American Philatelic Society President Peter P. McCann called the General Membership Meeting of the American Philatelic Society to order on Saturday, February 19, 2000 at 9:05 a.m. in rooms C125-126 of the Portland Convention Center.

President McCann introduced the members of the APS Board of Directors and APS Executive Director Robert Lamb, who in turn introduced members of the APS staff who were present.

President McCann and Executive Director Lamb distributed awards to those present who had been APS members for 25 and 50 years.

McCann: The Board of Directors of the American Philatelic Society met over the course of the last several days. This is a brief, synopsized report of what was discussed during those meetings. McCann invited those present to ask questions of the Board, either at the end of the meeting or throughout the show. We have an open Society with open Board meetings. We can discuss anything we do with the members and you have a right to know.

We accepted three new affiliates into the APS. They are Stamporama, the Art Cover Exchange, and the Mask Study Unit of the ATA.

We discussed where some of our future shows should be. It sounds as though it should be very straightforward, but it is very complicated. We have two shows. STAMPSHOW, our large summer show that is always in August, that we try to have in a major city that will attract our members. We try to take our shows to different parts of the country, and we also try not to have our show conflict with other shows in the same area or region. It is a lot more tricky than it sounds. One of the items under discussion was where to have STAMPSHOW 2003. We were unable to come to a conclusion, so we have to go back and do more thinking about that. We have decided for our Winter Show in 2002. That will be in Riverside, California, a community outside of the Los Angeles area. We discussed Nordia 2001. Vice President Morison is President of Nordia 2001, an international show focusing on Scandinavian collecting. That will be combined with ARIPEX, a national show, and APS Winter Show all folded into one show. The dates are January 19 - 21, 2001. We also talked about World Stamp Expo 2000, a show being held this July in Anaheim, California. We are involved with that in terms of the exhibiting aspect. It will be a one-time World Series of Philately show sponsored in conjunction with the U.S. Postal Service and the American Stamp Dealers Association. This will be held July 7-16.

Janet Klug and McCann had proposed that the APS establish a special medal to recognize extraordinary service to organized philately that has different criteria than the Luff awards we give out annually for different recognition in parts of philately. The Board thought it was a good idea but we hadn't gotten the criteria down specifically how to award this medal. That has gone back to a committee for study.

Wayne Youngblood discussed the dealer component of the APS, both as a membership organization and in the various shows we sponsor, are an extraordinarily important group of members to us and in many ways are not adequately represented as a voice to the Board. We discussed this at some length and are coming up with some ideas on how to make sure the dealer community has more access to the Board and APS. We hope to come up with some ideas by our next meeting in Providence in August.

Nancy Clark presented a report from the new Finance Committee particularly relating on how the APS invests its money. We have a very large investment fund of several million dollars. We have a new Finance Committee with some very active people. Clark will talk more about that later. The Finance Committee reported to the Board and asked for a new policy of investing the money. We hope to get more money on these investments to protect the long-range financial integrity of the American Philatelic Society. There were a few housekeeping amendments that have to do with some of our investment funds and how they are listed in the bylaws that we acted upon.

Janet Klug, in her capacity as Chairman of the Committee on the Accreditation of National Exhibitions and Judges, has been working with some of the English-speaking countries to work out reciprocity for exhibiting and judging between these countries. Klug presented a proposed agreement to the Board on exchanging judges at the national level between Australia and the United States through the APS. That was approved by the Board. We already have a similar agreement with Canada that has been in place for several years.

Mr. Peter Simmons, the CEO of a company called OneWorld Video, is very interested in having the Society assist in producing a pilot for a TV series on stamp collecting. The Board was extremely interested in his presentation. If we think of going forward with this project we would have to put in some seed money for the pilot. We have not decided to do that yet. One of the questions we had was that if we decided to do that we would be promoting not only stamp collecting but the American Philatelic Society as well.

[Question from floor: What is the amount of the seed money?]

McCann: Simmons said to do one pilot would cost approximately $30,000. That is a fair amount of money, so we are thinking about it very seriously. The idea is that if we spent that money we would have to have a means of making sure we got the investment back.

We had a report from Robert Lamb on how our Sales Division is going through drastic changes in response to the presence of the Internet. Lamb presented to the Board in some detail how the APS will be going online with a good part of the Sales Division in the future.

