Sue at 2018 Armistice exhibition in Dunedin presenting an award to Norman Banfield in her role as Chairman of the jury.

Album Closed- Sue Claridge

As I was about to finish this newsletter we heard from our delegate in the South – Paul van Herpt – the very sad news that Sue Claridge had passed away at the age of 69.

This is a shock to all of us that knew Sue, and let’s be honest, most philatelists in New Zealand knew Sue. She had a long and distinguished time in various roles in the Philatelic Youth Council and there are many younger philatelists who benefitted from her wisdom. She also had many roles in Christchurch PS including president, she was a philatelic judge and only last year was the NZ commissioner to the Canberra exhibition. She had a very wide collecting interest including included military, medical, ophthalmology, hospitals, Florence Nightingale, Edith Cavell and World War I.

Sue served on Federation for a long time and gave talks to many member societies. She had only retired as a theatre nurse last year. Outside philately she was a very keen gardener and in her professional life was secretary to the NZ nurses’ organisation for a very long time.

Federation Awards

It is always good to give shout-outs, especially to friends. So it was especially pleasing to see so many deserving applications sent in for the panel to consider and no doubt a few more to follow as the closing date had not arrived. Over the next few newsletters, I hope to show all the awardees being presented. It is good to put a face to a name.

Colin Dyer receiving Medal of Philatelic Administration from jenny Banfield

John Annabell receiving his Award for Service from Colin Dyer

Tony Thackery receiving his Award of Honour from Colin Dyer.

All of the above awards were presented at a recent Manawatu Philatelic Society meeting.

Competition judging rules

At the last AGM Nelson PS proposed a motion asking Federation “To encourage club members who are new or inexperienced to enter interclub one frame competition and other local competitions, the criteria for judging entries be revised to reduce or remove entirely the weighting on ‘rarity.’ Additionally, ‘importance’ is a very difficult concept for inexperienced exhibitors to grasp. And perhaps could also be removed.”

Federation asked Philatelic Judges NZ to look at this and they proposed the point structure attached that has been previously used successfully at the annual Ambury Shield competition held in Hamilton. This was adopted by Federation at its June meeting. We emphasise that this points structure is not transferable into a National One-Frame exhibition where FIP rules are used, but it is designed to encourage exhibitors from club level to participate at regional level or the NZ Interclub competition. As these events are not regulated by NZPF we can only request that the attached points are used by member societies.

Manawatu society have some rules for their one-page competition. I attach these in case any society would like to use them. Many societies have one- page entries at regular meetings. Sometimes it can be useful to have such a set of guidelines to judge entries apart from the “popular votes” where we use gut instinct to pick a winner. Again, these are attached for your voluntary use.

NZ Post

At our recent meeting, Ant Harris, stamps programme manager, was in attendance. The conversation started, as you might imagine, with a discussion around the 1898 4d Lake Taupo with inverted centre. By now you cannot have failed to “read all about it”. So, no more from me, except to say that this is the only stamp that NZ Post keeps that is not valid for postage. The rest of its archive has been transferred to Te Papa.

Another item for discussion was their stamp issuing policy. Rest assured, they will be issuing stamps for the foreseeable future. But other things such as FDC’s may be reviewed as the sales volumes of these are very low. Ant also assured us that the current funding arrangements for National Exhibitions remained in place.

Ideas for topics for society programmes

Of course, the main attraction of belonging to a society is meeting similar minded people to share ideas, hear speakers on our hobby and perhaps learn a thing or two. The Federation website contains information relating to meetings, ideas for enhancing attendance and all sorts of other material. Added to that is digital material and here I am thinking about YouTube clips. At my home society, Nelson, we find that new members sometimes don’t have that background in philately that some of us “old hands” have. When we don’t have a guest speaker we quite often have a technical slot and a YouTube film. Keep it short!!

Some of these might whet your appetite – I especially like the “Exploring Stamps” series sponsored by the APS.

SG on Cinderellas:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxjHmHZwShg
Cinderellas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VtVhDpQPpY
Te Papa: https: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkuxuuZyjjM
More Te Papa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAnZ5O82IHw
Printing KCIII stamps: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGL9zj6CI2I
Engraving Hermes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtOR2zrwAc0

I realise you need to have the equipment to run these films. Most venues these days have the loan of the digital screen and surely someone has a laptop and away you go. If not, we need to talk!!

Website update


One of our central region delegates, Colin Dyer, had previously proposed that the Federation website needed a refresh. This idea was supported vigorously at the meeting we held at Royalpex and your executive resolved that we would further investigate what was possible, without turning it into a blog site or similar, and not costing a fortune. This will not be a rapid project even if we decide to go ahead, and we don’t want to lose the present resource.

