Recent meetings

After the usual summer break when three meetings took place at members' houses, we returned to the Civic centre in September with the "new acquisitions" evening. We welcomed Roger Badman and Terry Riordan, who both joined the club during the summer.

The next meeting saw our first visitor, John Roe, who displayed a range of first flight material. This was followed by the annual visit from the Bridgend club. Nigel McGaw displayed GB mobile post offices, Mike Styles brought along a range of George V material including some Silver Jubilee Windsor Castle varieties, Maureen Phillips brought maps on stamps and Ron Gregory illustrated more tales of Albania with stamps and postcards.

Rules change

Just before the first meeting, Dennis Martin had called a Special Meeting to amend some of the rules for the club. The result is that the subscription for 2003/4 is now £6 (was £3), although junior members would still pay only 50p.

There is also a change to the raffle, with members no longer having to provide prizes: this is now done by our treasurer but only for the nights when we have visitors.
The final change was a new rule to split any funds that remain, if the club were to close, between all of the paid-up members.

Visit to Heidenheim
A full account of the visit was given to club members at the meeting after the visit and it also appears on the club's history page on the web-site.

Two club members, John Perry and Gwen Hussey visited Heidenheim to join the German club in its 90^thanniversary celebrations. The week included a partnership congress on the Saturday (11 October), a visit to the Georg Elser museum, a congress dinner and, on the Sunday, a stamp fair and auction.

The German Post Office had a stand at the fair on the Sunday and cancelled mail with the special exhibition cancel shown here.

Our thanks go to Heidenheim for organising the event, inviting us and treating us so well during our stay. Thanks and greetings also go to the other clubs in the partnership: Clichy (Paris), St Gilles (Brussels), St Pölten (Austria), Döbeln (Saxony), Sisak (Croatia) and Jihlava (Czech Republic).

Twinning association

John Perry attended the meeting on the Newport Heidenheim Twinning Association on 16 October, at which he presented a report on the visit to Heidenheim.

I had not seen a copy before but have now picked up the postmark for the first anniversary of the Newport Heidenheim twinning on 15 May 1982.

Stamp fairs

Chris Doble's Dragon Fairs are at the Jury's Hotel in Cardiff on Fridays 7 November and 6 December 2003 the Cardiff Stamp Fairs at the City Hall run by AMP Fairs continue with events on 15 November and 13 December 2003. All start at 10:00 a.m.

Anne Scott continues her Bristol postcard fairs at the BAWA centre on 6 December 2003.

Federation news

Three Newport members attended the Federation AGM on 18 October. There had been two changes of venue for this event, the second being caused by the Port Talbot Arts Centre being closed due to failure to get its fire certificate. A last minute change brought the AGM to the North Cornelly Parish Hall.

The morning was devoted to 16-sheet displays by club members. The Newport offerings were Heidenheim's 90^thAnniversary celebrations and Scenes from the Leipzig fairs.

After a lunch break, which allowed us to visit Porthcawl on a lovely sunny afternoon, we returned to the hall for the AGM proper. The meeting started with a tribute to Nancy Wornum (Bridgend club) who had passed away one week earlier at the age of 90.

Brian Cripps (President) was not able to attend and sent a letter resigning from the post due to ill health. This resulted in a change of officers, with Shirley Baker being elected as the new president, Buster Shimmen taking on the post of chairman and Alan Rosser becoming vice-chairman as well as retaining his post as exchange packet secretary.

The long-awaited second part of the judging course was still no nearer, although Neil Prior (federation secretary) had now written to Francis Kiddle at the ABPS.

Neil Prior produces three newsletters each year. He is planning to ask the ABPS for a grant towards future production to expand the newsletter, add pictures and allow more copies to be provided for each club.
Eirene Grieve (youth officer) had been very active during the years, visiting schools throughout South Wales and wider afield. She has run three sessions in Gwent schools with members of our club assisting, one in Chepstow and two in Newport. It is hoped that this will lead to the creation of school stamp clubs.

The annual convention for 2004 will be at the usual venue (Princess Royal Theatre, Port Talbot) on 1 May 2004. The theme will be the 70^th anniversary of the Swansea club, for which a postcard with postmarks of Swansea will be produced.

The Kids' Corner will be moved to the foyer of the Princess Royal Theatre, where it is hoped to attract more young visitors, as well as providing more dealer space in the main hall.Newport's offer to host the 2004 Autumn Day was accepted.

Local stamp news

On 12 August 2003, Royal Mail issued a set of stamps showing pub signs. The 42p value was for "The Cross Keys". Strangely, Royal Mail did not think to produce a special postmark for the Cross Keys pub in Cross Keys, Newport. It was still possible to produce first day covers using the regular counter stamp.

I only recently found that a postmark was produced by Buckingham Covers for the cats booklet on 13 February 2001 from Catsash. The postmark shows the village name as "Cats Ash", unlike the previous Benhams postmark for the 1995 cats stamps, which spelt it as Catsash.

Web links

Clubs in South Wales with web sites:
Cardiff Philatelic Society
Barry Philatelic Society
A new site worth a visit is that for The Stamp Magazine