[McCann interrupted his report to introduce Len Lukens, general chairman of the show. Lukens came forward to introduce some of his committee and thanked the American Philatelic Society for coming to Portland.]

The subject we spent more time on in the Board meeting than any other was the feasibility of expanding our building in State College and the requirements for space in the American Philatelic Research Library. There is no question we need more space for the library. We had a library consultant, Dr. Charles Lowry, who has met with us now at two Board meetings. He is the dean of libraries at the University of Maryland in College Park and an expert in libraries. He has done a very systematic and scientific analysis of our library needs. He filed a copy of the report with us. It will be available to any of the membership who would like a copy, and we will put a summary of it on our website. Dr. Lowry advised us we need more space in the library within the next two years or the library will become much less functional. Along with that we do need other space for many of our other functions. Our Expertizing service is very cramped. What used to be our auditorium, August Hall, will soon become the new Internet Sales Division. The Board is looking at this very carefully. We listened to testimony from Ken Lawrence, the chairman of the committee to look at the feasibility of this expansion. We listened to Mr. Robert Hoffman, a local architect, who has given us a preliminary plan of what such a renovation to the building might look like. The Board is being very hard nosed about this. It is looking at it in a very professional and business-like manner. We have charged Ken Lawrence's committee to come back to us at the next Board meeting to make further recommendations on the building, how much it will cost, and how it will be financed. We will not just write a check for the expenses. We have to figure out a way of raising the money externally. It is an important decision and we are taking it very seriously. We will keep the members informed all along the way.

McCann called on other officers for their reports.

Vice-President Morison: The Board of Vice Presidents has been working very hard since we took office last August. We haven't had as many cases and problems as we have had in the preceding year. The Board of Vice Presidents is charged with taking and receiving complaints that members and non-members of the Society have and investigating them and conducting a hearing if necessary. We then render a decision as to whether the accused is worthy of remaining a member of the Society. We are the ethics police. Those who do make a complaint can request a hearing and appear before the Board of Vice Presidents to present testimony. We then render a decision which could be anything from dismissal of the complaint, probation, suspension, or expulsion. The person who faces expulsion or any other punitive actions the Board of Vice Presidents decides can appeal to the Appeals Tribunal of the American Philatelic Society. The Appeals Tribunal is the Board of Directors of the APS, minus the Board of Vice Presidents. There is extensive process to insure fairness in the decision. We had fewer complaints on which to render decisions in the past six months, so maybe that means the members are living up to the APS Code of Ethics.

Credit should be given to Helen Bruno of the American Philatelic Society. She is Director of Complaints and is the first step in the process. She is able to resolve a majority of the complaints and the Board of Vice Presidents never sees them. Most of the problems are problems of communication. Helen works hard to resolve these problems, but if she is unsuccessful that is when the Board of Vice Presidents becomes involved.

Secretary Klug: Klug has taken minutes at the Board Meetings and General Meetings of the American Philatelic Society and signed all legal documents of the Society according to the bylaws.

Treasurer Clark: As Treasurer of the Society Clark has faithfully exercised the duties as set out in the bylaws, signed the vouchers, and assumed fiduciary oversight attending to the financial well being of the Society.

We had a meeting of the Finance Committee in State College. Clark commended the staff for taking good care of the Committee, especially Scott Frazier, our controller, and Bob Lamb, our Executive Director. In addition to the Finance Committee, we also had five members of the Board attend the Finance Committee meeting. As a direct result, we have asked for and the Board has approved a bylaw amendment so that the Tiffany endowment fund is included in a similar manner to other Society funds in the bylaws. It will go through the Bylaw Committee and it will come to the membership for a vote. It is a housekeeping bylaw.

We have created a simplified financial report that goes out monthly to the Board. Members may request a copy by writing to State College. We have created a revised Statement of Objectives Policy and Guidelines for use by the investment advisers. The Society has approximately $6 million in investments. It is important that it be managed in the Society's best interests, and that is the purpose of this. Fortunately, on the Finance Committee we have Al Kugel, who is a very respected financial analyst in his own right, and he and Ken Lawrence worked out the basics on this. Attorney David Flood reviewed it and the Board approved it.

