Story updated February 26th, 8:00 pm EST
American Philatelic Society executive director Scott English says the APS must change.
“The hobby’s not dying, organized philately is,” he said in his report to the APS General Membership Meeting at AmeriStamp Expo 2018 in Birmingham, Alabama, Saturday, February 24th.
He said the organization is faced with “a choice between dying with dignity or fighting like hell. You didn’t bring me here [to be executive director] for dying with dignity.”
English is calling for the APS to invest in a three-step process:
- Marketing, using social media and the Internet;
- Producing a newsletter distributed to people who are not members; and
- Changing the website to provide more content.
“We have to change the way we access the hobby,” English said. He wants the APS to “invest in platforms to bring shows and events to you.”
“I don’t want to keep doing what we’ve been doing,” he said.
Later, in response to a question from a member that not only asked how the APS was going to do this, but expressed hope that the effort would not involve Facebook, English pointed out that Facebook’s demographic is 35 to 50 years old. “That’s the demographic we need.”
He sees Facebook and social media not as a platform, but “as a way to drive traffic to us.”
And he closed by promising, “By the end of the year, you won’t recognize the APS.”
“I think right now we have a fairly one-dimensional representation of the hobby and of the APS,” English told The Virtual Stamp Club in an interview. “What we’re working on aggressively right now is building out a much more comprehensive view of the hobby and the services that the APS can provide.
“We’re going to integrate more with the technology. We’re going to have a bigger web presence, we’re going to have a bigger social media presence,” he said. “We’re going to increase the amount of content that’s coming through the APS website, because we want to be able to market to a bigger and broader audience than we’ve ever been able to.”
Yes, there are going to be online courses and videos of courses presented at shows, beginning with the “On The Road” courses being offered at PIPEX this year.
“We’re actually going to send someone with a camera and we’re going to record the session,” giving members an opportunity to see the programs on their own schedules.
Next will be the programs at Summer Seminar. “If it just doesn’t work out on your schedule, [you] shouldn’t have to miss out on the education opportunities.”
“We’ve got great equipment now [so] that we can do this, so it’s going to look professional,” he added. “They’re going to hear the instructor speaking, they’re going to see the graphics from the PowerPoint presentations on the wall, and they’ll be able to engage.
“As we continue to build out [our capacity and our ability to do it], I want to be able to do it live,” English added.
“I want to harness the power of just incredibly brilliant people who belong to the APS, and from the comfort of their own home, be able to get online and engage with collectors on a specific topic for, say, a one-hour session, at a time that works for everybody,” he added.
The 150 people who attended OTR courses last year was much higher than ever before and was even higher than the target number, but it’s only a fraction of the 30,000 members of the APS.
And only four people attended the OTR course at AmeriStamp Expo 2018 (“The Black Heritage Series, Preserving Our History”), but English says he has had many inquiries about that subject, with members asking if it will be offered again.
Why didn’t I just do it once and then I can just get them to the website as a member of the APS and say, ‘Here you go. Watch it and enjoy it. Watch again if you like it,'” he said.
My message to APS has been offer something people want and they will join. In my discussions with Scott, he looks at most online content as revenue opportunities. This is a mistake until you get a base. At shows, they also view seminars as an after thought.
For the member who did not like Facebook, the person obviously lives in the past. Like other venues, for all its negatives there are some positives.
Those who do not like Facebook are not living in the past. Facebook is an advertising sales medium, and some of us who once were registered with Facebook left because the ads and “news” interspersed within our posts were not appreciated.
I would ad that much needs to be done with the APS Stampstore offerings where stamps are overpriced and sometimes misdescribed, invariably to some arbitrary higher price. The quality is not the best making it difficult for those of who have bought online for over 20 years to suggest to newcomers they check out the APS store to buy stamps.
Facebook brings people to VSC too since Lloyd posted the teaser on Facebook. Exploit it where you can.
I have commented a lot of ideas over the last copy of years, some are still being looked at on how to attract new members. But, one area seems to fall on deaf ears, the young collectors. Did you know that the APS has two programs for children 6 to 17 years of age (YSCA) and young adults 16 to 24 (YPLF)?
I have questioned why doesn’t the APS list the youth membership in the same section as regular membership. The information can be found under “Young Collectors” on the left sidebar after you have gone to the top menu bar and hit “Services,” just a little buried. For the longest time, I didn’t know APS had any youth programs until I started asking about one when my two grandchildren who began collecting due to another child in their neighborhood showing them his collection. That was three years ago; my daughter will not let them join YSCA as they would have to go online to receive the newsletter and at 8 & 12 years of age, she would let them participate in YSCA as they are monitored for everything they see online, and the house only has one computer. Yes, no snail mail newsletters for the YSCA, here we are lamenting that snail mail which is dying due to e-mails and the YSCA will only communicate online through the computer. I know that I looked forward to getting mail as a child and my granddaughter currently does too. She grabs every magazine that comes to the house and has a read comprehension of a much older child.
