My chapter counterpart in the Royal Philatelic Society of Canada and I met a few months ago in Toronto, as I discussed in my prior column. I can now report that additional inroads have been made with our coin-collecting friends in the American Numismatic Association.

Michael S. “Stan” Turrini sent me a letter around the holidays to introduce himself to me as the ANA’s newly appointed national coordinator for their Club Representative Program, the equivalent of the CAC. They are in the process of resurrecting their chapter publication, The Mint Mark, formerly published four times a year as part of their outreach efforts. The ANA currently has 33,000 members and is headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where they also operate a museum.

Take a look at the ANA’s website when you get a chance: http://www.money.org. Appropriately named, don’t you think? By the way, Michael is also an APS life member and president of the Vallejo Stamp Club in California, APS Chapter #1289.

I hope to be making a visit to Los Angeles October 10–12 to attend Sescal/Americas 2008, sponsored by the Federated Philatelic Clubs of Southern California, APS Chapter #246. This national World Series of Philately show is going “international” in celebration of the fortieth anniversary of The Federación Interamericana de Filatelia (FIAF), our hemisphere’s main philatelic organization. The event will feature 500 frames of competitive exhibits and sixty dealers from all over the world, with delegates coming from throughout North, Central, and South America. I have put in a request to hold an hour-long CAC forum at the show to meet with club representatives and interested collectors to discuss topics of interest. Won’t you join me? Check the Sescal schedule of events for the specific date and time.

Word continues to spread about the collection of more than 400 articles specifically about club operations and activities written by John Hotchner between 1977 and 1995 from his “Stamp Club Trading Post” column published in Stamp Collector. The issues discussed are just as relevant today as they were then, including growing club membership, ideas for meeting programs, avoiding “burn-out,” and so on.

For $3 postpaid to U.S. Chapters ($4 elsewhere) I’ll send you this collection on a 700 MB CD-ROM along with extras like the entire contents of the CAC website (including all CAC Newsletter issues from 1990 to date), a number of philatelic exhibits, a 2004 photo tour of APS headquarters, and the final version of the Washington 2006 website (with photos, newsletters, articles, philatelic gems, the Palmares, and much more). Everything is PC and MAC compatible and accessible in HTML format. Send payment in U.S. funds with checks made payable to “Tom Fortunato” to: Hotchner CD-ROM, c/o Tom Fortunato, 28 Amberwood Place, Rochester, NY 14626-4166.

The latest CAC Newsletter is now available on the CAC website at www.stamps.org/cac/cac_arch.htm. Featured articles in this issue include: Promoting Your Club or Affiliate with an ‘Information Kit’, Stamp Collecting Month Cancel Available for October, Online Exhibits: A Growing Trend, and Bob Quintero Responds to ‘Without Them ... The Dealers’.

As always, send me your Chapter’s news for this column. E-mail me at stamptmf@frontiernet.net or write to me at the address mentioned above.