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Recent meetings

The final meeting of the 2008/9 season at the end of May was the AGM. We followed this with the usual summer meetings at members' houses. Roy Bentley kicked off in June, where it was (just) warm enough to sit outside for a display of Lundy items, of particular interest to Michael Bale at his first meeting. We changed the venue for the second meeting to your secretary's house, as Gwen Hussey was still recovering from her recent illness. This gave us a chance to see some more films from the Post Office archives. Alistair Mackinnon hosted the final summer meeting displaying more items from the far south.

The first meeting of the new season was the usual "new acquisitions". The second meeting was again a chance for members to dig out items from their collections, which 15 of the 21 members attending did.

Hereford club then provided the entertainment for the first meeting in October with displays of Atlantic mail, Sierra Leone post offices, some war-time thrift, East Africa and Sweden parcel post.

Our first visit was to the Bristol club. Due to some brilliant navigating we managed to miss all of the snarl-ups in the area and arrive early. Four club members displayed. Gwen Hussey started with Tonga Tin Can Mail, Alistair Mackinnon, showed Ross Island, Martyn Britton (shown in the picture above) brought along some "dead" Monmouthshire post offices and your secretary rounded up the evening with Venice up to Italian Unification in 1870.

October was a busy month as we also visited Cardiff club. This time Roy Bentley displayed some Lundy items and John Perry followed with Bratislava postal history. After the break, Alistair Mackinnon showed more Antarctic material and Martyn Britton closed the evening with some early Monmouthshire postal history.

Post and Go Comes to Newport

After a number of delays, the Post and Go service arrived in Newport Bridge Street Post Office on 15 September. However, we found out only the following day that it was working. It is not known if any items were posted on 15 September as the machine malfunctioned. By the Wednesday it was working, producing 1^st class labels in the form of stamps and labels for other rates with a "post by" date.

The labels below are both used on 16 September.

South Wales Federation News

Swansea hosted the Autumn Day on 3 October 2009, to celebrate the club's 75^th anniversary. Newport had a table which reduced some of your secretary's stock of spare material. Apart from Robert Agg, no other members brought material for sale, which was a pity as it was a busy and enjoyable day with around 120 attending, many finding out about the event from an ebay advert and direct emails.

The Federation AGM took place on 24 October, with your secretary attending both for the Newport club and as Federation chairman. The morning was devoted to displays by the ten members, including three from our Newport club, who turned up. From Newport we displayed Sudetenland, Australian Antarctic Territory and closed Monmouthshire post offices.

The 2010 convention is confirmed as 22 May at the usual Princess Theatre venue in Port Talbot. This is a special event in conjunction with the 2010 London international show, so please make a note in your diaries. This event will see several dealers who have not been recently or ever. There will be a special postcard for the event but details are not yet known.

Newport's Historic Win

A recent find on ebay was the cover illustrated below. It has only the regular "Cardiff Newport" hand stamp but does also show the programme for the Newport Australia match in 1957 in which Newport were victors.

Autographed Editions

New to your secretary's collection of Gwent this summer was an "autographed editions" postmark from Tredegar in connection with the National Health Service stamps issued on 23 June 1998. The only other autographed editions items with a Gwent connection of which I am aware is the Patent Office, Newport postmark in connection with the Inventor's Tales issue of 12 January 1999. This had a special interest for me, as the Office for National Statistics shared the building with the Patent Office.

Monmouthshire's Mobile Post Office

I timed a visit to Tintern Abbey on 22 October 2009 to coincide with the arrival of the post van that serves Tintern, Penhow and Devauden Green for one hour at each location. The canceller refers to Caldicot, which is where the van is stationed but it does not provide a service there.