To commemorate the fact that the Club now has a new Chapter (Slot Cards and Room Keys, or is it Slot Card and Room Key?) and for the fact that there is a new OTY Awards category (Slot Cards/Room Keys) an effort was made to create a Convention Card/Key.

Conceptually, the Convention Card/Key would be created each year in the same manner as the Convention medals, Convention chip, Convention pin, Convention T-shirt and Convention woods. For the inaugural year it was decided to not run a design contest because there was not enough time once the decision to do a card was made.

Initially, pricing was obtained to create and print cards, but the minimum quantatity was excessive and overall cost was too prohibitive, so the idea was put to the backburner.

Later on, Ralph Myers (Club Membership Officer) explored the feasibility to discontinue issing Club membership cards as paper cards and replace them with plastic cards. That exploration has yielded a new Club Membership card (which I will allow Ralph to announce with greater details, although he did make the announcement at the Convention Banquet).

The artwork for the new membership card includes the Club logo and in a discussion with Scott Brady of Able Card, he offered to include a cluster of Convention cards as long as the design was simple.

Since he already had the Club logo, I simply added the winning design entry for the Convention T-Shirt contest and asked Scott to include insertion arrows. (Both of which were placed correctly! )

We targeted a run of 250, however in the final analysis, 183 were shipped. As part of Ralph's project to move to plastic membership cards, it includes a card printing machine, but it was received too late to make operational during the Convention.

The plan had been to begin issuing new Club Member cards at the Convention. Additionally, if you look at the Convention Card, you will see that the artwork is horizontally off-center. This was done on purpose to leave room at the bottom of the card to print a members's name (for an additional $1) when the card was purchased at the Promotions Table, which was right next to the Membership Table.

In any event, the Convention Cards were SOLD OUT. Once the card printer is set-up, we will be able to print a member name to a card for the $1 fee, however, this will need to be coordinated to the Promotions Director and not the Membership Officer. An announcement will be made when this capability is ready, and yes, those with a card will have to send it to the Promotions Director in Las Vegas, along with an SASE.

I expect that next year's Convention will include a Convention Card, however it will be my recommendation (to the Club's BOD) to have a design contest and for the juding to be conducted by the Card/Key Chapter.

I want to thank Scott Brady of Able Card in allowing these cards to be "tacked on" to the bigger card order.

Jim Follis