provide us with text and pictures of stamps and stuff
4. June is when we’re planning to hold elections. Doc is stepping down from Secretary and a group of members are refining our bylaws to better explain the duties of the officers. Anyone interested in serving as President, VP, Secretary, or Treasurer should let me or Charlie know. I believe that Charlie and Craig are intending to continue to serve.
David (filling in for Secretary)
STAMPTROTTER NEWS - January 2025
Business meeting minutes for 9 January 2025 with 13 members in attendance.
Tom and Paul offered a couple of tables of items for sale and the club “red boxes” were available. We will continue to do this at future business meetings. All members are
welcome to sell.
David is officially retired after 35 years with the same organization. Congratulations,
enjoy.
Dues payments. I believe there are 1 or 2 who still have not paid. Please do so ASAP.
We discussed our next June dinner meeting. Ron and Liz have offered their home for the dinner. It would be a mix of the social we had there this past June and our holiday social. David has offered to handle the menu. Should we do this or search for another restaurant? Savonna's is no longer an option.
The 2 day July stamp show at the Polish Club in Albany has been cancelled. FOSC will
hold a third 1 day show in July to fill the void. Do we want to attend 3 shows a year?
This is a benefit of your membership; the club pays for the space and all are welcome to
sell.
We will be looking at our Constitution and By-Laws, copies are attached. The original was written when the club was much larger. This provided more volunteers which are a subset of the total membership. We hope to make changes that a group our size can accomplish and that fit how we currently do business. Suggestions are welcome. Motions for changes need to be made, discussed and voted on.
Here are a couple of opportunities to you help out:
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We could use a coordinator for the material that Dick puts on our sites. Light work load, let your creative juices flow.
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We are considering replacing our lone Procurement Officer with a small (2-3 folks)
Procurement Committee responsible to locating, purchasing, storing and preparing lots and collections for club sales at auctions and shows. -
We will talk more about both but if you are interested in helping out with either let me know.
Our next auction is Thursday 23 January.
February business on the 13th and auction on the 27th.