.

Looking forward, I plan to work closely with our officers, volunteers and members over the next two years to keep our organization growing and to continue expanding knowledge of our hobby among the general public. My plans are to focus on the following three tasks that are of critical importance to us all:

• Modify and add to the web site as necessary to make it more useful and of greater value to our membership and to enhance the appeal of the hobby to the general public.

• Work with the board of directors and officers to formulate and begin execution of a strategic plan to “market” our hobby to the public.

• Work with the officers on our various corporate affairs, including but not limited to financial management, records, insurance and IRS non-profit status.

All of our past presidents have been very accessible to the membership and I plan to continue that tradition. Please email me at erickjohnson@cox.net with any recommendations, suggestions or comments you may have. I will respond personally to every email I receive from our membership. If you see me at the Chicagoland show or at the upcoming convention (July 23 – 25, 2010) in North Carolina , please introduce yourself if I don’t already know you.

Our next meeting will be held on Friday, April 9, 2010 at the Hilton Garden Inn St. Charles. The cash bar will open at 5:30 p.m. (note the later start time), with dinner at 6:00 p.m. and the meeting will start at 6:30 p.m. Please email Marsha Blau (foxsnake@aol.com) if you have any questions regarding the meeting.

If you are receiving this magazine, that means you are a member of COCA. Since our club is what we make it, I want to encourage you to participate as much as possible in our events and to bring new members into the club whenever you can.

Thank you all in advance and I look forward to serving you all.

Erick Johnson
COCA President

.

.

It’s hard for me to believe that it has been four years since I was elected President of COCA. I hope that you will continue to give the same great support that I received these last four years to the incoming executive board.

My sincere thanks go to my co-officers, committee chairmen, convention chairmen, local gathering chairmen and those who work diligently on the COCA Times Magazine and our website.

We are approaching 700 members and continue to grow! Thanks to your input and support, COCA has become an even greater value and resource to our hobby and its enthusiasts. Now is the time to renew your membership dues for 2010. Although the economy has affected all of us I hope you will keep your membership active and our club going and growing.

Our annual convention was held in San Francisco this summer. We saw some fabulous machines and made many new friends. We also had very successful local gatherings in Arizona, North Carolina, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Texas. Thanks to all of the hosts for these great coin-op social events.

Our Texas gathering at Craig and Doreen Bierman’s home resulted in 30 new members-WOW! We must continue to grow these gatherings in other regions. Please consider hosting a gathering in your area.

Our next meeting will be on Friday, November 13, at the Hilton St. Charles IL. The cash bar will open at 5:00 p.m., followed by dinner at 5:30 and the meeting and election of officers at 6. Tim LaGanke will be our guest speaker. See Meeting Announcement.

Buffet dinner cost is $15 per person. Contact Marsha Blau for our new menu details and reservations (414-352-7623, or via email at: Foxsnake@aol.com).

I have been fortunate to receive help from many of you during these past four years. You have made my job an easy one. Thank you for all of your hard work, phone calls, e-mails, handshakes and hugs. I hope that I may return the favors soon.

Bill Petrochuk
COCA President

.

.

If you guessed “When are we going to Jasper’s?” You’re right!

Our next visit will be on Friday April 3, 2009 in conjunction with the Chicagoland show. We will once again return to The Sanfilippo ‘Victorian Palace’, known worldwide for its magnificent collections of arcade and gambling machines, music machines, and the world’s largest theatre pipe organ. We will also tour the fabulous Eden Palais Carousel building.

We will meet at the Hilton Garden Inn at 5:00 for check in and cash bar. The $10 pasta/salad buffet will open at 5:15 and we will have a short meeting during dinner. We hope to leave via car by 6:00. Each person will have to arrange their own transportation. Pre-registration is highly recommended.

The cost to tour Jasper’s is $20 per person. All of the money goes to The Sanfillippo trust. Each member may bring one guest.

Please send your check for $20 per person to our Vice President:

Marsha Blau
7623 N. Lake Drive
Fox Point, WI 53217

We have locked in room rates at the Hilton for 2009 and 2010 at $99 per room. Suites are $159. Call the Hotel at 630-584-0700 and request the COCA rate when making your reservation. There is a limited number or rooms available.