We are rebidding the contract for the manager of the Society's portfolio and we have also ordered an audit of the Sales Division by the accounting firm Richie, Cox, Hollis, Neal and Pine P.C. We don't anticipate any significant irregularities. We do feel it is prudent to have accurate figures because it is an $11.7 million liability. We are ordering that audit.

The Society's finances are in good order. The policy of the Board has been in the past to use non-dues income to support aspects of the Society not intended to be fund raising, such as the Education Department, the Youth Program, and the library. As in past years, we operate at a deficit but it is offset by the income of the Society's investments for a net positive growth of $35,000 as of December 31, 1999. The APRL has paid down its mortgage to the APS by $90,000 and now only owes the APS $10,000 on its mortgage.

McCann: Invited other Board members to speak if they had any points for discussion.

Youngblood: Our accessibility to the membership is not just limited to the meetings we attend. Our names, addresses, e-mail addresses, phone numbers are regularly published in American Philatelist. If members ever have concerns, ideas for the growth of the Society, anything you feel would be helpful we are all very happy to hear from you and do our best to represent any view you may have.

McCann: A lot of the items we have in our agenda that we decide to do have been initiated by individual members. We listen.

McCann introduced Executive Director Robert Lamb.

Lamb: Has been associated with the American Philatelic Society as Executive Director for about six years. He enjoys it because it is a wonderful organization that does a lot for philately. This morning Dave Flood and Lamb spent a considerable amount of time trying to figure out how we can legally confiscate a shipment of fake covers that has come in from out of the country that we have been able to locate. We would like to keep it from getting into circulation.

Another thing we did to represent the membership is in November President McCann wrote a letter to Azeez Jaffer expressing the concerns of our members about the high value stamps the Postal Service is issuing this year and the sheets they are coming out with so they are not limited distribution. We want all of our members to have the opportunity to buy these stamps. The Postal Service just issued a press release last week acknowledging this letter and saying they were going to make sure that collectors have a reasonable opportunity to buy them. The Postal Service now seems interested in trying to be more attentive to what collectors want. Azeez Jaffer joined the American Philatelic Society in December.

For the last two years the Society's membership has been declining. We have been working very hard to turn this around. It is important to us to maintain a strong membership in order to do the things for all of you we want to do. In the last 90 days, our applications are up 11%, our reinstatements are up 12%, and our resignations are down 14%. Lamb couldn't say for sure that we have reversed the trend, but it is a start.

Financially, as Nancy Clark has told you, that the Society is in good shape financially. The APS has $6 million in investments. We also have assets that are not even on the books. The library itself is worth $2 million. We have a reference collection worth $1 million. The Society is in sound financial shape. We didn't make as much money as we would have liked in the past year. We only gained $35,000 in net assets compared to last year when we grew $335,000. We have got to get our new investment policy in place so that we can continue with a strong foundation for the Society.

One of the reasons we can afford such positive results financially is because of the generosity of our membership. You gave us $110,000 in cash last year. That is a lot of money. It pays for our youth program, it pays for a lot of services we do for our membership without our having to increase our dues. That is a very large number when you consider there were no large estates in there, and we had no major fund raiser. That was 2,675 individual contributions. We are very grateful. The greatest increase for us was in in kind contributions. We got over $1 million through in kind contributions. That came mostly from stamp collections. We like all of the stamps that are given to us. We take the low end material and use that in the youth program. We recycle that very quickly to the All Star Stamp Clubs and other kinds of programs to help kids and beginners get started in the hobby. You may have stamps at home that you think nobody wants. The truth of the matter is they are really very helpful to us if you decide to dispose of them. We take the medium and high end material. Mercer Bristow goes over it first to see if any of it is needed for the reference collection. We process it and eventually it will end up auctioning it off after a few years and it goes into the Society treasury. Yesterday afternoon Lamb received a check for $27,997.75 from Harmer and Schau Auctions for estates that had been left to us by members, in this case primarily in Northern California. These are really important to us. It helps the Society a great deal and we are very grateful.

