Newsletter 86 – December 2023
From David Loe, President.
It is nearly 18 months since the publication of the last newsletter from NZPF and I wanted to bring you up to date with the latest news after the AGM in mid-December and ensure that you know what’s going on in 2024 in time for Society secretaries to circulate information to their members at the start of 2024.
Annual General Meeting of NZPF
We have quite a few new faces around the ‘table’.
David Loe (Nelson), has taken over from Stephen Chivers, who has been the president since 2016.
Even more of a wrench, Bob Gibson (Wellington) resigned as secretary immediately prior to the AGM after 16 years and Jeff Long (Christchurch) has stepped into the role.
Anna Whitehead (Wellington) took over from Leigh Gravestock in the treasurer position halfway through the year.
One of the Northern Region delegates is now Elizabeth Rogerson (Whangarei) having taken over from Denise Rosenfeldt (Auckland), Denise having done her ‘stint’ of 2 years in the role.
Leigh also resigned her role as central region delegate, so we are now on the search for a new delegate in her place.
To all the outgoing office holders and delegates, a huge vote of thanks. The last few years have been especially burdensome dealing with COVID and a multiplicity of resulting challenges, not the least being rescheduling of major exhibitions that you have all been heavily involved in.
Thank you for your time, dedication and effort.
A full set of AGM minutes has been sent to member societies.
Going Forward
It is a little early to say what our ‘mission’ is going forward.
While I attended a strategy workshop the Federation held in the middle of the year and therefore know what we said then, the delegates and executive need to agree what that looks like in practice and how we are going to implement those ideas. However, it is my personal belief we need to stick to our home base a little more and arrest or slow down the loss of club membership. We need to support clubs in any way we can. Without the grass roots we can’t have all the other activities that come from a healthy collector base.
These are real challenges, and it will take real effort to meet them.
Upcoming events
This is one of the places where Federation can make a difference. Quite often at our local society I ask visitors and new members “how did you find out about us?”. Quite frequently, I will get the reply “from the Federation website”. Please make sure the webmaster knows about your meeting schedule and special events and in that way we will jointly “spread the word”.
Auckland 2024
After the success of the NZ2023 International stamp exhibition held in May 2023, Auckland is hosting the next National Stamp exhibition at the same venue. NZ Post is again a key sponsor for the event.
Planning is well underway with the Auckland Philatelic Society leading the organisation of the event. A key theme for the exhibition will be around the centennial of the NZ First Side Face stamp issue.
They are looking to have up to 600 frames of material at the exhibition, with both New Zealand and overseas stamp and collectable dealers in attendance.
Further details of the exhibition can be found in the prospectus and on the Auckland Philatelic Society Website (http://www.aps.gen.nz or at https://nzpf.org.nz/auckland-2024/ )
Recent past events
Northern Region news
Chris Keery with the Novice trophy
Bruce Tapp with the Shield and best Exhibitor Trophy.
The annual Ambury Shield Competition was held at the end of October. Auckland Philatelic Society were the host, providing displays, raffle and a talk by Tane McManus on Angola. The Shield was won by the Waikato Philatelic Society; Bruce Tapp (Waikato) was the exhibitor with the top mark; and Chris Keery (Auckland) was the novice with the top mark. The Whangarei Philatelic Society and Tauranga & District Stamp Club also entered the competition.
Auckland Philatelic Society – The Auckland Philatelic Society is in good heart and has had a positive year with membership numbers remain healthy and meeting participation continuing to grow. Paid membership remains strong at 105 members though this number expands to 134 when families, Life Members and Patrons are added to the number.
Twice monthly meetings are regularly attended by an average of 30 – 35 members including a number of new members who have quickly become active participants in Society activities. The focus for 2023 was to continue to encourage members to participate in developing an interest in exhibiting and this has seen a positive response best illustrated perhaps by the fact that just under half the entries at Waikato Philatelic Society’s Ambury Shield Competition were from the Auckland Philatelic Society with 16 of these being Novice entrants.
Stamp Art session at Papatoetoe Library in July. Picture posted on the Library Facebook page.