FIP Commission delegates

We are members of both the continental Federation (FIAP) and the international Federation FIP. This enables our club members to participate on the international stage, both as exhibitors and as members of various commissions. The FIP has commissions for most exhibiting classes. More info here: https://nzpf.org.nz/about-us/international-involvement/fip/fip-commissions-nz-delegates/

One thing we have been trying to do is connect exhibitors with FIP commission delegates. This enables exhibitors to keep abreast of developments as and when they happen, seek advice from delegates and generally get help when needed. Here is a list of delegates. On the NZPF website, if you click on the hyperlink for the class it will take you to the relevant FIP commission website.

A few of you out there collect and exhibit First Day Covers. Up until now this has been purely a National Class (our rules are the same in NZ and Australia), but there has been a move within FIP to create a new FDC class. I am very pleased to say that Tony Thackery has been appointed to the FIP working group to propose some rules and guidelines concerning the exhibiting of first day covers. This is a BIG DEAL that allows New Zealand to help shape what the new class might look like. In New Zealand we are very fortunate to have talented individuals who make a big effort to promote our hobby internationally. Jeff Long has done this for picture postcards, but I also think of others such as Jenny and Norman Banfield who have done similar work in other areas.

Where to find examples of New Zealand collector’s exhibits.

If you exhibited at Royalpex earlier in the year you probably received a note inviting you to upload your exhibit to Dr Ross Marshall’s website. https://www.collectorsnz.co.nz/stamps I unashamedly give it publicity here because it fulfils a need that some of your societies have asked for. “Where do we go to see examples of exhibits” is what you have asked. We have discussed it briefly in Federation and didn’t think it was appropriate to add collections to the Federation site, but you can now go to Ross Marshall’s site and see some there.

NZPF New Constitution

Under separate cover to this newsletter, Federation secretary Jeff Long is sending out a copy of the proposed new Federation constitution to meet the requirements of the Incorporated Societies Act 2022. Please give this your considered attention and get back to Paul McTaggart ([email protected]) if you have any questions. We wish to consider anything you might want to say at our next meeting on 27 September  and that gives us time to put out the final draft for adoption at our AGM in early December. This has been a considerable piece of work by Paul van Herpt, Bob Gibson and Paul McTaggart, and then reviewed by John Annabel and Tony Thackery from the Manawatu PS. Thank you all.

Philatelic dates for 2025/6

  • Wellington Regional Stamp Show 2025 to be held 5 July Knox Presbyterian Church, Main St, Lower Hutt.  Includes Neville Harris and Patrick Brownsey Trophy interclub competitions with society and dealer stands.
  • 20/21 September 2025 Interclub Exhibition at King’s College, Auckland organised and hosted by Auckland PS go to https://aucklandphilatelic.odoo.com/
  • 4 October 2025 North Shore Exhibition, Auckland. Hosted by North Shore PS
  • October 2025 “Collecting History” exhibition and fair. The Granary, Founders Park, Nelson. Hosted by Nelson PS
  • 18 October 2025 Ambury Shield organised by Waikato PS Fairfield Baptist Church Hall, 1101 Heaphy Terrace, Hamilton.
  • 19th NZ National Philatelic Literature Exhibition organised by the Christchurch PS. Saturday 6th December at the CPS rooms, Mandeville St., Christchurch. Stamp Fair and literature exhibition on the same day.
  • The next National Philatelic Exhibition to be held in Australia will be hosted by Queensland and be staged at the Chandler Sports Centre, Brisbane 13th – 16th August 2026. The website is (nothing there at the time of writing) https://qpc.org.au/Queensland2026/. The NZ commissioner is Ross Marshall [email protected]

Society Pages on NZPF website

Bob Gibson tries to keep all society listings up to date but can’t do that without your input please. Review your pages and keep Bob informed – [email protected] Without having actual statistics to hand, these pages are the most often visited on the Federation website.

Delegate news

As some of you know, each of the 3 regions nominates 2 delegates to Federation. There is no prescribed term of office for the delegates. The purpose of the delegates is two way of course. Federation gets to hear directly what is going on in the societies and the delegates act as a conduit back to societies for feedback. They are therefore vital for the running of Federation.

Elizabeth Rogerson, a resident and member of Whangarei, was appointed to Federation by the Association of Northern Philatelic Societies last year but has recently given notice that she is unable to continue for health reasons. We in Federation thank Elizabeth for her contribution to organised philately in the North and wish her all the best.

Connection with Society members

Finally, an appeal to club secretaries. It is clear when I visit societies that some club secretaries do not share this newsletter with their membership. Can I appeal to all clubs to circulate this newsletter to individual members. I don’t expect them to read every word, but it would be good that everyone knows what we do in Federation and what occupies our time and energy.

Comments and inclusions for future newsletters welcome please.

Federation Meeting dates for 2025

Executive meetings (by Zoom) 27 September, 15 November

AGM (by Zoom) 13 December

 

David Loe, Nelson. President.