Newport & Gwent Philately May 2012 - Number 47

News of Members

On his recent visit to the USA, Dennis Martin received an invitation to display some of his Gibraltar collection to the St Petersburg Club. He is shown here receiving a certificate of appreciation from the president, Morgan Fitzgerald.

Recent meetings

The library, postcard and specialist society nights gave members a chance to share their interests.

Our first visiting speaker was Joe Cottriall from Warwick & Warwick. We realised a few days prior to the meeting that the public sector strike on the day of the meeting would close the Civic Centre. However, the staff there were excellent and arranged for us to use a room at the Newport Leisure Centre. A quick phone round ensured that there was a good turn-out for Joe's excellent presentation of the life of an auctioneer.

It is amazing how the years flash by. In January we returned to the letter &ldquoA&rdquo, 26 years after the first such evening. As usual, members were inventive including such diverse topics as Advertising (Mole Wrench), Antarctic Argentine Bases, Angels and Arctic Norway.

The annual chairman's night saw Alistair Mackinnon presenting more Antarctic material. For our second visiting speaker evening Roy Holliss came, without his Cover Love stock, to show his collecting passion for early GB airmail. Roy returned again, in April, this time with his stock to give members a chance for a good rummage. The visit from Nailsea saw David Pye, Dave Butterworth and Andrew Round displaying Scout Stamps, Eiffel Tower and South Africa Bantams.

One again there were few entries for the annual competition but sufficient to award firsts to Neil Jones for New Zealand Newspaper Stamps (General), Bev Davies for Prominent Women on GB stamps (Thematic) and Margaret Harding for GB Perfins (GB). Neil Jones also entered an eight sheet display of New Zealand Postage Dues.

The auction night raised £129.50 with 10% going to club funds and members donating £37.23 from sold lots to Cancer Research Wales.

The visit from Bridgend saw Reg Lyon displaying items from his service career, Nigel McGaw showing the first airmail service to Kirkwall and Brian Brandon displaying blocks of stamps.

As an innovation we had a club lunch in February instead of an evening Christmas meal. There was a good turn out at the Castle Inn in Caldicot.

Since the previous newsletter we have made visits to Barry and Cardiff clubs. Also Alistair Mackinnon visited Barry on 27 February with his display of &ldquoA Holiday in South Africa&rdquo.

Federation News

Dates for the diary are 19 May 2012 & 18 May 2013 for Federation Annual Convention at the Princess Royal Theatre, Port Talbot. Autumn Fair is on 29 September 2012 at the YMCA, Angel Street, Bridgend.

Welsh Philatelic Society (WPS)

Martyn Britton and John Perry attended two meetings of the WPS, one in Llanelli in November 2011 and another in Swansea in April 2012.

Stamp News

A new find for me was a cover dated 25 October 1978 from Monmouth celebrating the battle of Agincourt. The connection here that Henry V was born in Monmouth Castle.

The Newport Scouts produced a strip of 10 stamps for local Christmas deliveries in December 2011.

In January 2012, Magor Post Office lost one of its counter stamps and used Equipment Team Temporary 31 for a few days. This hand-stamp had been used previously at Pant. The replacement hand stamp differed for the previous ones moving Magor from Newport Gwent to Caldicot Mon.

Both the lost and the other hand stamp were replaced, resulting in two new postmarks (L and N)

The Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal celebrated the start of its centenary year on 10 February with a ceremony at Pontymoile Basin. The was no special cover or postmark to commemorate the event but when it was known that Robin Herbert, great grandson of Lady Llanover, would be speaking at the event, it was a chance too good to be missed. Panteg being the nearest post office to the event, a quick visit with some prepared covers resulted in a hand-stamp for the day and Robin Herbert was also pleased to sign the covers.

A recent find on ebay was a copy of the Newport, Gwent paquebot cancellation dated 4 April 1991.

Heidenheim Friendship

News from Dierk Lisdorf is that the club is going well. The same as everywhere, there are many older but few younger members. They hope to see us in 2012 for the 100th anniversary of the club.