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Presidents View November
2011
Welcome
to my first column as President of the Australian Philatelic Federation.
It is an honour to serve in this role and I would like to thank my
predecessor, David Figg, for his excellent work over the last two
years. The last two years have some interesting times for the APF,
but I feel that I have inherited an organisation that has a fairly
positive outlook. I would like to take this opportunity to thank both
Malcolm Groom and Linda Lee for their services to the APF over the
years. Both chose not to seek
re-election at the August AGM and both have been on the APF twice.
Malcolm will still be very busy as he is Chair of the Organising Committee
for Australia 2013. Malcolm is replaced by Gary Brown as International
Officer, and Linda has handed the mantle of Youth Officer to Yvette
Trinidad from Western Australia. I must also welcome Dr. Philip Levine
who has replaced me as Vice President. We now have coverage of all
State and Territory Councils on the APF except for Tasmania, however,
given Malcolm's involvement with 2013 I feel sure he will attend a
number of APF meetings.
On the exhibiting front I would like to congratulate all those Australian exhibitors who have taken part in Philanippon (28 July – 2 August), Geepex 80 the National One Frame exhibition(5-7 August), APS Stampshow in Columbus Ohio (11-14 August), the Queensland State Exhibition (27-28 August), the South Australian Congress and the Swan River Stamp Show(both 8-9 October) and finally the Cape Town National Stamp Exhibition (13-15 October). It has been a busy time with more to come with the 27 Asian International Stamp Exhibition in Wuxi China from 11-15 November. We also have exhibitions in Canberra (16-18 March 2012)and Perth (17-20 May 2012) with the latter a large exhibition and your last opportunity to qualify an exhibit for 2013. There is also a FIP exhibition in Indonesia in 2012 (18-24 June), which would be worth attending as Indonesia is fairly cheap to get to and hotels are also inexpensive. I find it worth attending stamp exhibitions, be they small state exhibitions or a full world, so make it your New Year’s resolution to attend at least one in 2012.
I feel sure that all new presidents come into the APF wanting to leave their mark on the organisation. I am no different and one thing I would like to do is to ensure that the executive takes issues that may impact its members (the State Councils) back to them for their input.It will, of course, be up to the Councils to provide such input back to us.
Besides
increased consultation, there is only so much you can do in two years.
The three items I would like to work on are as follows. Firstly, I
would like to ensure the APF is in a sound financial position by 2013.
We have already laid the groundwork and hopefully by the end of my
tenure we will be in a sound position where we are managing to save
some income toward the future, not just balance the books. Secondly,
I want to ensure the APF's frames are fully refurbished for the exhibition
in 2013, and to ensure they will last at least another decade or two.
This is an expensive task and despite the money raised to date, more
funding is needed. Thirdly, I want to ensure that the international
exhibition in Melbourne in 2013 is a success. The latter may seem
not all that important to the average collector but I beg to differ.
This exhibition needs to succeed if we are to have others in the future.
They are also
If I
succeed in the above three issues I hope that others will feel that
my time at the helm was useful. I also hope that all collectors will
work with the APF to promote philately which feel has a future. We
need all three legs of the philatelic stool (collectors, dealers and
postal administrations) working together to ensure that the hobby
remains the great fun it has been over the years. Darryl Fuller, President
APF