Campaign to Save Philately
The Campaign to Save Philately
There's no doubt about it. Our hobby is in decline. Few new young people are picking it up. As older collectors pass away too few newcomers are coming in to take their place. Our hobby can be measured by the empty chairs at society meetings, the flipside of which is a growing mountain of stamps that few, if anyone wants to buy. Apparently, it's all doom and gloom. But is it?
Our Philatelic Commander-in-Chief, Jamie Smith, delivers the Plan to the Team.
A new initiative led by the South African Philately Club's co-founder Jamie Smith is fighting back against the assumption that no-one is interested in stamp collecting any more. As a chaplain to the lonely Jamie has met many senior citizens and military veterans who collected stamps as children. Many would want to pick up the hobby again if encouraged. For some time now Jamie has been working on a project to put stamp collecting back into the homes of Veterans and senior citizens in his local Stockport area.
Jamie Smith, President of the Poynton Philatelic Society supported by his partner Nomvula Maseko.
Jamie is using all the weight he has at his disposal as the President of the Poynton Philatelic Society, a member of the Stockport & East Cheshire Philatelic Society, the Hazel Grove Armed Forces & Emergency Services and the RBL (Royal British Legion) to garner support. His project has now progressed to the point where his team can provide free stamp starter packs, local and worldwide philatelic zoom meetings, digital philatelic newsletters, a website and, where the individual is able to attend, local philatelic meetings.
According to Jamie, "It became obvious to me that there were Veterans and others at home and in care homes just sitting there with nothing to do, ie. no tomorrow. At a Veterans meeting I threw philately into the bag and there was great interest, not only from the Veterans and the RBL but also from the MOD (Ministry of Defence), SSAFA (the Armed Forces charity), Pure Innovations (a charity supporting people to live more independent, fulfilled lives), Sheds and a few others including local councilors".
Encouraged by the positive response, Jamie took the initiative to get something started in Stockport. He approached local businesses and institutions seeking assistance. He was not to be deterred or disappointed. Some generously offered to provide free laptops and mobile phones to those who qualified. Slow moving Town and County Councils were asked to become involved by providing assistance for teaching and helping with digital IT for those who require it. This home-grown initiative is now the forerunner of a national outreach campaign that will start in January 2027. The ABPS (Association of British Philatelic Associations) will be promoting it to its members.
David Sheldrake, Chairman Poynton PPS, with new member Chloe.
This initiative would be nothing without free stamps. Jamie has had a very positive and encouraging response to his request for philatelic donations. "Various dealers have offered free boxes of stamps/postal history. These will be made up as starter packs for interested newcomers." The response was so overwhelming that David Sheldrake, the Chairman of the Poynton PS, has requested that no further contriibutions be made in the short term. Please contact David if you want to donate stamps. "There is also an interest from another organization to get videos and zoom meetings shown in old folk’s homes. We also have boxes of stamps/postal history that we circulate. There are also over 200 philatelic videos (including military) available for home viewing".
"At the moment I am working in the South Manchester area and through Simon Collyer in the Birmingham area. My intention as we go along is to tie all this up nationally via ‘Stamping with Adel’, (Adel Bulpitt's eNewsletter), our zoom meetings (which are international), and her editorship of ABPS. Add to this radio and TV and you can start to see where this can lead. But it doesn’t end there. If we get the veterans (and others) involved, they will have to be taught IT and be looked after. This will involve their families and in some cases a lift scheme to clubs. All of them will be potential local philatelic club members. I will also be working on a national scheme with libraries to organise a philatelic book bank that interested parties can draw from."
Good Luck, Jamie!
Jamie is a remarkable man who has lived a life full of vitality in which he has done many amazing things, like hire aeroplanes for his catering jamborees and 'shoot' almost all the Birds of South Africa. !:>) He is an RAF Veteran, a poet of note, a writer, a businessman, a pop singer, an inhabitee of Vereeniging for 40 years, a chaplain and a crooner with a 20-piece swing band who does a great 'Fly Me To The Moon'. I have never seen him dance but he can likely do so like Fred Astaire. The SAPC wishes Jamie and his collegaues the Best of British Good Luck in this worthy endeavour. You can do it. Nomvula, keep on keeping him so sharp. You are doing a great job!!
I am proud to be a part of this initiative and am currently working hard on sorting out the stamp material that Steve so generously gave us recently for this project. I will put up a couple of photos. The cartons that are the ideal size have arrived so we are now in a position to start making up the starter packs.
Jamie mentioned that at Poynton Philatelic Society we recently enrolled a young lady as a new member. It is worth mentioning that she has recently graduated as an MA in history. I mention it so that you can see the connection. Stamp Collecting and History are a perfect match.
