The Association of Collecting Clubs (ACC) is announcing a major new service designed to help collecting clubs & associations. Titled the ACC News Service and Resource Bureau, this new service will help you with EXPANDED club promotion - GREATER visibility - and BROADENED membership recruitment - by channeling news, publicity and educational features about your club activities and collecting area to new and expanded media outlets.

One of ACC's primary goals is to actively help collecting groups with club promotion, membership expansion and dissemination of educational information. This new service will achieve that goal. We want each and every club involved. For ACC member clubs there is no cost to your club for this service - only opportunity!

Here's what we are offering:

• Negotiations with major publications serving the antiques and collectibles industry have provided a commitment for more visibility in these publications for news from collecting clubs through the ACC News Service. Some of the publications involved include Antique Trader, AntiqueWeek, Maine Antique Digest, Southeastern Antiques & Collectibles Magazine, The New England Antique Journal, Collectors Journal, Unravel the Gavel, Collectors News and others. Collecting publications in Great Britain, Canada, Australia and Europe will be actively recruited for this commitment, as well.



• ACC will be working with a broad range of specialty collecting publications on featuring information from collecting clubs about allied or "cross-over" collectors - collecting areas that relate indirectly to the major focus of the publication but not now covered. This means entirely new exposure to most collecting clubs. Publications dealing with toys, dolls, sports, paper, coins, stamps, military, automotive, travel, glassware, advertising and music are being included in our initial contacts.



• Targeted marketing plans are in place to reach the larger newspapers, news & feature magazines, news syndicates, feature columnists and wire service feeds, and to feature editors in a variety of subject areas - selectively targeting the "correct" people on the staffs of general media who are responsible for... and who are interested in... antiques and collectibles - editors, columnists and reporters who welcome the news from collecting clubs.



• Featured clubs, featured club websites and featured collectors will be offered through the Resource Bureau, along with listings of designated spokespersons for your club on various topics.

This new service does not replace traditional dissemination of releases which your club may choose to continue to send out. It only supplements and enhances your publicity efforts.

What are we asking of you - the clubs?

First, this free service is available only to ACC member clubs. If you are not a member you need to join - the total cost for your club to join ACC is only $25.00 for one year. The "ACC Club Proposal" thoroughly covers all of the services you as a club will receive IN ADDITION to the news service!

We then ask you to designate one person as the ACC media correspondent with whom we will work on ACC-club relations dealing with publicity and features. You may already have a news editor, publicity chairman or a similar "fit" who can be assigned this role. The person should be a good writer and he or she must have an e-mail address and phone number.

All you need to do for now is simply complete and mail back to ACC the Club Committment Form. We will then contact your correspondent with details on the format and other information for submittals.

Working with your correspondent, ACC will help create and report news and features about your club on a regular basis. News on your upcoming convention is fine... but for many clubs that's it for the year! We will provide ideas or leads on other stories which can be generated so your club or society can have news exposure several times during the year. We fully realize that for some clubs & societies, the "collecting" aspect is a small part of your club's purpose which may have a larger focus on study, preservation and education. We still welcome you into ACC and as an active participant in the ACC News Service and Resource Bureau.

Please let us know if you have any questions. We will be happy to try to answer them. ACC expects to have the service fully operational before the end of this year. We look forward to working with you and supporting your club through this new service.

Larry Krug & Rick Moses
Association of Collecting Clubs
NewsService@Collectors.Org
301.926.8663