October 2007

Greetings,

We are pleased to announce that our new website has been completed and is up and running. Carson G. Jenkins, Jr. of GrayCat Systems (graycatsystems.com)  and his son Carson G. Jenkins, III of Squeegie Studios have created and implemented the improvements for us. We think the new look will better represent our mission.

Al Eisenberg, our Executive Director, has been making progress toward securing congressional sponsorship for legislation that will help us with identifying reproductions and fakes and putting some teeth into the law for prosecuting and discouraging fakers.

We are also investigating the concept of establishing a board within our organization for the purpose of mediation and arbitration. We don’t know how best to implement this and we are seeking information and studying the protocols of other organizations that provide such a service. As we all know, there are many disputes regarding authenticity and provenance and the ethical rendering of opinions in the field of Civil War collecting. We are being assisted in our search by Brian Adams, Olin Shotwell, and independent counsel. We believe this could provide an important service to our members.

We do not intend to become watchdogs for the Civil War community. We are seeking to establish a viable non-partisan board of recognized authorities who, upon request from two parties locked in a disagreement, will render an opinion on specific items under conflict with reasonable assurance that their opinion will be accurate. It is our hope that such a board can offer much needed assistance to our community to resolve disputes and settle differences. We are in the early stages of this proposed board and would very much like to hear opinions and receive input from our members. Please feel free to contact me directly with your feedback at President@CWDCA.Org.

We also have  positions open on our Board and several more on our Advisory Board. Those interested in presenting themselves as candidates for these positions should send an email addressing the matter to me at the above email address.

That’s it for now. Please have a great month!