The encouragement and confidence for this growth in participation at exhibitions by the Auckland Society is in large part due to the exceptional generosity of a substantial number of members from the wider New Zealand philatelic community who have unselfishly given of their time and knowledge to willingly come and present to APS and share their interests and expertise with us. We are extremely grateful to each and every one of these amazing 13 individuals who have flown, driven and taken valuable time out to share their passion for philately with us.
South Auckland have had some interest with the Juniors as you can see from the image at left.
Central Region News
Bill Leggett with Certificate and medal
Upper Hutt Stamp Club held a STAMP DAY on Sat 28 Oct 2023 – to mark their 60th anniversary.
The event was advertised to appeal to others, not just stamp collectors. A display of Upper Hutt Postcards including the Rimutaka Incline was put together to entice others to the event.
There were 40 frames displaying many topics. People who attended were greeted at the door and offered a list of what was on display along with a map of the hall and location of five dealers and club sales table from the Upper Hutt and Lower Hutt Clubs.
With emphasis on the Rimutaka Incline there was also a handout for the Fell Locomotive Museum which is located at Featherston. It was estimated that 200 to 250 people attended, which included many from outside the Wellington region.
It was a very busy and successful day. The event was sponsored by the Upper Hutt City Council and by the New Zealand National Philatelic Trust.
Stephen Chivers (NZPF President) and Bob Gibson (NZPF Secretary) were present to award Bill Leggett his 2022 NZPF Award for Service.
Roger Mole, Secretary of the Hastings Stamp Collectors Club receiving certificate and trophy for Best Overall, and Best Open on behalf of the late Robert Winchester.
Hawkes Bay Philatelic Society and Hastings Stamp Collectors Club held their mini exhibition and joint meeting recently in December.
Robin Gwynn judged the entries for the mini exhibition. The Winner of best overall was the best open class exhibit by the late Robert Winchester, “A Ship’s Life” being the tale of The Royal Mail liner the “Atlantis” from launch, and through two world wars and several names until going to the breakers in 1952. It was an unusual approach to the subject and well worth the award.
Southern Region
Nelson Philatelic Society on 21 October held a “Collecting History” Open Day and Exhibition at Stoke Hall. Approximately 250 people attended coming from as far afield as Christchurch. Joining NPS were Nelson Provincial Museum, the local branch of the Society of Genealogists, Nelson Antique Bottle Club, the Christchurch Philatelic Museum, Nelson Historical Society, the Postcard Society and 5 stamp dealers. The society’s display frames were out of storage for the day and showing 40 frames of material from attending collectors. We now need to restore the innards!
The society is looking to repeat this formula next year.
COFEX23
COFEX23, which included the annual NZ Inter-club One-frame competition and the 18th National Philatelic Literature exhibition, was held in Christchurch at the Te Hāpua Centre, Halswell on Saturday 18 November.
Setup of the exhibition frames began at 8.00am on Thursday morning with exhibits starting to be mounted once the first row of frames was in position. With many people on hand to help with the setup it didn’t take too long to get all the exhibits mounted. There were 83 exhibits, including ten teams of five competing in the interclub competition, which were judged by our team of judges plus five display-only exhibits. Judging began just after lunch and by Friday lunchtime was almost completed. There was a wide variety of subjects covered making for an excellent overall display and providing a few challenges for our judging teams. There was some very strong competition for the interclub title which was claimed by the Wellington Philatelic Society.
The best overall inter-club exhibit was Ian Bridle’s exhibit of ‘1946 One Year of Independence’ issue of Java, Indonesia with the best one frame COFEX exhibit going to Alan Kilpatrick for his exhibit on the NZ Chalon Heads – the 4d Rose and 4d Yellow.
At 9.00am on Saturday morning we opened the doors to the public with a steady stream of people coming in to view the exhibits and visit the stand holders at our collectables fair.
Thirteen stand holders from around the South Island attended and with plenty of visitors eyeing the material they had for sale. Visitors came from all around the country with exhibitors visiting from as far north as Kerikeri and as far south as Dunedin.
