As we wind down 2018, let me review the year from the point of view of the Council of Northern California Philatelic Societies. OK, let’s admit Northern California has grown to include Western Nevada and Southern Oregon, and it extends south to Fresno. It includes 23 stamp clubs and the Western Philatelic Library.

The Council has a complete set of officers. These are Treasurer Nigel Moriarty (EBCC), Secretary Robert Pope (Sacramento), Vice President Kristin Paterson (Sequoia and Peninsula) and me, President Larry Crain (Southern Oregon). Two meetings are held a year, one at WESTPEX and this year, one at SACAPEX.

The Council cooperates with two WSP shows in the region — WESTPEX in April and Filatelic Fiesta in October. Both were successful.

Throughout the year there are seven regional shows with exhibits: NOVAPEX in Redding, SOPEX in Southern Oregon, Nevada Stamp and Cover Show in Reno, WINEPEX in San Rafael, EBCC Show in Walnut Creek, SACAPEX in Sacramento, and PENPEX in Redwood City. These offer local opportunities to buy or sell stamps and to see exhibits. FRESPEX is a bourse without exhibits in Fresno, and well worth attending.

The Council Courier, this newsletter, is a key element of the Council. It is delivered electronically, and each member club is encouraged to forward copies to all its members. It is informative with announcements of events to come and summaries of that which occurred.  Thanks to David McNamee for his editing.

Looking at next year, I hope we can strengthen the organization’s communication with each other. This could be by inviting speakers for club meetings, exhibiting at any of the nine shows in the

Council area and certainly by attending several of them. Volunteers can support the Council on any of its committees: communications, Council Courier, webmaster, speakers, judges, and frames. A few of
these are without chair people. Everyone can volunteer or encourage others to volunteer.

Elections will be held next year at one of the fall shows, TBA. Everyone is invited to attend the meeting on Sunday 28 April 2019 at WESTPEX.

Larry Crain, CNCPS President

This Special Edition has been created to encourage all Council organizations and club members to support our great  fortune that the Council has a bountiful harvest of philatelic Exhibitions coming
to you in October and November:

• October 5-7: WINEPEX, San Rafael
• October 20-21: Filatelic Fiesta
  San Jose
• October 27-28: EBCC Show, Walnut Creek
• November 3-4: SACAPEX Sacramento
• December 3-4 PENPEX, Redwood City

Each of these shows will bring dealers, exhibitors and collectors together for a weekend of fun: North Nay, South Bay, East Bay, and Sacramento — if you live in the Greater Bay Area, then get ready to harvest a lot of philatelic fun!

Club Leaders — Announce these up-coming shows at your next meeting. Make certain that everyone has these marked on their personal calendars. Directions and Maps on the CNCPS web site
http://norcalstamps.org/events/

A new Safety Committee has been formed by Roy Teixeira (Chair), Ed Jarvis and David McNamee to address critical safety issues with the building housing the WPL. The Safety Committee has solicited WPL supporters for funds to accomplish specific site improvements that enhance the safety of volunteer staff, visitors and the philatelic literature collection.

Among the first actions was to press the Board to acquire adequate insurance to cover the liabilities and risks of owning its own premises. Funds were raised to hire an electrical contractor to audit the complex circuits and repair as necessary, upgrade the lighting where required and install lighted EXIT signs.

Safety push-bars were added to the two glass doors to conform to standard building codes. These first efforts were high on the list of safety and security projects.

Future projects include a better security fence and gates for the parking area. Also, there are items that are clogging the aisles between the stacks still left over from our move to the building from Sunnyvale; these represent a safety issue for emergency egress.

Ed and Judy Jarvis have contributed a microwave, coffee maker, and cabinets for the coffee bar/snack area. Roy Teixeira has spent countless hours cleaning up the inside and outside, painting and working with the various contractors. On behalf of all members, we owe a big “Thank You” to Ed, Judy and Roy.

These projects may seem dull when reading about them, but if you come down to Redwood City for a visit to WPL, you will see that we are beginning to look like a real library: clean, lighted, safe, and organized with study tables and WiFi access — all the “mod cons” as they say (modern conveniences).

