Instructions for New ACC Members
INSTRUCTIONS FOR NEW MEMBER CLUBS JOINING ACCWelcome to the Association of Collecting Clubs (ACC)We are glad to have your group as a member of ACC and hope that, together, we can strengthen, promote and expand the benefits of membership in your club, as well as offer support to the entire collecting area your club serves. The purpose of this letter is to provide a "check list" of the various benefits and options available to your club through ACC. We urge you to review these carefully and if you have any questions, please let us know. These are the tools to help both of us gain the most benefit from our partnership.
For Immediate ImplementationAnnouncement Letter Send an announcement letter about joining ACC to your membership as part of a membership mailing, through a newsletter/publication or on your website...or, all three. A draft announcement letter for your consideration or adaptation is available at ACC_Announcement_To_Membership.asp. Be sure to include the Club ID and password so your members can gain access to the Members Only area on the ACC website. Club Directory Make sure the information on your club is up-to-date and correct in the ACC Club Directory. Please note: ACC produces this Club Directory in partnership with David Maloney of Maloney's Antiques & Collectibles Resource Directory and CollectingChannel.com. The information you provide will be in both the Club Directory on Collectors.Org and in Maloney's Antiques & Collectibles Resource Directory providing the greatest exposure to the entire antiques & collecting industry...the "club directory of choice" for both collectors and dealers, as well as media working within the antiques & collectibles industry.
To review your listing go to
If your club is not listed, or the information needs to be updated, go to This is a free club listing for both Maloney's Directory & Collectors.Org. Join A Club! ACC provides a direct link to your club's membership application form from the Collectors.Org home page, reaching over 100,000 visitors a month. Go to the bank of buttons on http://Collectors.org home page and "click" on Join A Club! See what other member clubs have listed. If you do not have a website with a membership form, a mailing address for obtaining a membership application can be substituted. Provide us with the suitable copy describing your club, and the appropriate contact link, and we will get it listed. Send to: info@collectors.org ACC News Service The ACC News Service is a major feature on the Collectors.Org website. Not only is it prominently displayed for visitors to the site but weekly electronic mailings are sent to approximately 1,000 media outlets who have expressed interest in news from collecting clubs alerting them to the new articles posted in the past several days. The ACC News Service is the only news service specifically geared to promoting the news from collecting clubs. We urge you to use this service on a regular basis to provide news, features and briefs about the activities of your organization and your members. Every ACC member club is eligible to designate an "editor" who is provided with a special ID and password to enter items into the News Service. Provide us with the name of your designated editor and their e-mail address and we will send them the special ID's and instructions. Write to: NewsService@Collectors.Org ACC member clubs are encouraged to consider placing a direct link from your club website to the ACC News Service. "Buttons" have been produced for this purpose. For more information have your webmaster contact: webmaster@collectors.org ACC Update An electronic newsletter is sent out periodically to the main contacts at every ACC member club. The purpose of ACC Update is to keep you informed of ACC news and special projects or opportunities relating to your membership. Every member club must have a major ACC contact and they must have an e-mail address. Our system provides for up to two additional e-mail contacts to receive the ACC mailings. This is often the ACC designated editor, your membership chairman, Pr chairman or convention chairman, but we leave this up to you. We also encourage clubs to pass the ACC Update on to others in leadership roles in your club as you deem appropriate. A second electronic newsletter, ACC NEWS, is sent out periodically to a much larger audience of both ACC member clubs and non-member clubs who we feel may have an interest in our activities (and may hopefully join). You will often find some duplication of news between this mailing and ACC Update. Please forgive us for this, or as we say, just consider it message reinforcement! ACC Programs ACC offers a broad area of club leadership information, resources and idea exchange through 20 or more program areas. These areas are continually evolving. Some are well along while others are barely started. They are all intended to help you - as a club leader - build and strengthen and improve your club and what your club offers it's membership. Some of the program areas include: Starting a Collecting Club, Appraisals & Appraising, Building Coalitions & Networking, Success with Special Projects, Club Leadership Models, Law & Legal Ramifications for Clubs, Management & Finance for Clubs, Celebrating Anniversaries, Club Advertising, Club Conventions, Club Promotion & Membership Recruitment and Retention, Reaching Young