At 10.00am there was an exhibitor’s feedback session where exhibitors could talk directly with the judges that judged their exhibit. A number of exhibitors took advantage of the opportunity to talk with the judges including one exhibitor who spoke to the judges via a video call. These sessions are always popular with exhibitors and are a good chance to get advice and how to improve your exhibit.
The books from the literature exhibition were displayed on the stage behind the Christchurch Philatelic Society’s stand. There was plenty of interesting books to peruse for the keen philatelic literature enthusiast plus plenty of philatelic books for sale on the Philatelic Society’s stand.
Personalised stamps issued for the exhibition were available as people entered the venue. These proved popular with the many personalised stamp collectors.
Visitor numbers remained steady for most of the day until the doors closed at 3.30pm. Exhibits were dismounted in an orderly fashion, then the frames were dismantled. Due to a well organised team and plenty of helpers everything was packed up and cleared out by 5.30pm. There is a lot of hard work that goes into organising these events but I think it is safe to say another highly successful exhibition was held in Christchurch.
18th NZ National Philatelic Literature Exhibition 2023
All books and monographs were on display for viewing at COFEX, and the electronic entries (websites, Facebook pages, blogs etc) had extracts rotating on a large screen.
This was another successful exhibition from the viewpoint of the competitive exhibits, with 58 entries. Two aspects were particularly pleasing – the entrants who had entered for the first time, and the quality of the exhibits overall. The fact that several Large Gold and Gold medals were awarded is testament to this. Entrants need to remember this was a national-level exhibition, so the points needed to attain any medal level are 5 points below those of an international level.
At these exhibitions, rather than only meet a day or so before the actual exhibition to judge the entries, in New Zealand we take over a month to send boxes of material to the judges, who are scattered around the country, so each entry can be carefully considered. After this, the judges have a get-together weekend to finalise marks and comments, which enables us to provide written comments, which we hope entrants will find helpful and interesting.
All entrants receive detailed comments on a feedback sheet which we hope they find helpful.
The Jury was made up jeff Long, Dr Ross Marshall, and Mark Benvie, all experienced philatelic exhibitors and/or authors or editors, and Murray Clark as Secretary.
The best-in-class entries were:
• Books/monographs: Ronald M Lee. Airmail, the Story of Australia’s Overseas Airmail, vols 1,2 3. Large Gold, with Felicitations
• Periodicals: Takashi Yoshida. Stampedia Philatelic Journal. Large Gold, with Felicitations
• Electronic entries: Charles Schafstall. Scout and Guide Meter Stamp Catalogue. Gold.
• Websites: Gavin James. https://thedigitalphilatelist.com/about-us/Bahamas-philately/ Large Gold, with Felicitations
In addition to those noted above, Felicitations for Research were awarded to:
• Cheryl Ganz. US Zeppelin and Airship Mail Flights
• Henry Ong. Malayan Meter Marks 1927-1945
• S A Hanson & F Aune. Priced Catalogue of Norwegian Air Mail 1870-2020
• Michael Kogan. www.paleophilatelie.eu
• Richard Bloxham (Ed). The New Zealand Stamp Collector 2022 issues
Introducing David Loe
Finally, a little about your new president and newsletter editor (this time).
I am a lifelong philatelist. Starting at 9 with a collection of Ceylon formed by my father during the war, I was soon collecting everything I could get my hands on. My collection was measured by the numbers of packets of stamp hinges I purchased. In the UK I joined my first stamp club at about 11, my first specialist society at 12 and was straight into exhibiting.
I had an interest in Iceland from the get-go but also most other ‘foreign’ countries. My first junior competition was winning the Melville Cup and from there I had a go at various European exhibitions.
Life then got in the way while I got my degree in civil engineering, met my wife, got a mortgage, children and so on. But I never lost my hobby. I played rep rugby till I was 29 and then moved to road cycling and more tramping. In 1996 we emigrated to New Zealand, was invited to join North Shore Philatelic Society and then someone suggested I could be a judge.
My collecting interests these days are anything Icelandic and more recently, Nelson District Postal History having retired to the “Top of the South”. My exhibiting classes are traditional and postal history (postage rates, marcophily and military).
We hope to bring you more profiles of delegates and executive members as space and time allows.
