Fast start for Mishler at ANA

I had a telephone call from Cliff Mishler yesterday afternoon. He was in Colorado Springs, Colo., at the headquarters of the American Numismatic Association.

He was laying the groundwork for his two-year ANA presidency after being sworn in Saturday night and he wanted to fill me in on a few things. He also telephoned other media outlets to tell them the same thing.

Already he has a schedule for the board that board members can look at and plan for and so can I. That is something that I have never had in such detail before.
Consider the board’s schedule in the next 12 months.

There will be four face-to-face meetings and four telephone conferences.

The meetings will start with one in Colorado Springs Oct. 12-13. There will be executive sessions and public sessions. In recent years this has most often been simply executive sessions. Any open sessions had been dropped in at the last minute. Do I want to come? I have to do some pretty fancy dancing for my publisher to justify the last-minute expenses. Our budget, like many others, is set a year ahead of time.

The next board meeting will be at the Florida United Numismatists convention Jan. 8, 2010.

Then Fort Worth March 25-28 for the National Money Show and then the Boston World’s Fair of Money starting Aug. 11, 2010.

Board conference calls are already scheduled for Nov. 17, Feb. 16, May 11 and June 22. There will be public portions that I and others will be allowed to listen in on.

Mishler pledged to do as much business as possible in open session to even avoid an impression of doing too much in secret.

He admits that even in light of the many lawsuits that are currently in the process of resolution, too much business was conducted out of sight. He is working to change that.
I wish him luck. I think most ANA members feel as I do.

Has a new era dawned? We’ll see.

Now we have to stand back and let the new board function. I can write up a report card next year.