Sep 2026 – President’s Newsletter
President’s Newsletter September 2026
I hope you enjoyed your summer, at least for those of you in the northern hemisphere. It has been a long tradition at the Royal for there to be a summer break in July and August. The ‘season’ starts again in September – next week!
Was it the holiday season or the attraction of the garden that prompted this calendar? If your garden is like mine and has not seen any rain in many weeks then little has grown and given spare hours to look at our philatelic treasures in the natural light of the longer days.
Perhaps, like me, you have taken the opportunity to write up a new exhibit. We have our UK National competitions next week at Nottingham alongside the Philatelic Congress of Great Britain and judging by the bookings, there should be a good attendance, but day visitors are also welcome. My new exhibit, on Australian Maritime Mail will be there as will a number of other new exhibits, but numbers are certainly not back to pre-pandemic levels.
Personally, I find exhibiting to be a great discipline that allows me to focus on my collecting, my research and makes me re-examine old friends as new understanding of their context is revealed by study. A lot of effort goes into training our judges so that the rules get applied consistently and, in general, exhibits get the right medal level. So, if you have not tried exhibiting, come along and be inspired by the exhibits in Nottingham and have a go. The costs of national exhibitions are very modest and even free for ABPS members entering for the first time.
Our own one-frame competition, the Devonshire Bowl was very well supported last month and my congratulations to Bob Galland who won and to Chris King who was the runner-up. No judging at this one, just a popular vote of those attending.
Staff Changes
Sadly, our General Manager, Paul Moorcroft, has decided to move on to a new challenge, rather closer to home. We wish him every success in this new challenge and I would like to take this opportunity to thank him personally for all his help and support during the last year.
Paul will be leaving the week after the traditional opening of the new season and we have put interim arrangements in place to ensure service to members is not disrupted. Council will be looking carefully at all our staff roles and the interaction with voluntary roles to ensure we meet the changing needs of your Society.
2026/27 Programme and a digital LP
With the new season we have decided to experiment by sending all members for whom we hold an e-mail address (over 95% of you) a link to a ‘flip-book’ version of The London Philatelist. This will go out by e-mail on the publication date and is very much ‘in addition’ to the usual printed copy that is mailed to you.
There are several factors behind this move. It is not just that postage costs have risen sharply worldwide, which they have, but that this has been coupled with a decline in service and, in some countries, customs barriers. As a result, members are not receiving the physical copy anything like as promptly as we would like, a disservice to them and, importantly, to our advertisers. We would very much welcome your feedback on this.
The 2026/27 programme is on the website but some have found it hard to find, so here is the link again by clicking HERE The usual physical programme card will be with you in the September London Philatelist, I hope you will all find something of interest and endeavour to attend some of the meetings.
Tuesday 1st September RPSL Zoom Meeting
Graham Winters will be giving us a presentation on exhibiting picture postcards. Many of us do have collections of postcards to add visual interest to our displays. As an exhibiting class postcards are very new and I’m sure we will all learn a great deal from this presentation. Please do register in advance on Eventbrite by clicking HERE
Thursday 10th September RPSL Meeting Day 1pm
The season of physical meetings will start in the traditional way when we are privileged to have a fine offering from His Majesty the King’s collection. The material will be from the Windward Islands and in particular Grenada, St Lucia and Trinidad & Tobago.
This will complement the wonderful selection we enjoyed last year from the Leeward Islands, which included previously unseen material. This meeting is strictly for members only.
Thursday 24th September RPSL Meeting Day 1pm
The second meeting of the month will be a presentation of Chinese Postal History by Dr Sam Chiu, who is coming all the way from Canada to give his presentation. The display will have a special focus on cities and will be a rare opportunity to appreciate the postal history of this great country with which Great Britain has so many historical links.
Other Events at Abchurch Lane
Tuesday 15th September Stuart Rossiter Lecture 5pm
We are delighted to be hosting this year’s Stuart Rossiter Trust Lecture, which will be given by Rob May FRPSL, entitled ‘Postal History in the Digital Landscape’. An intriguing title that invites one to find out more. Spaces are available, and are free, but booking is necessary, so do take a look at the Stuart Rossiter Trust website on the ‘lecture’ tab for details on how to reserve a place.
Regional Meetings
Regional meetings have continued through the summer and I enjoyed an excellent day in Sussex at the South Eastern regional meeting. John Stimson and the membership team are working hard to ensure all regions in the UK hold at least one meeting a year and preferably two. In October, the Royal will be the lead Society at Ulm in Germany and we are looking forward to meeting many of our members there.
Full details of this and our regional meetings can be found on the website. Do encourage non-members to attend as your guest. With fewer local Societies these days it is an opportunity for all and an opportunity to recruit new members.
Ulm 22 – 24 October 2026
Persons attending Ulm maybe interested to know that if they are wanting to purchase RPSL publications and place an order before 9 October 2026, we are hoping to be able to transport a limited number of books to the event with no postage costs. Please do contact the RPSL administration office for more information.
A New Book
In the meanwhile, a new and important work on Indian philately, The King-Emperor’s Stamps 1910 – 1936 – The Postage and Revenue Stamps & Postal Stationery of Imperial India under King George V, by Douglas Muir RDP FRPSL and Pragya Kothari Jain FRPSL is available for pre-order. Faced with ever increasing postage costs and, suspecting that much of the demand will be from the sub-continent, this has been produced soft bound at just £25 for members and £30 for non-members. So do pre-order your copy by clicking HERE
Finally, the new arrangement with the LP means this newsletter will now appear on a more structured basis, at the end of each month during the season to alert you to what is happening in the following month.
Yours sincerely,
Simon
Simon Richards RDP FRPSL
President of The Royal Philatelic Society London
