December 4th Visit from Beds an Herts
Neil Russel opened the evenings displays with material from Tasmania, starting from the newspaper stamps of 1829, and a large variety of the Chalon Head stamps of 1855 printed by Perkins Bacon, sample stamps of the printers de La Rue through to 1901 when the printing went to Melbourne, Other material included revenues.
John Swade showed United states postage in two parts, Firstly revenue stamps of the USA including a series of 102 stamps for different uses all of the same value, other stamps of various shades Perforate, Imperf orate, and paper varieties plus revenues from the civil war,
The second part dealt with the stamps of 1933-45, The years of President Roosevelt who was a keen Philatelist and had a large influence in the stamp designs of the time.
Peter Mellor rounded up the evening with the Farthing post, which amazingly covered a large number of issues,including covers and pre-paid letters.
November 19th Visit to North Herts Society.
Three members traveled to Royston and showed a variety of material from Birds of Prey (Richard Page) Mush Mush, A story of the Sledge dogs (Brian Alcock),and Uncolicited mail (JohnSpencer).
October 2nd - Airmail Routes of the South Pacific
Mr John Hawks visited the Society to display some of his large collection of Air Mail material cenred mainly on the island of Fiji,,
His talk began from the year 1921 when a trial flight was organised to test the viability of an air mail route from Fiji, No mail was carried on this flight, it was much later in 1928 that the first air mail route was established from San Francisco to Honolulu, Fiji Brisbane and finishing up in Albert park, Darwin, Australia.
In 1934 the route between London and Australia was set up with postage from Fiji costing 1/10d and reducing to 1/7d in 1936 . Mr Hawks display consisted mainly of flight covers, and showed the various aircraft from mail only flights to mail carried with passengers
May 8th - Visit from Amersham
Three members of the Amersham society gave displays to a large audience First to display was John Harvey who had worked at the Security printers Harrison and sons of High wycombe, His display included some unique material, and his talk on the production of stamps made for a very interesting story especiialy when mistakes ocured during production and material had to be reprinted.
David Page brought along his South African Revenues which included early material from the Cape of Good Hope, Natal or Free State, Transvaal to name a few. His display included Overprints, Impressed, Embossed and roulette stamps other material included such items as a Pre-nuptial contract Consular and Audit stamps
After the break Alan Williams gave a comprehensive display of Jamaica Land of Wood and Water.Alan started with a history of the Island from 1494 when its only inhabitants were the Arawak Indians, The whole population was wiped out with the arrival of the first settlers .In 1671 the first letter service came into existence followed by the first packet in 1702 and Alan showed material from around this period,
The post office was re-established on the Island in 1755 and Alan showed material from that period up to world war two. strangely enough Victorian stamps were used many years after her death and in fact there was only one stamp issued for King Edward V11 from Jamaica.
Three visiting members of the Amersham Society
Members of the Leighton Buzzard Society receive the Millennium shield from the President of the East Midland and East Anglian Federation of Philatelic Societys
April 20th - East Midland and East anglian Convention . Hinkley.
Several members of the Leighton Buzzard Society traveled to Hinkley for the stamp fair and convention, Three members had submitted entries for the Competition there and scored enough points to win the Millennium Trophy for the third time since 2000. beating all other Societys involved.
March 6th - Trapped in the Suez by Peter Bottrill
Peter Bottrill gave a full evenings talk and display of the events which followed the closing of the Suez Canal,
Twelve ships of different nations were trapped in the Bitter lakes in 1967 and Peter showed us material that the sailors had made during there time there including the Bitter lakes world cup, where members of the crew from each ship formed a football team, with a full pro gramme of each match. Covers stamps and cancellations were printed or hand drawn and Peter had examples of most of them.
2008 Society Competition
The Palmer trophy awarded to the best in show
There was a small amount of entries for this years competition, But our judge Bill Gibb, felt the standard was very high. More members entered "My six best sheets" class of the evening with around twelve entries.
◾Winners are as follows •General Philately ◦Great Britain Advertisement Labels.
◦Roy Palmer
•Postal History ◦German postal Rates.
◦Alan Crozier
•Thematic ◦British Diurnal Birds of Prey.
◦Richard Page
•My Six Best Sheets ◦Bermuda.
◦Margaret Harris
•Best in Show ◦British Diurnal Birds of Prey.
◦Richard Page
The evening was made more enjoyable as two visitors bought their collections along for our members to give opinions as to their interest and value. Also members took part in a bourse, where stamps were exchanged and sold.
January
Three members from Leighton Buzzard visited the Amersham society on January 10th. Here, our Chairman Richard Page is seen displaying Birds of Prey
Here, founder member Alan Crozier is seen displaying German postcard Mail before the Amersham audience. Our Secretary John Spencer also showed a small collection of unsolicited mail. Both members and guests enjoyed a full evening with a good variety of material.
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