The most common format for a philatelic quiz is one in which all members complete a set of questions, usually without being able to consult albums or reference books, with the person with the highest number of correct answers being declared the winner. The main criticism of this format is that the quiz is inevitably won by the same one or two individuals. Another dilemma is how to set the questions without advantaging or disadvantaging anyone. This latter problem can be easily addressed by having someone outside the club set the questions. Two clubs can collaborate to set questions for each other. In Victoria, the Victorian Philatelic Council offers a quiz question setting service.

There are however numerous other formats and variations that can be employed. One is to apply handicaps. An example is that winners are automatically handicapped for the following year. One society has adopted a "two division" format with a relegation / promotion system whereby previous winners compete in their own division with a set of more challenging questions. The lowest scorer in this division is relegated to the other division. At the same time, the winner of the second division earns promotion to the top division for the following year. Who said that there can only be one winner at a time?

Scavenger Hunts – or Treasure Hunts as they are sometimes called, are a fun and often surprisingly entertaining stamp club activity. Whilst the rules can vary from format to format, the one characteristic which is common is that the aim is for you to find all the specified items.

A list is provided a certain period in advance of the staging of the competition and members are given that period of time to do their hunting. They then bring their items to a meeting where judging / scoring takes place. Two or three months lead time is usual, sometimes longer.

One version allocates a set number of points to each item on the list – the harder the item to find, the more points it is worth. A total score of 100 with items varying from 2 to 20 points is typical. Some clubs award bonus points if only one person finds the item.

In another version, the challenge is not simply to find all the items on the list, but to find examples which will be unique relative to every one else’s. A scoring scenario might be as follows. Up to twenty points can be gained per item. If you have an item which satisfies the description and your item is different to everyone else’s, you score the maximum of 20 points. If two people have the same item, they score 12 points each, 3 the same scores 7 points, 4 the same scores 3 points each, and 5 or more scores just 1 point. The three main features which make this particular form quite fun are:

• the more people that play, the harder it is for each person to score highly - even if you don’t think you can win, you can make it harder for every-one else to get maximum points!;
• the advantage is with the person with the biggest collection (accumulation) and not the specialist, as the more you have, the better are your chances of finding something no-one else is likely to have; &
• you can almost certainly be guaranteed a few heated debates as people strive to stretch the definition - often there is a very fine line between scoring 0 and scoring 20.

There are also some tricks to be wary of, so here are a few tips if participating in this type of scavenger hunt:

• make sure your item fits the description - if it does not, you will score 0 for that item;
• don’t be alarmed if you only have what appears to be an obvious choice for a certain item - usually people go out of their way to try and find a unique item and no-one brings in the obvious - a case of a little reverse psychology can often work wonders!
• if you have doubts as to what the item is, clarify it with the question setter in the lead up period.

There are also versions of this type of activity which require participants to write up their items into a mini-exhibit which is then judged.

For all sorts of reasons, stamp collectors may rarely get the opportunity to visit a dealers’ shop. It may be that there simply isn’t a stamp shop close by, a common problem of many country collectors; or the dealers who are based in the vicinity are either home-based mail order businesses only or do not open on weekends.

There are two ways around this problem, both of which have been used by our more innovative philatelic societies.

The first is to invite a dealer to your meeting as the principal attraction for the evening. If the dealer can be provided with a list of the "wants" and collecting interests of your society’s members, then he or she can ensure they bring what you want to see. This needn’t be restricted to stamps, as your members may wish to purchase accessories such as catalogues, display sheets, albums, etc. Many dealers who travel regularly to weekend fairs are well equipped to take their stock "on the road" and are only to willing to visit if the opportunity appears it will be worth their while. To this end, why not join up with a neighbouring society and arrange a dealers’ visit. The Bundaberg Philatelic Society in Queensland is one example of a society offering this type of service to it’s members.

It is well accepted that the best way to get your message across is to do it frequently and using different media. Simple once-off announcements of news items are often missed, misinterpreted, forgotten, or just not taken seriously.

Club newsletters are an effective way of reinforcing information, providing your members with that extra little something, and providing some good old fashioned entertainment as well.

The editor is fortunate to have seen many different types of newsletters ranging from one page, dot-point handouts, to elaborate and colourful multi-paged newsletters.

Ongoing publicity for the club’s own syllabus is a great advantage of publishing a newsletter. This ensures members don’t forget key dates like annual competitions, annual general meetings, fairs and special events, and any once-off departures from usual meeting arrangements. Publicity for upcoming fairs, State Congresses, special events and exhibitions is also an obvious feature of any good newsletter.

The personal experiences of your fellow club members often bring useful tips and information from which everyone can benefit. It might be as simple as learning that a post office is closing (get in for a final day cancellation) to an error on a new stamp which could be worth a small fortune.

I wonder how many society newsletters print birthday greetings to their members? You can be assured of birthday greetings if you belong to the Gladstone and District Philatelic Society or the Bundaberg Philatelic Society in Queensland. The "Gladstone Bag" published by the Gladstone and District Philatelic Society is also renowned for its jokes and humorous stories, making it a great read even when philatelic news is scarce!