Collectors, Serving New Audiences, Reproductions, Creative Awards Programs, Club Documents, Fund Raising, and New Technologies. These ACC Program areas can be viewed at: http://collectors.org/ACC/About_ACC.asp#Programs Club Conventions Directory For several years now Collectors.Org has carried a thorough listing of upcoming club conventions in our Club Convention Calendar. The date and location of the event is listed, along with contact information. Even if your convention is a members' only convention, this is still a good way to get publicity and perhaps recruit some new members. The directly is also used by the media to get tips on upcoming events. Go to: http://collectors.org/EV/Conventions.asp If your club convention is not listed, there is a link to a form for entering and submitting your information. ACC Logos We have updated our ACC Logo Store for both print logos and electronic "buttons" & "banners" and urge all member clubs to include one or more of the "We are an ACC Member" logos on your website and in your publications. The ACC logo on your website can be a direct link to Collectors.Org, the ACC website. For more information on use of the ACC logos contact: info@collectors.org The ACC Logo Store is located at: http://collectors.org/Media/ There are also logos for direct links to the ACC News Service and the Collectors Trade Show. Collectors.Org This is the official website of both the Association of Collecting Clubs and the National Association of Collectors. It has been one of the major free information websites serving the antiques and collectibles industry since the early days of the Internet, being in operation even before either of the two associations it serves were in existence. We encourage the leadership of our ACC member clubs, and your members, to become familiar with Collectors.Org and use it regularly. The Site Map will quickly show some of the many types of information at your disposal, often the only place you will find it on the Internet. Here is just a sampling: Appraisals & Appraising, Directory of Collectible Glossaries, Flea Market Directory, Repair & Restoration Directory, Collectibles Radio & Television Programming, Collectible Publications Critique, Hobby Protection Act, Auctioneers Directory, Collecting Humor & Trivia, U.S. Preservation Acts, U.S. Patent Dates and much more. This site exists to serve the collector and the collecting club. We don't have auctions. We don't have dealer shops. We are an educational website for servicing collectors and collecting clubs. Collectors Trade Show In the summer 2004 a major new feature was added to the Collectors.Org website: the Collectors Trade Show. This is a virtual trade show with aisle after aisle of booths offering products and services of interest to collectors and to the leadership of collecting clubs. For your members, as collectors, there are vendors with display products, collector publications, price guides, shipping supplies, computer software, shops, shows, auctions and tours. For the leadership of collecting clubs there are vendors offering club management, convention sites and meeting facilities, and more. Many of these vendors offer discounts to ACC member clubs and your club members through a special ID and code provided to you when you join and for you to pass on to your members. This new area of the website will be growing in the future, offering more and more opportunities for discounts on products and services of interest to you and your members. We urge you to support the NAC/ACC partners in the Collectors Trade Show. National Association of Collectors As a major benefit of joining the Association of Collecting Clubs, when your club joins ACC, your club members automatically become individual members of the ACC sister organization - the National Association of Collectors. Normally, individual membership in NAC is $5 a year so this is a major benefit to your members - FREE membership! What does this mean? It means your members can take advantage of the informational NAC program areas as they are developed, such as collection management, security for your collection, displaying techniques, dispersal and estate planning, appraisal information and utilizing new technologies. As an NAC member, your individual members can gain access to the member cost reductions on collector products and services through the Collectors Trade Show. The NAC Collectors Insurance Program was developed strictly with the collector in mind. Collectors Insurance is provided by the Association of Insurance Administrators. The policy is underwritten by AXA Art Insurance Corporation, the largest insurer of art and collectibles in the world. Their industry rating is "A" Excellent. The cost of Collector Insurance is the best in the field. Where else can you get $20,000 in coverage for only $50.00 annually? ...or, $125,000.00 worth for $200.00 annually? Visit http://insurance.collectors.org You may also write to us at insurance@collectors.org if you have questions. For Membership MaintenanceACC Contact PLEASE keep ACC informed when there is a change in your contact information - either a change in person or in e-mail address or some other change. As simple as this may sound, we often totally lose contact with 40-50 clubs a year because of changes in addresses or through club elections, changes in leadership. Just let us know any update information by e-mail at