On 16 October 1947 a meeting was held at 221 Caerleon Road Newport "by kind permission of Mr Meaker" to discuss the formation of a society for stamp collectors. The name of the society adopted by the 14 people present that evening was the Newport (Mon) Philatelic Society.....

The club is still meeting, although now at the Civic Centre, and paid-up membership for last season was 23.

Autumn Fair

The date of the fair has been confirmed as 4 October 1997. The venue had to be changed from the school at Bassaleg to the Trinity Methodist Church Hall in Glasllwch Lane. This is easy to get to from the west being just off junction 27 of the M4. Parking is a bit of a problem but the other facilities are very good.

The fair is primarily to provide tables for the Federation clubs but we have also confirmed attendance of five dealers: Frank Lane, Chris Doble, Swansea Stamp Centre, Peter Best and Sheila Hart.

There will be some displays, a postcard and a booklet with the history of the club.

Recent meetings

The competition night attracted only eight entries. There were no entries in the GB class!!! More please next year.

Thanks go to those who entered and to Bill Osborn and Margaret Harding for judging without any prior notice. The general class (2 entries) was won by John Perry (Lithuania 1990/91), the thematics (4 entries) by John Perry (Praga 88)and the 8 sheets prize (2 entries) by Gwen Hussey (Ships).

The second half of the season was dominated by visits. We went to Cardiff at their new venue in March. We also had visits from Barry (the first time), Bridgend (out in force as usual) and Hereford.

I missed the trivia quiz but understand it was a taxing, although enjoyable, evening for all.

Vic Sheppard's display of "The Cinema" was entertaining. The enjoyment is as much in the stories as in the stamps, when Vic gives a display. This will be sadly missed as he has now left the club.

Gwen Hussey's chairman's evening covered most of the history of Canada through stamps and covers.

This year's AGM was at the Civic Centre. At the end of the meeting your secretary had a chance to show a collection of Swedish Military stamps that he had a acquired at a recent Cavendish auction. What was special was that they had formed part of the Arthur Chambers collection. Arthur, who had passed away some time ago, was a key member of the Scandinavia Philatelic Society and the TPO society. He was a very modest man, who had a wonderful collection of railway mail, much of it from Norway, as well as more general collections from Scandinavia and from other countries.

Federation News

The annual convention of the Federation of South Wales Philatelic Societies took place on 3 May 1997.

The series of postcards showing postmarks of South Wales showed NEWPORT this year.

In addition, the club provided eight non-competitive displays of twelve sheets. These were: Newport postmarks (Martyn Britton), Lundy and British Islands (Roy Bentley), Newport postcards and Second Severn Crossing (Anne Perry), Gibraltar (Dennis Martin), Paintings (Gwen Hussy) and South Atlantic Islands (Glyn Evans).

The club also forwarded three entries for the competitive classes: John Perry's Thematic display on PRAGA 88 won a silver and the Alcoa cup as first in class. the other two entries, John Perry's Lithuania 1990-91 and Roy Bentley's Ukraine, both general displays, were awarded bronze medals.

Your views ?

Do you want to continue with membership of the ABPS?

The ABPS is the Association of British Philatelic Societies. You should all have membership cards, if you paid your subs last year. The ABPS produces a magazine, a copy of which is the in library (ask Gwen Hussy if you want to see the current or back copies). If you get the stamp circuit box, I always try to put the new copy in there.

The ABPS also produces a year book, which is available on request from Gwen or from your secretary. This provides information on stamp clubs and on most things to do with stamp collecting.

The annual membership charge for the society is 60p a member.

Should the subscription go up and, if so, by how much?

The annual subscription has been held at £3 (50p for juniors) for some time. The final balance the 1995/6 season was £340.42 and for 1996/7 was £281.40. The main out-goings are the hire of the room at the Civic Centre and, if it were not for the raffle, which raises a good £90 a year, funds would go down very quickly indeed.

The subs are about the lowest of any and an increase will be needed soon.

Future meetings

The programme for 1997/8 is nearly complete. I will send copies to all members very soon.

Meetings for SUMMER 1997 will be held as usual at members' houses.

The dates are:

* 18 June - Gwen Hussy

* 16 July -Bill and Ruth Osborn (this will also be a planning meeting for the autumn day)

* 13 August - Roy and Janice Bentley

These will not appear in the programme, so make a note of them now.

I will include dates for summer meetings for next year in the programme for this season. This is because there is very little time to sort out all of the dates and get the programme out between the AGM (which will be on 20 May 1998) and the first of the summer meetings.

Other events

CARDIFF SOCIETY is having a dealer evening on 17 June: Mike Lawton will be present at the meeting at the Church Hall in Fiddlas Road. This is north of Cardiff near the Inland Revenue offices. Any of our members are invited along to that and to any other Cardiff meetings.

The annual convention of the Bristol and District Federation is on Saturday 9 and Sunday 10 August 1997. The venue is the Somerset Hall in Portishead.

MIDPEX is being held on Saturday 28 June 1997 near Coventry. This is an unusual event with both specialist societies and dealers present.

The next Dragon Fair (run by Chris Doble) is on Friday 11 July at the Central Hotel in Cardiff. Dates for the rest of 1997 are 5 September, 3 October, 7 November and 5 December. These are all Fridays. Fairs start at 10 am and finish at 5 pm.

John Perry

Honorary Secretary