I’ll go first.
Local Clubs I belong(ed) to:
East Toronto Stamp Club ( 1 yr )
North Toronto Stamp Club (Continuous since 2004)
Barrie District Stamp Club (1 yr)
Nova Scotia Stamp Club (3 yrs)
British North America Philatelic Society (1 yr)
Royal Philatelic Society of Canada (2 yrs)
I have held executive roles at NTSC and director roles at the RPSC and NSSC. Taking on the various club executive roles (even as a back-up) are crucial to understanding the operations of our organizations for collaboration’s sake at a bare minimum. It is important to circulate within the executive roles to get to know, hands-on, the processes and routines that makes up the inter-connected stamp club ‘being’. Continual improvement of these processes is the benefit we should strive for as club executives. For the hobby at large, one of the benefits of serving in these club roles, is the building of skills, (e.g. leadership and social skills) that can be applied cross-functionally to other echelons of organized philately. I would encourage volunteering at stamp clubs to anyone already in or entering the hobby, or those about to. The rewards to both self and club, of chipping in, go beyond the mere task at hand.
Leon Matthys