November 13, 2014

NEACA Members and Exhibitors,

Good morning ladies and gentlemen.

Cathy and I are all packed and ready to head south to Easton, MD for our annual Waterfowl Festival and Gun Show, hopefully with a bit warmer November than is predicted here near Albany. We see old friends, have a bit of a vacation and return via a stop at the Cranbury, NJ Lenox warehouse where we managed to leave about $3000 on our last trip. What can I say, Cathy likes nice things. So, guys and girls – check out our enclosed fliers for the upcoming shows and please send me some deposits – I think I may need an infusion.

Speaking of a vacation – we both can use one, no matter how short or even involving work – because we just spent a month or so doing inventory and cross checking for an overdue BATF inspection. Other than not being able to locate any suitable venue for a November – December show the time spent on this inspection made promoting one rather difficult, but we are now fully back in the swing of things; we will be in Allentown in December and enjoying the Holiday Season.

Right after our New Year’s celebration we hope to see you all at the City Center for our 97th Arms Fair in Saratoga Springs on January 2, 3, 4, 2015. All of our new Republican Congressmen, Senators and Governors will have been sworn in and our economy should start seeing a real upswing so I think the loyal Saratoga attendees will be out in droves. You surely don’t want to miss this much anticipated event, let us know that you plan on coming. In fact, many of you have already sent in for tables via the website or found one of our fliers at other shows. Thank you for showing your initiative and your loyalty to our NEACA events.

On the January flier you may have noticed our next Saratoga date of March 13, 14, 15, which is actually the second weekend, not the third in March but also conflicts with another show. Normally, January and March are a sellout unless we have cancellations and I’m sure it will be the same in 2015 because we have very loyal exhibitors and members. This date change also means that it is not on the Baltimore, MD show weekend

Among the other show fliers we have included a 2015 calendar which may come in handy as well as our confirmed show dates for various locations. Notice that we will have two shows in Saugerties, a new one on April 10, 11, 12 while also staying with the same time period as the 2014 show on June 12, 13, 14. I believe the Hunter Mountain Country Concert will again be June 12th through the 14th and perhaps bring more celebrities to our show. We believe there is ample public and exhibitor interest to warrant two Saugerties events; I would suggest making your motel reservations early.

Also notice our Newburgh dates are again on the same weekends as we had last year; May the weekend before Memorial Day but August will be the weekend prior to Labor Day not on the same weekend as 2014. This show will grow to be a great event and we are so very happy that we found this fine facility for our Southern Hudson Valley Arms Fair.

If you haven’t already signed up for Newburgh, I would suggest you send in the enclosed application as soon as possible if you want tables. All of the dealers who were there who also went to the other show that was fairly close to our area, told me they made more money at our shows in Newburgh and we also have a much better facility. I do admit however, ours is a little smaller venue, another reason you may want to act ASAP. Cathy will try to again, make some motel deals that we will post on our NEACA.com Gun Show pages.

Norwich, this past June, was a great little show; it is again on our schedule for the same time slot, last weekend in May. Everyone liked the show and I’m sure it will grow. However, this time I have been offered help in getting the word out better thru the local dealers who were there by putting up signs and fliers throughout the area. We thank you very much for those new memberships and support. Folks like you, and you know who you are, who take the extra time and effort to try to help our NEACA Shows grow and prosper, know that thru your efforts you help the whole gun community and with our New York Safe-Act, we need all the loyalty and help we can muster. Rob Astorino made a valiant effort to win the Governorship and in fact carried most every county but Buffalo area, New York City and surrounding counties.. Yes, I think he might have campaigned a bit better and our own conservative turnout could have been much stronger, but at least Cuomo wasn’t given a walk.

We at NEACA have had a good rapport with the NYS Attorney General and we hope to continue on that path. Eric Schneiderman has proved himself to be open minded and fair in his dealings with us and we wish him well as we go into the future. However, we must be ever vigilant about what could become Safe Act Two, so press your NYS senators and assemblymen to be fully on board supporting our State Constitution which protects our 2nd Amendment. We all can still work to rid ourselves of those who do not support us with our vote in 2016. Make sure this time that you and everyone you know votes right next time around.

We are back in Old Forge on July 31st, August 1 and 2; same weekend as prior years. What a great place! It is just a terrific area, we all have a good time, in a fine facility and usually we even make some money! Old Forge is what this business of ours is supposed to be – doing what we enjoy, making money or buying new things and having fun while doing so. Shows like this are getting fewer and just having a good show experience is slowly slipping away. When Cathy and I promote and participate in the Old Forge Show it brings back some of the feelings of the "old days" and memories of friends who have passed on. We will keep Old Forge for no other reason than it is a relaxing, easy time in summer in the beautiful Adirondacks. If you wish to join us, send in your deposited application and make a motel reservation early.

Speaking of next summer, we moved our Saratoga Springs Arms Fair off of the Travers Day Race to the prior weekend in August. This should free up hotel rooms without an extra 30,000 race fans competing for those rooms. There are still plenty of tourists to go around but with this move we can attract more gun people who didn’t want to fight the extra City traffic. A good move for everyone for one of the only summer gun shows which has consistently been a good selling event. Again, early reservations for motels! In 2014 Saratoga had a 92% occupancy rate with the average room rate in August, $250. Again, Cathy will look for deals plus, 3 new major hotels are being built. Now you know why they continue to say as we do, "Saratoga is the place to be!" Saratoga is one of the most desirous tourist cities in the US.

We probably won’t see most of you until after the New Year so Cathy and I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a wonderful Holiday Season and a very Happy New Year. We wish we could have put some more winter shows together but it was probably best that we didn’t. The BATF inspection was no fun and took a lot of time but it certainly awoke us to stupid mistakes that can be avoided and taught us to control our actions and inventory a bit more closely. I would suggest that all of you take the time to actually look at every gun’s serial number and correspond that with your bound book. That you review your Form 4473 questions and instructions governing its execution. And that you physically take your own inventory and review what you have and that you know where it is or went, and how your entries are made going in and out. With that done and your watchful eye against illegal attempts to purchase you will have nothing to fear if and when you get a call from BATF.

With that, warm feelings go to you for this cold November, Happy Hunting and a very Merry Christmas to all and God Bless.