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This brought forth eight entries, an increase on last year. Unfortunately one member thought it was the nine sheet entry and not the 16 sheets required, mores the pity because N.R Handley's nine sheet had some very interesting covers from Ethiopia from the Italian invasion of 1935/36. He showed both Ethiopian censored and uncensored material and related items, not often seen, and some of the best censorship marks of this period as well. His nine sheets were not therefore entered for the John Daynes Plate but nether the less drew great interest from other members. Of the remaining seven entries were two from overseas member Jerry Kasper who had submitted his entries as high quality prints on photo quality paper. This form of entry was briefly discussed as to its acceptability but was quite readily accepted for this meeting. Thought will be given as to formulating any additional rules for this form of submission for competition which does open up none attending members showing material without the worry of loss. The first of Jerry's two entries was "Southern Rhodesia's Military Airletters" introduced in late 1941 to provide fast and convenient communication to those on active duty. Cards impressed with a Threepenny postage stamp were sold to provide air conveyance to members of the Forces. Five different "Active Service Letter Cards" and one "Air Letter" form were printed from 1941 to 1945. The exhibit showed mint and used examples of all Military Air Letter cards. The other entry was "New Zealand POW Aerogrammes" - introduced on September 19, 1941, New Zealand's Postmaster General approved the printing of special aerogramme forms (similar to those of Great Britain) valid only for writing to NZ POW held in Europe. This exhibit had mint and/or used copies of all nine POW aerogrammes. John Leathers "Baltic U-Boat Base - Gulf of Danzig" took third place. The covers were from the training bases Pillau, Königsberg and Memel showing the bases, command and the boats operating from there. Another nautical theme came from Nick Colley with his "The Dover Command in WWI" which had various covers form different aspects of the Royal Navy at Dover during WWI. This obviously struck a cord at it took first position. Alistair Kennedy was also at sea with "United States Battleships and Cruisers of the First World War". Most of these ships had their own named postmarks which were shown along with navel censor marks. Not to be left high and dry Peter O'Keeffe had "Received From!" with mail from H.M.Ships 1939-45 with either circular or two line hand machine cancels. Bringing us back not only to dry land but back almost to the present was Michael Dobbs "The Postal Depot at Mill Hill" with an entry showing a selection of postal markings, cachets and labels used at the Postal Depot at Mill Hill, now known as BFPO London, from the late 1950's to the late 1990's. Included was a Home Postal Depot letter from 1959 dealing with the Underpayment of Postage - the "Dutch" scheme, Depot registration labels, bag labels, 1971 Postal Strike mail, machine marks and slogans, Philatelic Bureau office markings and postmarks and contract mail. A very interesting exhibit and a fine example which shows that interesting philately doesn't end at the end of the nineteenth century. The competition was judged by the members present and the scoring was close with only a very small margin separating the winner and runner up. Of interest was that each entry had at least a top score in the preference voting showing that each entry had a particular appeal to somebody. The President - Michael Dobbs - presented Nick Colley with the John Daynes Plate to keep (highly polished!) for a year. |