Club Meeting March 14, 2023
A small gathering of members was treated to an interesting Foote Cup 4 page competition (3 entries), a talk by John Burlace on his evolving collection on the life and times of Captain James Cook, and finally an entertaining quiz from Murray on the Health Stamp issues of NZ. We all learnt something. Who knew that the the 1948 Health stamp design features scenery from both the Roxburgh and Manu Camps - the most southern and the most northern camps.   Some items of interest rounded out the evening.
The Foote Cup competition was a tie between Jim Kirk "Zeppelin stamps and covers", and Stephen Gray "The 1965 ANZAC issue and FDC's"

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Club Meeting February 14, 2023
Visit to Collectables and Solutions
Report by Club President John Burlace
Members of the Whanganui Philatelic Society visited Collectables and Solutions work place and were shown around by manager Christine Lovett, and Smita Sali.17 people work there but this number has reduced over the past three years by not replacing people who leave. Part of the building is used by NZ Post where mail is sorted and from there delivered around the region.

NZ stamps and Pacific Islands stamps are distributed from here. Most NZ stamps are printed by Southern Colour Print. At Collectables CALs are printed in sheets of 50, either self adhesive or gummed. These can be ordered by anybody to publicise events or promote industries. The team have about 2500 standing orders, well down on the 20,000 they once had. We saw how the team take sheets of stamps and separate off particular stamps - some to include the traffic lights, or the publisher, the barcode or designer, that particular collectors want.
The best way for us members to now get particular stamps is to phone up and order what you want. Collectables will send you an account with their bank account for a payment transfer. They will post out your stamps or you can arrange to collect them from the building. There are no plans to re-open the shop there. New issues are available at Post Shops but there is a catch. If you want to buy a particular mini sheet you also have to buy the mini sheet first day cover. This applies to other purchases so you end up paying a lot more.
They also stock a variety of stock books for stamps and coin collectors. While we didn’t get to see a preview of future issues we did get to see the March issue of Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy which includes a presentation pack, an enamel pin for $14.95 and a set of cards but these don’t include a stamp and could be used for thank-you's or birthday cards as they are plain inside. Also in March they have Avatar: The Way of Water that does include 6 miniature sheets and a presentation pack for $38.50. These are licenced products. Note now some stamp issues have a limited print run and when they are sold out, that’s it. This has happened with some recent issues and some particular stamps. Stamp dealers buy up a particular quantity so sometime in the future we may find the only way we can get a particular stamp is through a stamp dealer and pay their price!
On the walk around we saw the machine that prints the CALs; the machine that puts the stamps on first day covers; the machine that puts the plastic covers on the booklets they post out to us; and other smart machines to save labour.
We also heard that last year one of the monthly booklets was not issued at the last minute because the family withdrew its permission to use an image after all the stamps had been printed. It was the booklet that included the page size sheet of the women’ rugby win over the English. The issue itself is available for dedicated rugby collectors.
As a gift members received a free copy of the big sheet NZ in Space - Rocket Lab 2018, and the mini sheet with three predator free stamps that was issued for Macau 2018.
The Stamp Issue pocket size calendar has most of the future issues for the year noted on it. A photocopy will be made available to members who haven’t got one.
As a thank-you the ladies received some wine and chocolates on behalf of the club.