It is with the deepest regret that we announce a vacant chair at the MICC meetings with the passing of one of our most senior members, Howard Stephens of Errington.     One of our earliest members,  he also had one of the best attendance records.     Howard was not our most shy or retiring member; he loved life too much for that. We're going to miss the laughter and that vague sense of impishness he carried with him.    Thanks, Howard. From all of us.

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    At the August meeting, the recipient of the Bill Potts Memorial Trophy for 2006 will be determined by secret ballot. The candidate of your choice will be that M.I.C.C. member who, in your opinion, has done the most to forward the club and numismatics in general. Every MICC member is elegible except for last year's winner, Jeff Ross. As the previous winner, Jeff will collect and count the ballots, have the trophy engraved with the name of the new winner and present it at the September meeting. Except in case of a tie, Jeff does not get to vote.

    Give some thought as to who you would nominate. If you cannot attend the meeting, call Jeff by August 20 at 758-5896 and vote by phone. C.N.A. rules will apply in that only the winner will be announced; runners-up will not. Good luck to everyone.

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    Please don't forget that MICC will be hosting a table at the Vancouver Island Exhibition on August 18 through 20. Unlike last year, we will be in the hockey rink area along with the rest of the sports-and-collectibles exhibits. The table will be open to the public each day from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. and ordinarily, two members will be in attendance in 4-hour shifts. This is, of course, subject to how many sign up for the project. If you haven't entered your name, see chairman Phil. It's actually a lot of fun.

    Also required are back issues of Canadian Coin News and foreign coins for giveaways to the kids. If you would like to contribute in this way, please bring them to Phil at the August meeting - or to the table itself during the exhibition.

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    Lately you may have noticed something of a scarcity in these pages on local tokens. That's only because such new and different information is hard to come by. Therefore this issue may contain something of a treat for you: more or less the last word on the Comox Dairy and its tokens by our old Vancouver-Island-token standby, Ron Greene.

    Of course this area is not everyone's cup of tea - but before you dismiss it as "Ah, plastic tokens" and thumb ahead to something else, give a thought to the following: articles like this are years in the making (in this case, over 40 off and on!). Every sentence in it represents hours of poring through old records and the like; more hours of collating the information; more hours in writing the actual article. And at the end, after all this effort, time and expense it's given to us. Free. No charge. Such a deal!

Wayne Jacobs is numismatic expert. He is the award winning author of numerous articles. He is the secretary and editor of the "Mid-Island Coin Club Numismatic Journal"of Nanaimo, Vancouver Island , British Columbia. The MICC journal are hosted here: MICC webpages Copyright 2006 Wayne Jacobs. This article may be reprinted freely for non commercial purpose only if the resource box is left intact, linking back to us.