From Club President – Christopher J. Palermo
Winter both brings our club year to a close and opens the best time of the year to work on stamps. As colder, wetter weather means more indoors days, these are the ideal times to reach further completion of your key collections, explore a new interest or mount accumulated material.
Now is also the time when many of us reflect on the year, both by giving thanks for the incredible wealth of landscape, people and experiences we enjoy in the Bay Area, and by planning for the future. Now is the time to thank those around us for all they have contributed to our hobby. Consider making a year-end gift to a philatelic association, or to our youth program. Express thanks to everyone in our club who has contributed so much to the past year: our silent auction team who has cheerfully handled the accounting details for hundreds of silent auction lots; our live auction team, especially Jim, who have done huge amounts of work to sort, select, and price live auction lots; our youth team who have sent out (by their count) about 90,000 stamps over the course of the year; our Vice President who kept our meeting programs running; the PENPEX Board and our numerous show volunteers; and everyone else who has made a material contribution to our club. Any effective club is only as good as its volunteer members and we have great ones!
From me, a hearty THANK YOU to you, who have sustained our club with our membership, always had a good word for me and helped me find the right path to lead us over the past year. I look forward to 2018 and hearing more about your collecting triumphs; please share them with the club via a talk, slide presentation or even a quick show-and-tell. Merry Christmas, Happy
Hanukkah, and warmest wishes for a happy New Year.