Thank you and congratulations to all the entrants in our competition. As always, there was a wide range of topics of a very high standard. An enjoyable meeting was appreciated by all.
Palmares by Award
| Title | Entrant | Class | Award | Score |
|---|
| Essays and Proofs of the Jersey Pictorial Views Occupation Stamps | Ron Brown | Stamps | Gold | 88 |
| The Guernsey Red Cross Messaging System during the “Fortress Period” | Bryan Elliston | Occupation Postal History and Markings | Large Vermeil | 80 |
| The Jersey Penny Post | David Winnie | Postal History | Large Vermeil | 80 |
| German Occupation of Alderney 1940 – 1945 | Richard Flemming | Occupation Postal History and Markings | Vermeil | 78 |
| Handstamps Applied to Mail Arriving in France from the Channel Island 1755 – 1839. | Richard Flemming | Postal History | Vermeil | 78 |
| Combined Obliterators of Jersey 1881-1905 | Steve Power | Postal History | Large Silver | 73 |
| Guernsey Under Occupation – The Bisects | Julian Bagwell | Occupation Postal History and Markings | Large Silver | 71 |
| An Overview of the Postal History of the Channel Islands | Robert Corden | Postal History | Silver | 68 |
Bob Trower of the Isle of Wight writes to ask for information regarding two presentation cards of the 1941-1944 Occupation Issues which he bought from a newsstand in Jersey in Spring 1968.
As can be seen from the scans, both have basic printing information although there is no mention of the publisher of these cards. If any member has similar cards or can shed any light on these, please reply via the Editor.
The huge project of digitizing our Journal going back to the first issue in December 1975 was completed last year. This should be a valuable resource for all our members and all the individual journals can be downloaded through the Our Journal menu on our website. Individual references or a word search can be conducted through the Search button on the top right of every page.
As part of our Anniversary Celebrations, the CISS has been invited to provide a full presentation to the Royal Philatelic Society London on 9 February 2025. Members interested in displaying should please contact: anniversary@ciss.uk. More information to follow.
Having considered the effectiveness of the ‘Discussion’ section of the website, the Committee agreed to create a new page headed ‘Members Forum’. This will hopefully give this function more visibility and provide a more effective platform for communicating and requesting information about our collecting needs.
Very sadly Ron passed away peacefully on Monday 22 January 2024 at home surrounded by his family. Ron had sustained a fall in early January followed by two weeks in hospital at the age of 97 years. An amazing age and a member of our Society for at least 31 years so must surely have been our oldest member. Ron usually attended meetings with his wife, Betty (nearly 95), and their most recent attendance was at our London meeting this last November 2023 accompanied by their son and daughter!
In the light of Ron’s age, it was decided he should be the first candidate for our Profiles of long serving members and was featured on page 5 of our March 2023 Journal. Ron enjoyed collecting the postal history and the LL postcards of all the Channel Islands.
Ron was called up in December 1944 and served in the Royal Armoured Corps in WW2 and then in the Middle East postwar. An accountant by profession he worked for the same shipping insurance company in the City of London for over 40 years. In addition to his keen interest in C.I. postal history, he was a keen sportsman playing football and tennis in his youth and bowls in his later years. An Arsenal supporter since his first visit to Highbury in the 1930’s and at various times a shareholder and season ticket holder. Ron and Betty were married for 68 years, they had Sue and Steve and there are now four grandchildren and four great grandchildren. Ron was very much a family man and will be much missed by his family and friends.
David Gurney, FRPSL
We welcome new members Harold Ford of Stone Mountain, Georgia, USA, and Simon Stutz of Stuttgart, Germany.
Welcome back to Dana Nielsen, Washington, USA, and Steve Norman, of Nuneaton, Warwickshire.
We regret to record the death of member David Le Maistre. Our condolences go to Ann.
Congratulations to the following who have reached significant points with their memberships:
30 years of membership – Bryan Elliston and Thomas Cowley.
50 years of membership – Paul Balshaw, Peter Cornish, Rodney Beale-Broughton, and Steve Wells.
Thank you all for your long support and friendship.
First of all, can I welcome Nick Martin as our new Editor. I am sure that we will support Nick in every way we can as he settles into his new role. I would also like to express my sincerest thanks to David Gurney, our previous Editor of nearly 25 years, for the sterling work he did in producing four, high-quality editions of Les Iles Normandes each year.
By the time you read this, the 2024 Annual Competition Day will have been and gone. May I offer my congratulations to the individual class winners, and my sincerest thanks to all those other members who took time to enter the various classes. May I also thank our two judges for judging the entries: not an easy task.
As previously advised, we have unfortunately had to cancel our planned weekend meeting in Salisbury. The reasons were quite beyond our control, and we offer our apologies to those who are disappointed.
The Salisbury weekend has been replaced by an additional meeting in London on 20 April. As usual, we will be holding our “Three Sheets to Tell a Story” Competition, so put your thinking caps on and come up with something original.
As stated above I do not intend to make major changes to the basic format of this journal without referral. However, there are minor points which always help an editor in his work, and mine are as follows. Please remember that the settings on your own computers are not necessarily the same as mine, but please do not worry!
I prefer contributions in Microsoft Word but can work from any Windows compatible formatting. Please use a commonly used font such as 12pt Times New Roman. There is no need to spend time revising margins or other page settings.
Please do not embed images within the text, although a version as you view it is always helpful. Images should be clearly identified with a recognizable and attributable name and illustration number (e.g. Ref. 1 etc) and a place marker inserted into the text where the illustration is required.
Correct scanning is essential to produce a good final result. Please scan images as 300dpi (there will be a setting on your printer/scanners), and ensure images are saved as JPEGs (or as TIFF images (.tif) which are much higher quality. Always scan at 100% as an Editor is best placed to decide on any final size in the article if any size reduction is necessary.
Please ensure that your covers or stamps are placed straight on the scanning surface. It is very time-consuming to correct crooked images and often leads to a deterioration of the image.
To identify text describing illustrations, please do this in italics within your article to make it clear that it is the caption to an illustration. End of sermon! Many thanks.
Nick Martin