Our annual convention will be held in San Francisco on July 17-19 2009. The convention is limited to the first 80 people that sign up. The hotel cost is only $90 per room per night. Registration fees are $140 per person. For more details call Bill Howard at 330-376-3607 (day) or 330-864-0844 (eve).

There will be local gatherings in Wisconsin, Ohio and North Carolina during 2009. These gatherings are open to all members and their guests. Please contact the host listed in the coin op calendar to RSVP as space may be limited. If there is no local gathering near you please contact me at 919-304-4455 from 8-8 Eastern.

Bill Petrochuk
COCA President

Reservation Form form for

April 2009 COCA Meeting Dinner and Trip to Jaspers

.

.

Hopefully the member information update that we conducted in September was a success. Thanks to all of you that took the time to update your info and pay your dues in a timely manner. Our membership is approaching 650 and still growing. If you did not yet renew, contact Treas. Doug Cain at LDougCain@aol.com .

Successful local gatherings were held in California, Ohio, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Arizona. Thanks to all of the hosts for doing their part for COCA. We hope to continue meeting locally and need your help. If you would like to host a local gathering in 2009, please call me at 919-304-4455 for details.

Our next meeting will be on Friday, November 14, at the Hilton Garden Inn, St. Charles IL. The cash bar and check in will begin at 5:30. An optional lasagna dinner buffet will follow at 6:00 and will include lasagna, fresh rolls, salad and dessert. The meeting will begin at 6:30.

Our featured speaker will be Walter Reed. He was PR Director for 31 years for the National Automatic Merchandising Association and an international consultant to companies in the vending business worldwide. He was the chief spokesman for the vending industry of the USA and one of its few international historians. All of our members are sure to enjoy his dynamic and lively stories about the glory years of coin-op and vending. We will also be discussing a possible future trip to Jaspers at the meeting.

The price for the dinner buffet will be $10 per person. Please call VP Marsha Blau at 414-352-7623 to make dinner reservations or if you have any donations for door prizes or auction items. Early dinner payment and check-in may be done at the COCA booth in the Megacenter on Friday.

If you have any questions or comments please see me at the COCA booth in Chicago, contact me via the “email COCA’s President” section in the discussion forum at coinopclub.org or call me at 919-304-4455 from 8 to 8 Eastern.

Bill Petrochuk
COCA President

.

.

One member recently told me that what he liked most about our club is that it is INCLUSIVE and NOT EXCLUSIVE. He appreciated that all members were welcome at all of our events. He liked being welcome and wanted. I think we all like that feeling. Keep up the good work.

It has only been ten short years since we lost our best coin-op historian and writer, Richard M. Bueschel. Dick’s multitude of books and magazine articles continue to inspire and educate all coin operated machine collectors. During those ten years, what started as a group of guys swapping stories in front of the elevators at the Pheasant Run Hotel has grown to 622 members. In 2001 we published our first color magazine and launched our website. We will hold our fifth annual convention in New York City this September. I know that Dick is looking down at all of us with pride and guiding us to that next great find.

Doug Cain, Treasurer, has set up a PayPal account which will be available for next year’s dues payments due in November of 2008. An email will be sent to all members in September with information about this new option. This will also serve as a test of the email addresses on file. We currently do not have email addresses for 149 members and know that many others need to be updated. Anyone wishing to receive email from the club needs to make sure their email address is on file and correct by sending an email to Doug at coinop.doug@gmail.com Your email address will NOT be published and we promise not to spam you. We will also be asking you to update all of your contact information this fall when we send out the dues invoices. By updating your information now we hope to send out as many invoices as possible via email to help offset the cost of PayPal.

Thanks to the Blaus, Cains, and Ernsters for helping with our very successful April dinner meeting and to featured speaker Marshall Fey. We plan to continue this format on Friday November 14 at the Hilton Garden Inn, St. Charles IL. Check our website later this summer for full fall meeting details. Special room rates at the Hilton are $95 single and $98 double. Call the hotel at 630-584-0700 and identify yourself as a COCA member to get these rates.

I’d also like to thank all of our magazine advertisers. Without them our magazine could not be published. Please support our advertisers!

If you have any questions or comments please contact me via the email COCA’s President section in the discussion forum or call me at 919-304-4455 from 8A.M to 8 P.M Eastern.

Bill Petrochuk
COCA President

.