Hello faithful reader! For those of you who have been reading this blog since I made my first post almost two years ago you will have noticed many changes. It started off as some things do – simply as an experiment in new media directed at the men and women who slave tirelessly at the business of making sure we all have enough cash in-hand to buy the things we want and need each day. Having spent the first 10+ years of my career in cash management working with commercial bank and central bank vault staff I realized that they lacked any resource where their experiences and stories could be shared. Over the following months I nurtured this little publication through a myriad of changes while taking advantage of the “free” tools available at Blogger (a Google blog tool). I had a lot of fun back then (as I do now) searching out the stories that would hopefully be of interest to this audience. Many of you commented very positively on these efforts and your support and encouragement is what kept me going -even through the “dry time” when my muse just wouldn’t supply the necessary inspiration. My only disappointment came when I realized that many financial institutions and other related businesses would not allow a Blogger publication past their firewalls and spam filters. It was at this point that disappointment and frustration settled in and I stopped posting for a period of time.

At this years ICCOS conference in Chicago (March 2009) a surprising number of people asked me why I had stopped the blog and it got me to thinking … and researching … and finally making the decision to restart my efforts with a more sophisticated tool than Blogger – an open-source tool called WordPress – and then to part with a little bit of cash and purchase a domain name and then to pay for a secure and reliable host. In this way I could avoid the spam filters and firewalls that so strenuously object to the darker content lurking within many of the “free” on-line blog hosting services and which categorically block any and all content that originates there. CountingOnCurrency.com was born using a bright and cheery template from a company called UniqeBlogDesigns. Next thing I knew I had an associate at a central bank ask if he could begin posting his daily nuggets of information on my blog – of course I readily agreed! Together we more than doubled the daily visit count, learned some tough lessons about the idiosyncrasies of WordPress and persisted until Counting On Currency began to resemble a real on-line publication.

A few months back I was talking with Nicole Sturgill with whom I had worked during my early days at Transoft International. She expressed an interest in joining us as a contributor to the blog and of course I/we welcomed her with open arms and an increased sense of enthusiasm and passion for what we were doing. It was then that the “bright and cheery template” began to seem to me somewhat not professional enough – it had outlived it’s purpose. Ironically a fellow blogger had just discovered the power of a very adaptable and customizable template from DIYThemes called Thesis. After one look at what could be accomplished with the Thesis theme I purchased it and  carefully began the process of again re-inventing Counting On Currency. The result is what you see today. It is still a labor of love, passion and enthusiasm for the three of us who post here, but it has grown again as measured by daily visits and page views. You the reader have confirmed at every stage of this publication’s evolution that we are providing something of value to this niche audience. Together with the four sponsors who have allowed their good names to be associated with us Nicole, a central banker who unfortunately I can not identify and myself want to thank you for your continued support. None of us receives any money for providing the content you see here – in fact it is a money losing proposition – but like anything worth doing we are happy to be doing it and equally happy that you keep coming back for more!

We thank you!!