The second November 2000 meeting was a display of registered mail by Peter Coldrey. We then visited the Barry club. We followed this with a visiting speaker (Ian Baillie, accredited judge from Bristol) who told us how not to lose stamp competitions. This was a fairly controversial evening that gave rise to lots of animated discussion. The meeting before Christmas was the regular ladies and social night, with seasonal displays by Gwen Hussey (stained glass and Christmas stamps) and Diane Cannard (the Stamp family at Christmas)

After the Christmas break, we started 2001 with our chairman’s re-arranged night on "Terra Australis Incognita", a fascinating display of the search for the southern continent, which was where Alistair MacKinnon was actually going a few weeks later. This was followed by a visit to the Cardiff Club on a remarkably mild January evening. Neil Jones ran the quiz night with a range of questions from the difficult to the impossible. Ron Hardacre came first. Each season we move on a letter of the alphabet and we are now on to P. This produced an imaginative set of displays from Postage dues to Parrots. Roy Hollis (Cover Love) brought his material along for the second February meeting and members came away with a lot of new material. John Perry arranged the annual dinner on 28 February at the Golden Lion in Magor for 14 members/guests.

Competition night on 7 March attracted more entries than expected, although none for the GB class. We arranged internal judges because of the uncertainty. Results were:

The auction on 21 March raised a lot of interest among members, although the response from other clubs was disappointing. A total of £132.10 was paid for the 73 lots that were sold. Unsold lots totalled 69. Of the total, £36.81 was raised for the Macmillan Charity. The money paid to the club was £9.53.

Seven members from Bridgend visited on 4 April and six displayed, showing Revenues, George V Silver Jubilee, USA sheetlets, Battle of Britain, GB inspection marks and Albania. We then had another visiting speaker, David Gibbon, who displayed Mauritius. He had last visited the club with Peter Ibbotson some 10 years previously. The final meeting prior to the AGM was by Barry club members. Five members then paid a late visit to the Hereford club on 6 June.

Fifty years ago in 1951, the season started with "To start you talking" by Mr Griffith. Does anyone remember Mr Griffith and what do you think he was talking about?

Here is another plea for copies of programmes. I am missing 1948/9, 1949/50, 1954/5, 1956/7, 1963/4, 1965/6, 1970/1, 1973/4, 1975/6, 1976/7, 1977/8, 1980/1 and 1981/2.

The next South Wales Autumn Fair is 29 September 2001 (in Barry at the Memorial Hall).

The annual convention of the Bristol and district Philatelic Societies is on 11 and 12 August 2001 in Portishead (at the Somerset Hall).

The remaining Rob Neil Cardiff fairs for 2001 are 25 September, 13 October and 8 December (all at the City Hall). From 2002, the fair will be organised by Pete Robards, Avis Moule and Martin Tizzard. The first City Hall fair in 2002 is scheduled for 5 January.

Chris Doble's Dragon fairs at the Jury's Hotel in Cardiff for the rest of 2001 are 6 July, 3 August, 7 September, 5 October, 2 November and 7 December (all Friday dates).

Stampex runs from 19 to 23 September 2001 at the Business Design Centre Islington (London)

When we discussed the topic of social philately at the beginning of the last season, we thought that there would be quite a lot of material on the subject but only had the (excellent) BPT colour brochure. Both the Australian Philatelic Federation (APF) and the Australian Philatelic Society (APS) were useful contacts, and we would like to thank Ross Wood and John Lancaster for their help in sending rules and a copy of the Australian Journal of Philately for September 1999.

As an experiment, we will be holding a special competition night early in 2002 for members to display 8 sheets on the subject. Given the limitations of space, the sheets will need to be the usual size and things that will not fit on a sheet are not allowed. You can include photographs or photocopies of items so long as you state that the original material is in the collection. Other than that, there are no restrictions and the prize will be a bottle of wine.

Some guidelines and rules:

A social philately exhibit consists of material that can be included in other philatelic classes as well as non-philatelic items that are directly related to the operations and products of a postal system. That means everything must have some form of connection with the postal service.

Displays for which up to 50% of the display may comprise the non-philatelic items with 10% of the display being items connected to social not postal history:

Other displays:

Marks are awarded as follows:

The Stamp Domain:

John Perry, Honorary Secretary

Telephone: 01633 881068