Announced in the weeks leading up to this July’s Royal Canadian Numismatic Association (RCNA) Convention, the latest Louise Graham Memorial Club of the Year Award has been bestowed on the Waterloo Coin Society (WCS).
Tony Verbruggen, who joined the WCS in 2014 before becoming its president last year, travelled to the convention in Ottawa to receive the honour on behalf of his club during the RCNA Club Delegates Breakfast. At the July 22 meeting, Verbruggen also led a keynote speech on “navigating a pandemic,” focusing on the Waterloo club’s “innovative use of social media and Zoom meetings to engage members and enhance the local and national numismatic community,” according to WCS Treasurer Brent Mackie. For the WCS, the Club of the Year Award comes “largely in recognition of its innovative use of these technologies to connect coin collectors in the local area, across the country and beyond,” added Mackie.
The roughly 100-member WCS plans to continue its in-person meeting schedule this August for the first time since the pandemic began 29 months earlier.
“The WCS executive committee is excited about returning to in-person meetings, and we look forward to welcoming everyone back in August,” said Mackie, whose ongoing research into a spate of fake toonies – which he dubbed the “Camel Toe” counterfeits – recently made national headlines with the Globe & Mail, Global News, CBC Radio One and other programs.