HISTORY OF NZ STAMP CLUB

N.Z. STAMP COLLECTORS' CLUB COMMITTEE IN 1969

The New Zealand Stamp Collectors Club Inc was founded in 1944 by a group of Christchurch based collectors who did not like the "old boys" aptmosphere of the Christchurch Philatelic Society and in particular things such as smoking at meetings which was prevalent in those days. These collectors enjoyed their hobby without the need to get too serious about the technical aspects of stamp printing. They included a number of thematic stamp collectors and interestingly a large proportion of lady members which the club has since continued to attract.

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Cinderella Issued for the New Zealand Stamp Collector's Club in 1961 to celebrate their involvement in the New Zealand National Stamp Exhibition held in Christchurch.

The club has over the years had in its membership a number of leading collectors including many who have formed notable award winning stamp collections and several who have held high honours in philately such as President of the New Zealand Philatelic Federation.

Cover issued in 1983 by the Stamp Collectors Club to celebrate hosting a meeting of the Federation of New Zealand Philatelic Societies. At the time a member of our club Hank Smits was President of the Federation. We have subsequently hosted many such meetings including the Federation AGM in 1997 and 1999- the first to be held in the Christchurch Philatelic Centre.

Members of our club have been centrally involved in the running of many important Stamp Exhibitions with strong representation on the following Stamp Exhibition Committees. Canpex' 50, Panpex'77, Stampex'85, Birdpex'90, Philex'91, '92, '93 and Canpex'2000. members will no doubt have leading roles in the forthcoming National Stamp Exhibition planned for 2006 .

Presently The New Zealand Stamp Collectors Club is a very active Society with a growing membership. We hold our meetings in our club rooms at 67 Mandeville St. Monthly meetings are attended by between 30 and 40 members although a record number of 74 people were present for our first meeting in our new premises in October 1998.

Part of the display at our October'98 meeting

Another part of the display - items of interest

Our speaker this evening was the well known "Kiwi" Englishman Allan Berry who displayed his fine collection of New Zealand Government Life stamps and then added to this with a display of the stamps of Zimbabwe.

The Stamp Club has an interesting series of meetings planned for Club members each month. You can receive details of these each month by reading our club magazine "STAMPING AROUND" which is sent free of charge to all members.

2001 NZSCC PRESIDENTS REPORT BY STEVEN MCLACHLAN.

2001 has been another very successful year for our stamp club with good attendances, interesting talks, a very popular exchange branch and lots of enjoyment for most members. We have a good financial strength, a stable membership and a full compliment of members undertaking committee and other club tasks. It is significant that we have had several collectors join us saying they found our meetings more friendly than club meetings held elsewhere. It is important with any hobby that people enjoy their involvement. In 2000 the afternoon meeting had to be brought forward to 1pm because so many people were waiting on the doorsteps before the scheduled 1.30pm opening. Afternoon meetings now attract between 20 and 30 members (This month 27) with our evening meetings normally drawing between 30 and 40 with some nights having more than 30 members present. It is interesting to note that even in this internet age that people still like to gather to share common interests.

Technology however is important with our club now using its own computer system, committee and other members regularly contacting each other by email and the club having its own web page on the Christchurch Philately website. Currently proposals are being developed for a full audio-visual system for the club rooms with a "State of the Art" system likely to be introduced within a few months by Philatelic Properties Ltd which is the holding company which operates the Philatelic Centre clubrooms on behalf of the various stamp clubs. This system will allow stamp pages and even individual stamps to be projected onto a large screen so that members will be able to see exactly what a speaker is talking about. In addition it will also be possible that videos of these talks and displays can be archived so that they can be loaned for display elsewhere or at a later time. Certainly we are in changing times and it is good that our club is moving with these times but of course it is just as important that we remember to have fun as it is after all a hobby and one which hopefully we can all enjoy.

Finally I'd like to take the opportunity to thank all our speakers throughout the past year and also members who shared their collections with us via stamp displays. If you haven't done so already I'd like to encourage members to offer a display (from one frame to a larger display) at one of our meetings and to encourage everyone to put in entries in our monthly one page competition and also to bring along items for our items of interest board. let's see if we can enjoy our hobby in the next year even more than we have done in the past year!