Newsletters

Kiwi Stamp Circuit

Box 18-337	Glen Innes	Auckland	New Zealand 1743

Newsletter #42			December 2011

The ‘World in Union’ Competition

Congratulations to the winners of this year’s ‘stamp hunt’. Members searched for stamps from countries competing at this year’s World Cup. As usual, we enjoyed looking through the entries. The most popularly selected stamp was the 1938 2d red and green map stamp from Fiji followed by the 1922 Irish 20p green map stamp.

The winner was Gay Allely of Whangarei, who managed to find stamps from 9 different countries featuring a map, a flag or a Rugby activity. Gay included 14 stamps not contained in any other entry and was awarded 43 points.
Runner up was Glenys Blair of Christchurch, with 42 points.
Margaret Willis of Auckland was placed third, with 41 points.

Winners received either Lighthouse stockbooks, NZPost jigsaw puzzles or ACS catalogues.All entrants received blocks of the KSC Rugby CALs.

Christmas Chaos at Royal Mail

A major computer glitch hit British post offices on Monday December 12th, bringing counter services to a halt and creating long queues during Royal Mail’s busiest day of the year. Customers who had spent their weekend writing cards and wrapping parcels were furious at being told they could not be served and hurled abuse at staff.
It is believed that the problem was caused by huge numbers of customers in 12,000 branches making demands on the system. Royal Mail’s national computer system crashed, leaving most shoppers unable to post presents, tax their car, pay bills or access their savings. Customers were still able to buy stamps using cash or Post-and-Go vending machines which are installed in some branches.

Members Corner

Welcome to 4 new members

Sister Marie-Isobel Auckland	Mr D Humfrey Wellington
Mr T Woodford Alexandra	Mrs S Early Ashburton

Thanks to our helpful members in 2011

Our 100 most helpful members during 2011 will have received their lucky numbers for this year’s Christmas Lotto Draw, to be held on Saturday 24 December.

ACS New Zealand Stamps expected mid January 2012, members price $8 (plus $1 p&p)

Personal Notes

After the horror of the earthquakes in Christchurch and the aftermath of activities there, the holding of the World Cup was a welcome distraction for us all. Dave’s Mother spent 10 days with us in March to get away from the shakes but returned home to get a few repairs done and has been very busy ever since with her many clubs and activities including winning the Junior Championship in Croquet, not bad for a 91 year old.

She was one of the lucky folk, one of her neighbour’s houses has been demolished already and two adjacent ones are on the condemned list.

We visited Christchurch ourselves earlier this month to spend time with family. Our bus tour through the red zone really brought home the extent of the damage. Everyone we met had a story to tell, but the wonderful thing we sensed was a determination to carry on with life ‘as normal’ and an optimism for the recovery – rather how we imagine London must have been during the blitz.

We had 10 relaxing days in Samoa in early August but returned home to our beds for a week, having collected chest infections on the journey back, not what we wanted. Samoa was lovely but the tsunami two years ago has really devastated some areas of the main island.

We have both spent times on the surgeon’s table again recently. Dave’s was minor but Jan’s rather more serious and she is now coping with chemotherapy. Luckily only two more treatments to go.

We are planning a quiet Christmas with our Auckland family and looking forward to a return to the croquet lawns in the New Year.

Dave has been busy helping his young protégées set up a new web design business (we will have more news about that next year). He has enjoyed getting that all up and running, and during quieter moments supervised them repotting our entire orchid collection and repainting the outside of the house.

Thank you for your phone calls, cards and emails recently, it has been great to receive your support. We wish you all a very Happy Christmas and we hope that 2012 will be a great deal easier all around the world.

Newsletter #42