Members and guests attending the Saturday evening banquet at the Holiday Inn Hotel, Kenilworth
Eighteen members and 6 guests, along with two Saturday day visitors, attended the Members’ Weekend Meeting and enjoyed an excellent programme of events, food and good weather. As part of the opening welcome, Jill Flemming kindly showed a seven-frame standing display of Guernsey Hotels.
Following the Friday evening buffet, the entertainment was centred around the 12 entries for the “One Sheet to Tell a Story” competition. Despite some stiff competition, this year’s winner was Richard Flemming with his exhibit titled ‘A 1941 Registered letter from Paris to St Helier (245 miles) but arrived in San Pedro, California before arriving back at Paris some 127 days later, having travelled 13,250 miles’. Sorry about the length of the title.
Saturday morning started bright and early with viewing of the bourse tables, and the 760 lots for the room/postal auction. The auction started promptly at 10.00 am, and due to some excellent team work, the auction was completed by 12.30 pm. Special thanks must go to Nick Stuart as Auctioneer, Nick Martin and Bryan Elliston who recorded the bids, and Jill Flemming and Gavin Wood who did all the running.
Saturday afternoon was taken up with two ‘invited members’ displays. Gerald Marriner and Gavin Wood display was titled ‘Captain Gussek and the Jersey first issues’, including Jersey 1940 Swastika Overprints on cover; this being the only known such cover. Richard Flemming and Bryan Elliston then showed an eight-frame display of Channel Islands Ship Letters, including a complete set of the different Jersey and Guernsey Ship Letter handstamps known to date. This included four individual items that are currently the only known examples of the specific handstamp.
Saturday evening started with a drinks reception (see above photo) followed by an excellent three-course dinner.
Sunday morning was taken up with some excellent members’ displays. Jon Aitchison: displays included 8 frames of CI perfins. David Winnie: 5 frame display was titled ‘Sark post-occupation’. Steve Wells: a mixed display of material titled ‘Post card rates from the CIs’ (12 sheets), Cl/German Mail (6 sheets), and ‘CI Court post cards’ (9 sheets). Julian Bagwell: 3-frame display was titled ‘Guernsey Philately between the Wars’. Nick Martin: ‘Iles de Chausey’, with Richard Flemming closing the weekend’s programme by showing two recent purchases, an 17 August 1940 Feldpost letter from Alderney (Feldpost No. 10772A) and a ‘Fortress period letter from the 5th battery, Reserve flak, 152 (L25262) dated 14 December 1944.
David Winnie provided the closing remarks, and advised that the 2027 Members’ Weekend meeting is in the planning stage for Jersey.