Many of our activities have moved to the Internet. Members are expecting more from us on the Internet. We can reach a new segment of the collecting community through the Internet. We have started a new website. In February we brought it in house. Lamb hopes everyone has been at least once to www.stamps.org. If you haven't and you have access to the Internet, go home tonight and look at it. We are really pleased with what is there and it is growing. Almost every day something new is going up on it.

[Member Ted Bahry asked for a show of hands of how many have access to the Internet. Nearly everyone present raised their hand.]

Lamb: The point was just made rather dramatically. If we'd had that same vote five years ago, we probably would not have gotten two good rows of membership. You see how quickly that shift is occurring. In May of last year for the first time over half of new applicants to the Society reported to us that they had an e-mail address.

The Sales Division is strong. Last year at the Board meeting in Cleveland the Sales Division inventory had declined 10%. People began calling to ask if they should pull their stamps out of the Sales Division. We dropped down to about $11 million in inventory. It is a healthy organization. What we are seeing is a restructuring taking place. We are getting a lot of competition from the Internet traders. The more expensive items are being sold outside of the Sales Division. We are getting almost the same number of books, but the value of the books is less because we are getting more low end material. We will have to take that into account in the future. The Sales Division will be around for a long time because it is today and will be for a long time to come the best place in philately to buy and sell low priced stamps. In the Sales Division while the inventory has dropped 11%, the sales have only dropped about 2 1/2%. We have about 8,000 members who are buying or selling in the Sales Division right now.

We also want to offer our members Internet Sales. We hope to have a system up and running for that by mid to late summer. More information will be released on that at a later date.

We are working on correspondence courses for the Internet. We hope to have a correspondence course on beginning collecting shortly. We have deliberately chosen beginning collecting as the first subject because we want to reach out to people that we need to provide better services to. It will be a good instructional tool that will allow us to do things for all our members.

We have had a Stamp Saturday program going for a number of years. This filled a need in the hobby. It is aimed at teaching adult collectors about the fundamentals of the hobby. There were some youth programs out there but there was nothing for adult collectors. We were really surprised when we did this. We thought this would be a way to bring in new members. What we found was that the courses were being filled by our members who wanted to know more about the fundamentals of the hobby, and by their wives who have been seeing their husbands collecting stamps and wondering what they were doing.

The Expertizing Service has had a banner year. We have done some automation and streamlining of the Expertizing Service. Last year we had a record number of items submitted. That has happened in part because the Expertizing Service is good, but also because collectors are increasingly aware of the number of fakes that are out there. Out of the 6400 items that were submitted last year, about 20% of them were faked or altered. If you do find a faked or altered stamp, donate it to us and help us get it out of circulation.

One of the reasons the Society is strong and has been able to help members is because we have a good, supportive, generous membership. Thank you for that support.

New Business:

McCann: Invited members comments or questions.

A dealer member thanked the local committee for a great show. The attendance is very good. He thanked the local committee for the hospitality.

Ted Bahry: There is no Post Office sales booth here. Bahry understands the USPS has strange ways of accounting for sales at shows. Sometimes the local postmaster thinks it is too much of an expense to have a sales booth at a stamp show. Can APS do anything from headquarters to encourage the USPS to support our shows. A USPS sales booth brings in collectors who may not otherwise attend.

[There was random discussion on the floor about whether the USPS booth at the show was actually selling stamps, or simply there to apply postmarks. The USPS had a booth, but people were having difficulty getting them to sell stamps.]

Lamb: There is a USPS booth at this show back with the United Nations and other agencies.

Charles Peterson: A woman and her daughter went back to the canceling area to get the show cancel and was told by the USPS booth workers to go away and get an envelope and find a stamp somewhere to put on it. Peterson gave her two envelopes and she went back to the USPS booth and had to twist arms to get someone there to sell her a couple of stamps.

[More random comments about the USPS booth at the show not selling stamps.]

Steve Edmondson: His local club has found a solution by going to a small fourth class post office in the area. That postmaster is delighted to come to shows to sell stamps.

Lamb: APS has gone to USPS headquarters in Washington and asked for help at a particular show. Lamb promised to check into it and find out why we didn't get it here.

Adjournment:

McCann: Asked for the member with the lowest APS membership number to move for adjournment.

Motion: To adjourn the meeting. Moved by F. Burton Sellers (APS number 23867). Passed unanimously.