The 62-year-old Amusement & Music Operators Association will conduct its first "Mid-Year" Board meeting in the late summer slot, starting tonight in downtown Nashville, Tenn.

AMOA President Gary Brewer and his wife, Donna, whose home and business is in McMinnville, Tenn., and is located about 90 miles southeast of Music City USA, will host the more than 80 directors, spouses and guests who are expected to attend.

More than 20 committee meetings will be conducted, starting tomorrow and continuing through Monday afternoon, when the Association's Board of Directors will meet.

Social/recreational programs for the group include a performance at the Grand Ole Opry at the Ryman Auditorium, a downtown "Honky-Tonkin" pub crawl, the 32nd Annual AMOA Bob Nims Golf Classic, a pontoon boat outing and a reception/dinner at the Country Music Hall of Fame.

As mentioned in last week's Off-The-Top, the AMOA leadership will also conduct a special fundraiser on behalf of the Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee during the Mid-Year gathering, with the AMOA Coin-Op Cares Foundation making a matching donation up to $2,500.

The board of directors of the Coin-Op Cares Education & Charitable Foundation has approved a donation and special fundraiser in support of the Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee.

This spring, the devastating floods that occurred in downtown Nashville, Tenn., and the surrounding areas was chronicled in the national — and international — media.

Relief organizations, like the locally-based Second Harvest Food Bank have been deluged with requests for assistance and their resources have been stretched by the magnitude of the disaster.

Coin-Op Cares will spearhead a special fundraiser among association leaders during the upcoming AMOA Mid-Year Board meeting in Nashville next weekend and will make a matching contribution of up to $2,500, in the hopes of making a $5,000 donation to this charitable group.

Coin-Op Cares has supported disaster relief efforts and made donations in the wake of Hurricane Katrina five years ago this month, and to the Haiti earthquake recovery campaign in January of this year.

Among the anticipated actions from the upcoming AMOA Mid-Year Board Meeting later this month in Nashville, TN, is the election of new officers: A President, First Vice President, Treasurer and Secretary — collectively known as the Principal Officers — will each be elected to one-year terms that will commence on Thursday, March 3, 2011, at the conclusion of the 2011 Amusement Expo in Las Vegas. The trio of "Class of 2014" vice presidents will be elected to three-year terms, also set to begin at the conclusion of the 2011 spring show.

The election is a two-step process: The applications of eligible, interested candidates are reviewed and followed up with face-to-face interviews by AMOA's Nominating Committee for Officers.

This nine-person group develops and submits a slate of candidates that is then presented to and voted on by the 43-person Board of Directors. This action will take place on Monday, August 30, 2010 in Nashville.

During last week's AAMA leadership meetings in suburban Chicago, following an AAMA/AMOA Amusement Expo Show Committee meeting, representatives of the American Amusement Machine Association, the Amusement & Music Operators Association and W.T. Glasgow met and signed a two-year show management agreement between the Amusement Machine Industry Trade Show joint venture and W.T. Glasgow, Inc., the Orland Park, Ill.-based show management firm that directed the former ASI Show for 25 years and the former AMOA International Expo for 11 years, as well as this year's inaugural Amusement Expo.

Participating in the gathering to finalize the deal were AAMA Chairman David Cohen, who also chairs the AMITS organization; AMOA President and AMITS Vice Chairman Gary Brewer, William T. Glasgow, Sr., and Brian Glasgow.

Shown here are, from left, Bill Glasgow, Sr., Betty Jaeger and Brian Glasgow, during a 2008 presentation honoring the Glasgow organization for 10 years of service to the AMOA Expo.