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Newsletter May 08 Editor: Michael Round
FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH? This is for all of you to decide. Read on, to see how we’re doing: then come to the ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING at 8pm on Tuesday June 17th (usual venue, St Andrews Church Hall, Herbert Road, London SW19. Make your views known, but also consider volunteering to help with one or other of the Society duties: these are not onerous if spread out among us. And if you still owe your anual SUBSCRIPTION (usual rates: adults, £7.00, OAPs £4.50, juniors £2,00) you can settle up there and then - or post your cheque to our Hon Treasurer, Tony Clark (address on programme-card). R.I.P. Sadly, we have
to report (as did The Times, where Ray Downing spotted the announce-ment)
the death of member Nick Brockhurst Leacock. RECENT MEETINGS.
Our new once-a-month meetings timetable proceeds apace, even though
attendances remain small. Because of my own freelance commitments, I can’t always
attend, but was delighted (as were all of us present) with longtime member Dennis
Preddy’s display of Bechuanaland – and we pleasurably anticipate his
promised sequel, which will incorporate the Botswana period.
It’s not for me to say whether my own display ‘Belgian Congo and
Beyond’ was any good, but it forced me to mount stuff I’d had for years
(some of which I’d forgotten I owned), and its political background had (and
still has) an awful fascination. Sadly,
I couldn’t attend our President’s Meeting, but Barbara did, and I owe
her the following report:
Ray showed sheets of Post Office/Royal Mail forms such as customs labels
- apparently plateable, forms for Valeur Déclaré (which I didn't know we had,
and apparently we don't any more - in one reshuffle the service became insured
mail) and used certificates of posting showing a wide variety of cancellations
from the same office, including parcel cancellations, in the first half, and a
collection of early mechanised sorting from Liverpool in the second half. Thanks,
Barbara. JOINT
AUCTION. Only
three days after the AGM (i.e. Friday 20th June), KINGSTON
is hosting the next Joint Auction. Catalogue enclosed: note that the venue reverts to the
usual (Library Hall, Ewell Road,
Surbiton) after last year’s one-off move to Raynes Park.
Three WDPS vendors have provided material, including our faithful Wirral
correspondent, John Davies, who has also forwarded these thoughts.
I paraphrase very slightly. “LATE
POSTAL DELIVERIES. It was, at one
time, the custom and indeed a postal regulation, that the first delivery of the
day was by 9am. In recent years
this has become 10.30, or even later…the British Philatelic Bulletin reports
that as from 1 January 2008 E.U. regulations now demand a lower speed-limit of
56mph for vehicles weighing more than 3.5 tonnes [i.e. including mail
lorries] in the UK. Royal Mail
hopes to keep to its commitment that mail will be delivered by 2pm (or 3pm in
rural areas) [sic: when did that change sneak in? Now the morning
post arrives later than the evening paper] despite its now taking longer for
its fleet to get from A to B.” John
further remarks that after maintaining a 17-year run of letter postage at
twopence-ha’penny in pre-decimal days, it now costs nearly 5/6d to send a
second-class letter, and 7/2d for first. Makes
you proud, says I. MAKES
YOU PROUD (2). You’ll
know that Barbara and I periodically take a stall at Surrey Fed meetings (last
was WOPEX, 31st May) to sell those BBC covers for the Save The
Children Fund. Prices range from
10p upwards, save for ultra-common material which goes into a 5p box.
Buyers rummage ad lib: we can’t watch everyone, and rely on trust.
Some buyers cheerfully add on a donation for the charity - conversely,
more than one individual has been known to hand over a bundle of (obviously
better) covers, with the comment “I think these all came from the 5p box.”
Perhaps they have an even better use than charity for the money they try to
cheat out of us. MAKES
YOU PROUD (3). Two scary stories about surviving spouses
and estates: one collector was so ashamed to tell his wife how much he spent
that he kept a false accounts-book dividing his actual spending by 10 (if he’d
spent £500, he’d put “£50” and so on). After his death the innocent
widow showed the book to a dealer, who (less innocently) offered “what he’d
spent” less his own commission (10% of the written totals), thereby securing the collection for 9% of what it was worth.
Another widow was approached by collector “friends” of the deceased
requesting the simple return of an album or two that they’d “lent” him.
(I ask you: who has ever “lent” anyone an album?)
Moral: write down clear instructions for disposal after you’ve
gone. Spouses will have enough to
cope with, without being ripped off by all and sundry as well. JOINT EXCHANGE PACKET.
Because of ill-health, Packet Secretary Ray Roberts has been unable to circulate
a new Wimbledon packet for some time. Members wishing – as buyers or vendors - to plug the gap pro
tem (or even beyond) have been kindly invited, via Packet Secretary Mark
Hugo, to join the circuit run by the Epsom society. Interested?
Please contact Barbara first, either by letter, phone or e-mail, so that
convenient circulation can be arranged. DATES FOR YOUR DIARY.
Joint auctions in 2008-9 will include our own home fixture (the
first for some time) on our usual third-Tuesday-of-the-month slot, (November
18th 2008) but, for this evening only – for easier car-parking
and handling/carrying away of bulky lots – at a new venue: Christ the King
Church Hall, 9 Crescent Gardens (off Arthur Road), Wimble-don Park. (close
to Wimbledon park tube and the 156 bus-route).
New-boys-on-the-block Twickenham will host their first joint
auction on Thursday April 2nd 2009.
This won’t clash with Epsom’s habitual Easter auction, for Epsom are
standing down as hosts for one season. Something to sell?
Keep a spare shoe-box/drawer/pantechnicon handy for filing saleable
stuff, ready-described as you discover it: when an auction approaches – or
indeed any time: I’ll keep it ready - scoop out a handful and send me as
Auction Secretary (by post or email) either the material itself or, in the first
instance, a list of it, described auction-catalogue style.
Use a printed Vendor List, if you have one (ask me if you’d like a
supply), or even plain paper. We
are allocated 80 lots per auction, and there are five societies’worth of
slavering buyers out there. That’s it for
now.
See you at the AGM, and then Kingston!
Michael Round
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