info@collectors.org or by calling 301.926.8663. Membership Reminder Letter Similar to announcement letter listed above, we urge our ACC member clubs to send out an update reminder letter to your membership at least once a year reminding them about the benefits of ACC and particularly the benefits they have as individual members through the reduced prices in the Collectors Trade Show, the Collectors Insurance Program, the collector program areas, or other individual collector benefits. A draft reminder letter, for your consideration, can be found at: ACC_Reminder_To_Membership.asp. Be sure to include the Club ID and password so your members can gain access to the Members Only area on the ACC website. For Optional ConsiderationClub Collectors Insurance How would you like to provide your members with a valuable benefit and earn money for your club or association at the same time? Through special arrangements with Association Insurance Administrators (AIA), it is now possible to make the Collectors Insurance Program the official insurance program of your club. This specialized club insurance program is tailored to serve collecting clubs and their memberships. This will become your insurance program, offering a major benefit to your members and becoming a very attractive addition to your membership recruitment and retention package. Urging your members to have their collections insured is one of the best services a club can provide its membership. And, your club will receive an administrative fee of 5% of the annual premiums to be paid to your organization for the time and services spent in the promotion of the program. For more information visit: http://insurance.collectors.org Write insurance@Collectors.Org if you have questions about how your club can participate. Club Liability Insurance
We are pleased that the Association of Insurance Administrators are now able to offer clubs liability insurance for your conventions, shows and other events. For more information on this, go to: Atlantique City Antiques & Collectibles Show Twice a year, in March and October, ACC has a large booth at the world's largest indoor antiques & collectibles show. This booth is provided courtesy of the show management and ACC organizes, sets up and staffs the booth. The primary purpose of the booth is to promote collecting clubs and recruit membership for clubs. Your club can participate in this activity simply by sending a quantity of club promotion fliers or membership brochures to ACC. You do not have to have a club representative at the show. For more information write: AtlantiqueCity@Collectors.Org Club Publications Several member clubs have placed ACC on your complimentary mailing list to receive copies of your publications. We appreciate this and review each one that comes in. Our mailing address is: ACC, 18222 Flower Hill Way #299, Gaithersburg, MD 20879. ACC Programs Above we listed nearly 20 program areas relating to the management and operation of collecting clubs. All of these program areas are "evolving" and the intent is probably for them to never be completed. Some have barely been started. We strongly encourage clubs who have members with an interest or expertise in any of these areas to volunteer to help develop it. Unfortunately, we are not able to pay people to do this, but the combined expertise of our clubs can assist greatly in expanding this program area. Each of the ACC (and NAC) program areas have an advisory group to assist with the development, expansion, and update of program information. Advisory group members provide resources, offer suggestions and options based on their own experiences, and assure the accuracy of content for the programs. Club Conventions Comments from the leadership of many clubs have indicated major concerns about their annual conventions, everything from drops in attendance and convention management to site selection and needs for creative programming. In late 2003 ACC did a thorough survey of dozens of club leaders and convention chairmen. Results were released in 2004. See: http://collectors.org/ACC/Programs/Conventions and "click" on Convention Survey. We are encouraging clubs who have an active interest in working on this program area to contact ACC at ClubConvention@collectors.org and let us know. We have representatives of hotel chains and convention visitors' bureaus who have volunteered to be on a task force for developing materials on how to help a club select a site; how to select a facility for your convention, shows or seminars. We would also like to see some task forces on exploring creative programming for club conventions, on how to motivate your membership to attend conventions, how to recruit volunteers to help with the convention, financing conventions, and perhaps others. Both current and past convention chairmen would make excellent candidates for this. Reaching Young Collectors This has been a primary program area during 2004 and will continue to be a focus area in the future. ACC has generated a lot of publicity in collecting publications on clubs involving young collectors. A feature display on this area was incorporated into the Atlantique City ACC booth at the October 2004 show. We are actively seeking volunteers from clubs either working with young collectors, or desiring to do so, to keep this momentum going. Club Spotlight and Website Spotlight The home page of Collectors.Org