Two last thoughts on membership. You are currently doing things that will help your memberships to drop more than the 900+ of the previous year. First children in other countries, like Canada and other English speaking areas, may not join the YSCA due to the full name of Young Stamp Collectors of America. Now you offer membership rates to Canada ($58.00) and other Countries ($68.00), so you must be getting members from those areas, or you wouldn’t offer the rates. (Hear me out before you get upset) Drop the words “of America”; the YSCA are already part of the American Philatelic Society, and to a child’s mind in other countries that current name would indicate that only American children can join the YSCA.
The last thought tonight on membership. I also belong to the American Topical Association (ATA). If you look to see if they have a youth program, it is in the main top menu bar; and listed in the membership rates page also. But, I wanted to point out that ATA offers a discount if you do not have a magazine mailed out just receive it online. For American members, ATA discounts it $10.00, but for international it about half ($45/$25). The APS has an electronic/digital offer, but it is the same price for American members as the printed and digital together at $48.00. Now Canada gets a $10.00 discount, and everywhere else gets a $20.00 discount if they go electronic/digital APS magazine. I would have hoped that the savings in printing and postage would have been applied to a discount, not the full amount of savings but something would be helpful for the U.S. members too.
Jim,
Instead of aiming so high as to change the policies of a national organization, perhaps you may want to start a bit smaller and change your own attitude. You could join the YSCA as an adult member for your grandchildren. You would then be able to print out two copies of the electronic newsletter, put them in envelopes, add some colorful stamps they would be interested in, and mail them to each of your grandchildren. I’m sure they would love getting a nice big envelope in the mail on a regular basis addressed directly to them. You would not only be keeping up their interest in stamp collecting, you would be keeping in touch with them. You might even go so far as to encourage them to write letters back to you.
If you have the time, and interest in doing so, you could also keep in touch between newsletters by working on the stamp activities from the YSCA newsletters with your grandchildren. Some of this activity might be carried on over the phone, by email, as well as postal mail. Helping children get in the habit of using postal mail is never wasted effort.
The focus of the APS, and their programs like the YSCA, is on stamp collectors in this country. That’s nothing to be ashamed about. While it is the focus, it is not the boundaries of the organization. American stamp collectors of American stamps naturally get interested in stamps from other nations, and many stamp collectors from other nations also become interested in collecting American stamps. I’m willing to bet that for many worldwide collectors becoming a member of the “American” APS is viewed as something pretty special.
Art
Scott English has stated that there will be no discounts in APS dues for just the electronic edition. I suspect they are afraid too many would drop it driving up printing costs plus some advertisers may not like it and they may want the full revenue. If I read the budget correctly, the journal has a cost $678K so around $22 per member.
I’ve just updated the story, including specific comments about recording seminars, etc.
Scott’s comments is what I have been proposing. This is a change from several months ago so something has changed (new editor with marketing experience).
What I laid out is the evolution from our 2016 strategic plan and the appeal to support our technology campaign in 2017. As I’ve been working on specific plans to implement the vision and create a message for our membership, the presentation helped bring it all together.
Adding folks who see the vision and can help implement has been a huge help.
I am psyched that you will be posting the educational programs on line. Please make every effort to ensure excellent sound quality. If high school students with iPhones and a couple of cheap Bluetooth microphones can make high quality short movies….
I am one of the “new generation” of collectors. Female , age 54, started collecting 6 years ago, no one in my family collected, and I work more than full time. There are no clubs within a 30 min drive where I live. I used online resources to learn about the hobby. I buy online- eBay, Delcampe, Hipstamp, Mystic, and those cachetmakers who have an online presence. My first stamp show was the World Stamp Show in NY. Everyone I meet there from dealers to collectors to volunteers was so welcoming and helpful. Thanks to Vera Felts at ATA, I now collect 6 more topicals. We are out here, looking for resources, needing information- this is an affordable hobby you can do alone, with others, at your own pace, and doesn’t (usually) take up much space. Hoping to make it to the APS/ATA show.
Final revision done, although I still need to add the subject of the OTR course at PIPEX this year.
I would love more online options to attend sessions and interact with other collectors. I live in a fairly small college town; there are no clubs within driving distance and few conferences within a day’s drive. Connecting the hobby through social media could greatly expand its reach. Using common hashtags on Twitter, for example, could introduce folks with an interest in a topic to related philatelic areas.