We had our WCIC’12 meet at Footloose Caboose, near Camrose, on July 21-22. This beautiful site was the same spot as last year’s successful meet. Eva provides a great location and good food! Many thanks to Eva Loranger for her hospitality and her efforts to publicize this event. Also many thanks to Reid Ryder who worked awfully hard, spent a lot of time and used up a lot of miles to set this up. Eva had encouraged a flea market as well, so we brought along other collectibles and books to sell.
Although Reid and I were the only collectors who showed up to set up display tables, we met a few folks who made the trek to Camrose specifically for this. A delightful collecting family came specifically for this event, having read about it on-line. The two youngsters were so doggone knowledgeable about styles, colours and nicknames, it was humbling. The adults have already succumbed to the ‘decorate with insulators’ phase. The two youngsters sent me thank-you notes with pictures.
A (re)new(ed) collector also made his way out from Calgary to start over again. Jim had an amazing collection some years ago, sold it, rested a few years and now is leaping back. He had enough to set up a sales table and we had great chats. Another newbie showed up from Edmonton, who had tracked Reid down via a circuitous route, only to find that they lived a few blocks from each other!
Eva and Reid went to a lot of effort to publicize in the local paper, on-line and put up signs. After all that, our turn-out of displayers was poor (2) although we sure enjoyed the weekend and the new folks we met. I don’t spend a lot of time on the computer and forums any more but I always find our meets to be fun and refreshing and always find something new. I thoroughly enjoy our visits and chats. Going back to the Reid’s invitation on the Canadian Forum on ICON, I saw I was the only respondent even though there were a good number of hits.
It is time to pose these questions and see if there is still interest to carry on. I realize that all are busy and there are other priorities, but the meets are a good time if people manage to get there. Remember this from way back? "What if you threw a party and nobody showed up?" Here are the options:
a. Is it time for WCIC to fade away? Our only function is to have a once a year meet, to get together to visit and chat, meet some new people, encourage new collectors and relax a bit. Is this enough? There are no other club responsibilities but there is a fair amount of work and expense for the hosts to try to set this up.
b. Should we move it back to Drumheller? Is this an easier site to access despite the beauty of Footloose Caboose?
c. Open our meets up a bit more and encourage other collectors? Have a collectibles meet along with insulators?
d. Is there a problem with getting in touch with people? On-line? Personal contact? Reid had a few responses from people who couldn't make it (thank you to them), I had no calls or queries of any kind even though I had hosted for several years.
What do you think, folks?