spotlights a collecting club and a collecting club website. These are changed periodically but remain available for viewing in this feature area. These clubs and websites are selected by ACC using a variety of criteria. Opinion Surveys We offer a series of opinion surveys on the Collectors.Org website. We welcome suggestions from our member clubs for developing new surveys dealing with issues relating to the antiques & collectibles industry. If you would like to try your hand at developing a statement and series of questions relating to an issue you feel would make a good survey, please send it to: info@collectors.org Club Promotion/Membership Recruitment Program with Antiques & Collectibles Malls & Shows Plans are already well underway for offering ACC member clubs the opportunity to join a major program working with antiques & collectibles malls and shows for promoting collecting clubs and recruiting members for your club. The major commitment for clubs will be the commitment to send out membership information to those mall & show visitors who request more information about your club. Collectors Ad Network The entire area of advertising on club websites will soon become much easier...and profitable...through the ACC's Collectors Ad Network. This is scheduled to be launched in mid 2005. In the FutureNAC Newsletter One of our future goals is to initiate a National Association of Collectors newsletter for individual collectors. This will probably be a quarterly publication offering information to collectors on collecting in general. It will be offered both in printed format and to collecting clubs in electronic format. More later! Partnering with the Large Antiques & Collectibles Shows ACC will soon be announcing several partnerships with the management of major shows for opportunities clubs can consider in working with these shows. Some of the areas include integrated satellite shows, appraisal clinics, seminars and reduced admission fees. Club Networking and Building "Allied Collecting" Models One of the major thrusts for ACC for 2005 is a program to document existing coalition and partnering models among clubs and how to make it work. Discussion Forums In the past we have attempted to offer discussion forums for our various program areas, but have not had good success with usage. We understand this is a problem many others have, as well. We are considering attempting to rejuvenate this area again, perhaps handling it differently, and also offering clubs who have discussion forums or chat rooms an opportunity to have a link on the Collectors.org website directly to your forum. Admittedly, this is not a high priority, but if anyone has suggestions, please let us hear about them. Global Memberships Thanks to the Internet, our world has grown much larger from a communications standpoint. We can now take note of dedicated collectors in other countries and determine how our clubs might involve these collectors as members. Proposals for developing a program to augment this challenging, yet exciting area are currently being discussed with ACC partners. Collector Show Calendar The Collector Show Calendar which had been on the Collectors.Org website for several years, and was considered one of the best on the Internet because of the thousands of specialty shows listed, was unfortunately dropped a year ago due to the time constraints in pulling the information together on a weekly basis. The demand we have received for bringing the directory "back" has initiated a new idea for providing the same information...and more. This new service will be available in 2005. Club Publication Traveling Library One of the best ways to glean new ideas for your collecting club publications and newsletters is to see what others are doing. ACC hopes to begin a traveling library of selected club publications in the near future. Clubs will be asked to submit samples of their various publications and ACC will loan these out to club editors interested in seeing what their peers are doing in similar types of publications. (We guarantee that you will not be able to review these publications without finding at least a couple of new ideas you can use in your own newsletter, newspaper or magazine.) Final CommentsOur view is that there is a tremendous opportunity for doing more in assisting both collecting clubs, and collectors themselves, with new and useful creative programming and services. This is the goal of the Association of Collecting Clubs. However, we must remember that ACC is not even three years old. We take pride in What has been accomplished in this very short period of time, starting at "zero" with most people not understanding what ACC was all about or attempting to do, and slowly moving ahead from there. The program areas, the projects, the partners, and the collecting groups who have joined ACC, are all making us stronger and more relevant. We look forward to steadily strengthening our partnership with collecting clubs as we move ahead, particularly in the area of involving more volunteers from the leadership of our member clubs, themselves. Many of our collecting clubs have far larger staffs, either volunteer or paid, than what ACC has. We are just two people working part time on NAC/ACC. We seek, we welcome, and we will use any volunteer support that comes our way!
Larry Krug & Rick Moses |
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