30th anniversary
Thirty years is a pretty good excuse to make a balance of things done and a list of things to still do.
The minute for the foundation of our Centro was signed by nine collectors and after one year the membership quantity was only something more than twenty. Today we have surpassed 300 members and, in a meeting of Directors, more new members than those who signed the primitive minute are approved.
First meetings of Directors Board were made at the private home of the Secretary (the remembered Pedro D. Conno); then we travelled through many loaned premises or with some kind of arrengement that enabled us to use them. A happy event allowed us to acquire our first own premises at the «Pasaje Barolo»; a member (Alberto «Coco» Derman) forwarded the funds for this. In 1989, who is writing this, being President for the first time, could convince the then Secretary Jorge Janson to take a look at the building that seemed very fitting for our increased needs. A rainy Wednesday in the morning, a Secretary resigned to see only an old house and, more as a personal favor than by conviction, visited the house in San Juan 2630, we ran together over it and, in a few hours, in that very evening, more than forty members of our Centro met there and settled the purchase, in an amount that, we hadn’t of course, but collected with a loan from many of the present members without any interest nor a payment maturity. Glorious times that are leaving, step by step, to the more prosaic and needed task of manteinance of our premises.
Let us remember, on the other hand, that our «Cuadernos de Numismática» have surpassed 100 issues and 25 years of edition. The quality reached also surpassed to many publications (if not all) in Spanish language and, even, in other languages and besides in these years a second publication became well known: «El Telégrafo del Centro», with no formalities, informs to the membership the news around, publishes small articles and is our main battlehorse for exchanges and diffusion campaigns.
Other tasks remain for the future, besides of finishing the repairs, that we hope to face harder. The informatization of the library contents, which is still very delayed, the increase of it, up to now mainly because of our members’ donations. Every numismatic author of these years have donated one copy of their writings, and the above quoted trades, have approached us to a vast number of institutions world wide, that send us their publications and receive our owns in trade.
For ending, we don’t lack ideas but not always have volunteers to carry them on to good terms, and with this I’ll finish these words, calling to all our members to collaborate.
Thanks to you all, and Happy Anniversary!
Daniel H. Villamayor