As can be seen from my views on Coaster Con, I feel that education is an important part of ACE, yet we don't formally recognize it by using that word. We use the word "knowledge" instead, which is a little more ambiguous and allows us to distance ourselves from involvement in academic and historical discussions regarding coasters--something we absolutely should not be doing. In addition to reforming Coaster Con to restore and enhance its educational components, ACE should be at the forefront of research.
In a club of over 5,000 members, there must be one person with the tenacity and passion for history and education that Dr. Robert Cartmell had back when I was a new member. We need to find someone like that, offer them the position of Historian (assuming there will be a separately identified Historian should the reorganization be approved), and empower them to bring as much accurate information as possible about coasters to the public and our members.
We also need to continue the ACE Designer Series on a regular schedule, with a new book coming out at least once every three or four years. We've covered Traver and Schmeck. Now we need books on Miller, Allen, Cobb, Prior/Church, Dinn/Summers, the Vettels, and maybe even Toomer. We also need a second edition of the Traver book that corrects any inaccuracies that may exist in the first and second printings of the first edition. We need to make back issues of all issues of RollerCoaster! available to the membership. If financial concerns are the major hurdle to making this happen, we should investigate funding these endeavors via a "crowd sourcing" web site such as Kickstarter.
We should be sponsoring or co-sponsoring academic talks about coasters on college campuses or at major libraries. Little museum displays at parks during Coaster Con (often with content that must be approved by a host park) are not sufficiently fulfilling our educational purpose, in my opinion. We need to again become a leader in educating the masses about our hobby because only with education do we cultivate passion for the classic wood coaster. In turn, only with passion do we succeed at preserving endangered wood coasters (and the occasional endangered steel coaster worthy of a preservation push). Our lack of education, both externally and internally, is putting our wood coaster heritage at risk! Once the last Schmeck or Miller coaster is destroyed, it will be lost and gone forever--they won't be coming back...not without major modifications to the track and trains that drain the soul right out of them.