Fellow Collectors:

Stamp collectors should be excited about spring because the year’s run of shows has just begun (such as NOVAPEX in Redding the first weekend of March). However, there may be some trepidation also about spring cleaning. Do we ever want to spring clean our collections? That is wiped clean the dusty album tops, wash the page protestors (not that we won’t find they need it when we remount our exhibit), throw out the old (covers . . . heaven forbid!!) or clean out the stamp area (we can do if it is only re-arranging — vacuuming not).

Spring means more sunlight hours to read that blurred cancel on a stamp by tipping it from side to side to catch the gleam of the black ink. Spring means warmer tap water to soak that collection on paper bought at a winter club auction. Spring means having light in the dark corners of a room to sort those newly-soaked stamps or having space to open more than one album at once or more than one catalog.

Spring means getting active again with your collection, with your club or with your exhibiting. Welcome to spring. Welcome again to our hobby. And welcome especially to WESTPEX April 27-29 at the San Francisco Airport Marriott in Burlingame. Join the Council Sunday at 12 for its annual general meeting. Stay afterwards to hear Bob Grosch talk about the Boston negative cancels.

Larry Crain

The new Vice Chairman of WESTPEX, Daryl Reiber, was introduced by Clyde Homen to the 50-member WESTPEX Committee of volunteers at the March 26 final contact meeting prior to the show April 27-29, 2018. WESTPEX is hosting a number of specialist societies with 60-odd seminars and meetings, most open to the public. The featured societies include the American Airmail Society, the Rhodesian Study Circle, and Women Exhibitors. If for no other reason, you should go to WESTPEX for some of these meetings and displays. Tables will be set up for information on these and other stamp societies. Stop by and chat. On Thursday (the 26th) before WESTPEX officially starts, the organization Women Exhibitors will conduct an all-day seminar with presentations covering the full range of exhibiting experience open to both men and women.

WEFest VI will feature 6 presentations:

• “You’ve Had Your Arm Twisted to Exhibit — Now What?” with Larry Crain
• “Adding Old(er) Material to an Exhibit: What, Where and How” with Pat Stillwell Walker
• “Layout Challenges in Exhibiting” with David McNamee
• “Types of Postal History Exhibiting: Purpose and Plan” with Tony Wawrukiewicz
• “An Opportunity to Exhibit Anything” with Tim Bartshe
• “An Exhibit Judge for a Day” with Liz Hisey.

Fellow Collectors:
“It is my observation that many of us take the hobby and our participation in it with such seriousness that we neglect the concept that the hobby should be fun.” John M. Hotchner, The American Stamp Dealer & Collector, No. 114 Oct 2017, p 19

Let us resolve in 2018 to have fun with our stamp collecting. Let us decide to spend a few days getting lost in our collections and, also, to spend a few hours at a few shows enjoying the people who are stamp collectors or stamp dealers. Let us take some of our favorite philatelic items and show them off at club show-and-tell, with talks or with new, creative exhibits.

Let me suggest that you thoroughly investigate one of your covers. Bob Grosch in Redding does this. He researches the senders and the addressees. Fascinating stuff!

Two examples that I have:

The Granger cover (above) which I bought for the good reason that it, well, it was just interesting and unusual. I bought it at a PENPEX in the last millennium because it intrigued me, it was the last half hour of the show and I still had few bucks left.

I like messy covers, but after organizing the messiness (postmarks, forwarding, and labels), it stayed in my eclectic covers cigar box. Years later I went on the internet to learn about the towns called Granger. There are, or were, 17 in the USA, and the cover went to five. Of these one has dinosaur statues in places around town and one has an elephant cemetery from when a circus wintered there. OK, not philatelic but FUN knowledge.

Would that I could find 14 more and have a most unusual one-frame. OK, probably not even one more. Nope!

Then the Belfast cover (above) appeared. This one went to three Belfast’s until the US ran out of Belfast’s, I guess, and the PO tried a Bellfountaine. See the conclusion on the cover. But, anyway, one of these places was burned by the British in 1779, and one has the shortest street in the world. FUN!

Welcome to 2018. May we all enjoy philately in the coming year. There are seven local/regional shows and two WSP shows in the Council area. I hope to see you at a few of them.

Larry Crain

“Introduce a Fellow Collector to your next Club Meeting. The hobby grows richer when we expand our social contacts and friendships.”