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Welcome to this newsletter as we head towards summer. Continuing my theme of Federation assisting your society here are some more ideas to help your society prosper.

What can Federation do for you?

The main reason for the existence of Federation is to help societies. We do this in a number of ways – through advocacy and having a framework of exhibition standards and procedures, to name just a couple.

Speakers
Something that Colin Dyer has started and then quickly followed up by John Powell (delegates for Central and Northern respectively) is to have a list of speakers and their subjects. This will assist societies by suggesting new speakers who can come and give entertaining presentations on subjects that are perhaps new to you. Please share the names of good speakers with your delegates who can then help fill the calendar for next and succeeding years. Lists are started for the two regions mentioned above.

Commission Delegates
When the Federation surveys its members (as it last did in 2017) one of the topics that is always high on the wants list is upskilling society membership with exhibiting tips.
If you go to the Federation website under https://nzpf.org.nz/about-us/international-involvement/fip/fip-commissions-nz-delegates/ you will find a list of delegates for FIP commissions. My own role as traditional delegate I see is to assist exhibitors of traditional class material understand the rules a bit better, encourage the formation and development of traditional exhibits and get more out of the material they probably already own. By way of example, I recently gave a talk at the Canberra Stamp Show on Title Pages. Delegates will be very happy to give your society a talk on exhibiting tips.

Exhibitions
We all need exhibitions if we are to promote our hobby to the […]

Welcome …

… to this winter newsletter. I was going to say spring but that would be a lie. From where I am writing this the mountains have a good covering of snow, but the fruit trees are in blossom, so take your pick! From where I sit there is lot going on in the philatelic world. With fewer stamp collectors around, the burden on the individual organisers (of anything) is large. This applies as much to societies as it does to exhibition committees. Here at Federation, we recognise this, so I see one of our many purposes is to help where we can. So that is how I have ordered this newsletter.

Incorporated Societies Act 2022

I am sure you are aware we all need new constitutions that meet the requirements of the 2022 Act. In fact, we have until 5 April 2026 to have a new constitution in place. How long this takes is a bit like a piece of string. However, more or less concurrently with the issue of this newsletter will be an advice note and a couple of examples. We are trying to assist where we can and there are two approaches to this, either follow the model in the Incorporated Societies website or keep it simple and write your own in plainer English. Be assured – the easy bit seems to be getting approval. The difficult bit is satisfying yourselves that you have got a usable constitution you can work to, getting it through your own committee and then an AGM or similar.

Banking

I am aware many societies really struggle with their banks. It took the best part of 9 months to change the signatories on Federation’s account, so I know what I’m […]

From David Loe, President

I am glad to report your new executive has now met for the first time and is getting organised to function efficiently.  As you know, when a new group gets together, it can take a bit of organising. Here is a bit of what we have been doing (and leaving aside the boring stuff).

Strategic Direction

The Federation met in mid-2023 to examine its role in the New Zealand philatelic scene and to understand what its priorities were.  At our March meeting we affirmed these priorities, and (again, without boring you) said they were:

• To promote the hobby of philately within New Zealand
• Support societies and individuals
• Actively shape world and Asian philately
• Be the voice of philately in New Zealand.
• Communication

All this under the headline “Connecting collectors in NZ”.  So, it’s rather less about international exhibitions and rather more about supporting clubs and societies to retain membership and grow interest in the hobby.

You can be a participant in this and if you need support and have some great ideas then ask your delegate to raise it with the Executive.

Website Update

Our internet service provider and web host, The Support Desk NZ Ltd, has decided to shut up shop. They have hosted us for many years. We have migrated the website to a new provider and there should be no changes to how you access the site. A reminder of Federation email addresses:

• [email protected] for David Loe
• [email protected] for Jeff Long
• [email protected] for Anna Whitehead
• [email protected] for Bob Gibson

One of the main areas that we can assist your society membership is through acting as an information source for your own club website or your calendar of events.  One statistic […]