Club news

Club members were saddened to hear of the death of former member, Ken Wilmott on 18 February 2008. Ken had been a member for many years and his name had been among the club competition winners on more than one occasion.

The club welcomed new members Stuart Geddes, Alan Hayter, and Brian Wilkins. We are also pleased that Bev Davies can now join us regularly. Bev is working with Eirene Grieve, the Federation Youth Officer, on promoting stamp collecting for school children.

Newport Smilers

In the previous Newsletter, I reported on the special sheet of Smilers that we produced for our 60^th anniversary. The first printing was limited to 14 sheets with print number 1541389. Two of the sheets were broken up to service 39 postcards, with the remaining copy from the sheet being retained as an archive copy. The remaining 12 sheets were then issued as whole or part sheets based on pre-orders following the first use on 16 October 2007. The significance of the date is that this was the first meeting of the club in 1947. The 14 sheets represent the number of members at the first meeting. The postmark used was the Caldicot Delivery Office hand-stamp, which is reserved for occasional use for local deliveries in the area. Because of the glossy nature of the stamp and label, the impression is variable in quality.

The second printing comprises a further 30 sheets from 29 January 2008 with print numbers 2133300, 2198523 or 2225865. The second printing is from the same computer image as the first. The first printing was uniformly pale; the second a strong bistre. This is due to Royal Mail and not to the image used. I understand from Royal Mail that they changed their processing equipment in 2007 and that may explain the difference.

The design of the label is based on the logo of the club, from a design by Vic Sheppard. It shows the Civic Centre in Newport, which is the location of the club, with the time on the clock set to 7.15 pm, which is when our meetings used to start. The design was first used in1991.

See more at ....

http://www.smilers-info.com/notes/14 Newport and Gwent Philatelic Society.pdf

Recent meetings

The first meeting in November saw impromptu displays from five members on Gibraltar, perfins, Norway, Fruit Ships and Pan Am Pacific.

We followed this with a visit from members of the Bridgend club, with displays by Maureen Philips on Australia and Nigel McGaw showing paddle steamers. For the traditional pre-Christmas ladies' evening, Gwen, Diane, Bev and Margaret all gave short displays.

The first meeting of 2008 now reached the letter W with World Cup, Wagner, Wartime and Wales being among the subjects tackled enthusiastically by the fourteen member who braved the winter weather. The next meeting was also for all members, when the task was to provide a display of five favourite pages. Roy and Martyn entertained with Pacific Islands for the first meeting in February. The auction night followed two weeks later.

The number of entries for the competition night was down this year to five, two thematics, two postal history and one GB. The attraction of Roy Holliss' extensive Cover Love stock brought out a bumper crowd of members to the second March meeting.

With nothing extensive written on Monmouthshire postal history, members were encouraged to bring along whatever they had.

Hopefully this will lead to some further research and more information appearing on the club web site.

The most surprising success of the season was the Three-minute Nigh. It was up to members to bring as much or as little as they wanted. The challenge was to display and talk for no more than three minutes. Of the fifteen who displayed only two had to be stopped by our chairman's gavel.

Four of us then visited the Barry club with displays of Monmouthshire, Fiji, Christmas Islands and unusual postal deliveries. April ended with the annual visit from the Cardiff club, who entertained us with David Livingstone, Kenya, Aden and stamps issued after the second world war.

South Wales Federation News

The Annual Convention took place on 3 May at the now usual venue of the Princess Theatre in Port Talbot. Stuart Geddes gained a gold medal for his entry of Missent to Newport, which was first in the postal history class and overall best entry. John Perry also gained a gold medal in this class for his entry Iceland in the Second World War. This is the first time that Newport has gained a gold medal at the convention. Diane Cannard also gained a bronze medal for the club for here thematic entry on the Life of Henri Dunant (founder of the Red Cross).

Welsh Philatelic Society

Four Newport members who also belong to the Welsh Philatelic Society joined the weekend meeting at Llangynidr at the end of April. The theme was the postal service in Europe up to 1900. Philip Beale led with mail up to 1635. He is the author of 'England's Mail', which I immediately bought on Amazon. My appetite was whetted continually through the two days by mail from Venice, which was one of the major centres during this period.

New Postmarks

Local special postmarks are not produced very often but this year has seen two. The first was on 28 February 2008 for the day of issue of the 'Special Moment' greetings stamps, the post office being British, Talywain,. Pontypool.

The second was on 21 March 2008 (Good Friday) celebrating the Houses of Lancaster and York, for which stamps came out on 28 February 2008. The postmark is from Monmouth Castle, the birth place of Henry V, who was the subject of the 1^st class stamp and is also shown on the miniature sheet stamp for the Battle of Agincourt. Members of Newport club can hardly miss the massive mural of the battle in the Civic Centre in Newport, just outside our meeting room.

Stamp fairs

31 May 2008 BARRY PHILATELIC SOCIETY SUMMER FAIR - Highlight Park Community Centre, Stirling Road, Barry CF62 8NX

17 - 20 September 2008 STAMPEX Business Design Centre, Upper Street, Islington, London N1

20 September 2008 - SOUTH WALES FEDERATION AUTUMN DAY - Llanelli Leisure Centre, Park Crescent, Llanelli

2 May 2009 - SOUTH WALES FEDERATION CONVENTION - Princess Royal Theatre, Port Talbot

30 October - 1 November 2008 PHILATEX, Lawrence Hall, The Royal Horticultural Halls, Greycoat Street, London SW1

M J Promotions Fairs - Malcolm Harrington 01792 415293 - Cardiff City Hall, Cathays Park, Cardiff on 19 July, 11 October and 13 December 2008

Dragon Fairs - Chris Doble 01446 741026 - Wesley Church Hall, Cowbridge Road East, Cardiff on 3 July, 7 August, 4 September, 2 October, 6 November and 4 December 2008

Ann Scott Postcard Fairs, BAWA Centre, Bristol on 1 June, 3 August, 4 October and 29 November 2008