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Thanks David, but you can go overboard! I will point out that I havn't shot a bird since I was a child! My shooting since has always been with the camera! And then from birds up to Elephants!
I wholeheartedly support Jamie in his initiative. Readers will know that I have previously commented on the state of stamp collecting and the future of philately to the point where I thought that my best option with my massive accumulation of stamps and postal history was to build a funeral pyre for myself in my back garden. That would solve several problems at once, I suggested. Of course, I was not being serious.
There are reasons why stamp collecting is in decline today and why almost no youngster picks it up the hobby. Our world has changed from when I was a child growing up in 1950s Cape Town . The world that kids inhabit today is very differen to what I once took for granted. I lay some blame for the change on the woke politics that Gen Z are taught in school today and the Marxist / Anglican Church interpretation of history that makes us ashamed to be British or South African or American, anything Waspish.
Our 'Commonwealth' stamp collecting category is all about the creation of an Empire whose final days I grew up in and which kids are now taught was a monstrous thing trampling on the human rights of other cultures in distant parts of the world where we had no right to be. Apparently, I am guilty of being born White in Africa, as if I had some control over the matter. The only control I have ever had was over my personal behaviour in a country arife with racism. However, I have compounded my guilt by collecting stamps. Its detractors do not see the hobby as one long hands-on history lesson with geography, currencies, products, politicians, despots, flora and fauna thrown in for good effect. To them stamp collecting is a defence of an outdated version of history.
That's the background that many kids have to negotiate with their peers before they can start collecting stamps. Any pupil who suggests that collecting stamps today might be fun is taking the first step on the road that leads to unpopularity and isolated weirdness at school. Rather like being a Christian today, stamp collecting is something that you practice in private, only admitting to it among trusted friends. The prohibitive cost of the hobby is also a factor. In the past boys and some girls swapped stamps at school. If such an exchange were to take place today it would probably be in secret at the weird, nerdy margins of the schoolyard were the popular kids never go.
In Britain today many hard-working and thrifty families may never own their own home due to sky-high property prices. Few parents and certainly less youngsters have the disposable income or pocket money to buy stamps despite a glut in the market as old time collectors pop their clogs. Jamie and David are right to target Veterans and the lonely old in the first instance. Most Veterans remain fiercely proud of their service to their country while the lonely old remember the comforting warmth of their childhhood home when they were happy as Larry with a new Stanley Gibbons 6d pack of assorted world stamps spread out before them on the dinner table.
Jamie and David are right to try to bring these people into stamp collecting by offering them sample packs of mixed low value stamps that few want to buy today. Today's remaining collectors want top value stamps, mint or used, and those containing varieties, overprints, flaws and legible postmarks. The low values, the halfpenny to 1/- stamps, exist in tonnes as unsellable storage space thieves. Better to give them away, just as anglers throw free bait into rivers to attract fish from a distance to build the confidence that ends as a feeding frenzy. If organised 'Philately' cannot do this we might as well take up angling, "the UK's No. 1 participation sport for individuals".
I believe it was Jamie who said to me that "most people I meet do not know what 'philately' means ... but they all understand stamp collecting!". The word 'Philately' is not the problem but it certainly adds to it. What does it mean? Who knows? Who cares? And why? Churchill famously championed plain English, decrying clever French and Latin words. 'Philately' is one such clever French word that means little to plain English speakers who have no trouble understanding "stamp collecting". In Britain Philately is organised into Societies. Broadly put, a society is a legally defined interest group. Combine 'society' with 'philately', as in the London Philatelic Society, the Cambridge Philatelic Society, etc., and the outsider can wrongly but easily perceive it as a snobbish elitist group of formidable collectors.
Societal Philately's problem's go deeper than shallow semantics. Philatelic Societies are in decline everywhere. The London Philatelic Society, once and still the flagship of the hobby, has contracted by over 50% in the last decade or so. When a failing Midlands 'Philatelic Society' recently folded it reconstituted itself as a 'Social and Postal History Club' with an immediate increase in membership. I have long held that more people are increasingly interested social and postal history than in stamps. It is now time for us to emphasise Social and Postal History, the two sides of every letter bearing a stamp and a postmark. We need to do this alongside what remains of stamp collecting. There is a place for stamp collecting within in Social and Postal History but probably not within 'Philately' as currently constituted.
As a consequence, it is my intention that as of January 2027 the emphasis of this website will be 'South African Social and Postal History'. Rest assured, there will always be a place for stamps and stamp collectors on this website.
Steve, Thanks for this one - We will get there!