A formal welcome to new members including the publishing of their collecting interests is also a great advantage of having a newsletter. This way, new members can network from the time they join, even if they can’t be regular attendees at meetings.

The style and scope of newsletters is only limited by the imagination of its editor and the ideas that its members contribute.

The value of newsletters in attracting and retaining members should not be underestimated. Gauging by the newsletters which are received by the APF, it is not unusual for societies which produce and mail out newsletters to all members to have several thousand members (including many overseas), even when meeting numbers are only a tiny fraction of this.

A final point in favour of newsletters is that they record your society’s history – often in ways and in a level of detail not normally recorded in the formal minutes of meetings. Your society may never have produced a history book, however such an exercise, should it ever be undertaken, would be that much easier, more thorough and more fun, if a newsletter existed to record it all.

Are there members in your society who seem to remain a constant mystery in terms of their collecting interests? If you answer "yes", you would not be alone. Knowing what your fellow collectors are interested in is important for many reasons. Seeing your auction lots and exchange sheets coming back untouched can become depressing and frustrating, yet there are some simple ways to encourage openness and therefore open up trading and exchange opportunities. A Members’ Display Night or Favourite Philatelic Item Night could be just the ice-breaker your society needs. And once the ice has been broken, you might be pleasantly surprised at how many tips and bargains your fellow society members might bestow upon each other.

If you live in the "big smoke", chances are stamp fairs happen regularly near you and you rarely need to travel far to visit one. But for many stamp collectors, this is far from the case. And even for those of us who are fortunate to be well serviced by stamp fairs, there is always the temptation to make a longer trip one weekend to visit a different fair which is likely to have table holders who you don’t normally encounter locally.

A great social activity is to hire a bus, get the club together, and make a day (or weekend) of it. Think of the trip as golf weekend except the clubs are replaced by stamp albums!

It is sometimes argued that one of the greatest draw backs of most traditional exhibiting competitions at club level is that they tend to be dominated by the same entrants who are capable and experienced of mounting excellent displays and seem to have endless quality material at their disposal. Encouraging first time entries is rarely easy and often the club syllabus seems unable to cater for those wanting to display or participate in competition, but in something of a less serious way.

The One Sheet ‘Original’ Display concept is designed to accommodate the gap. Restricted to just one display page, the competition is based on the "best" idea utilising something philatelic. There aren’t too many rules and it can be judged by a secret ballot (popular vote) of the meeting. As long as the page contains something philatelic, it is a valid entry.

The idea is to present an original concept or idea using a stamp or stamps or some other philatelic item. It can be poem, a play on words, a product advertisement, a send up of a television program or movie title; the ideas are only limited by your imagination.

Because the winner is based on the creativity of his or her idea, exhibiting experience, the value of philatelic items used, and all the usual rules have no relevance. Put another way, there is NO excuse for any one not to participate. Other pluses of this activity are:

• Entries take minimal time and expense to prepare;
• The competition itself need not take long to conduct;
• It takes minimal table or mounting space to conduct;
• It can "break the ice" for those who have never exhibited or entered a club competition before;
• It emphasises the enjoyment aspect of the hobby.

What is a Letter Hunt? The objective of a Letter Hunt is to find as many stamps, covers or philatelic items as you can which feature something beginning with a designated letter of the alphabet. This is a great activity for junior groups, but also offers some variety for a club’s adult syllabus. Like the scavenger hunt, the fun can be in arguing the point when the result is close.

Annual (or more frequent) fairs are a highlight on the calendar of many of our more progressive stamp clubs. Fairs provide important exposure for the club as well as an effective source of new membership. Indeed for the clubs themselves, the number of new members signed is often regarded as a more meaningful measure of performance of a fair than of the total number of visitors through the door.

A first must is effective promotion – not just within the club, but in the community generally. Local papers, local radio, shopping centre windows, church gatherings, pamphlet drops in letter boxes, ads in dealers catalogues, your State Council periodic newsletter, APF News, and the APF website are all obvious ways of getting the message out. A professionally looking flyer conveys a more positive message than a simple one, and many of our more innovative clubs are using the ever increasing array of modern software and printing techniques to give their flyers more appeal.

A visitors book is a great idea for monitoring how effective your promotion has been. Logging the names and addresses of visitors (even if the latter is only a suburb name), plus whether they belong to a stamp club or not, and how they came to know about your fair, can be a real eye opener. Those who answer "no" to being a member of a club are an obvious source of new members.

But what will attract people to your fair? At least one society that has come to the attention of APF News has a stated policy of ensuring their fair has at least one new dealer every time – and where possible, that dealer should be a person who is not normally seen at other fairs in the region. This initiative aims to ensure that there is always an element of "fresh appeal" for visitors.

Organised club participation is another effective way of boosting numbers at your fair. This can be done in many ways: by staging an interclub competition, by inviting club members from neighbouring clubs to take up tables or provide exhibits, or to man information tables. Interclub competitions can take many forms. One-frame competitions are typical, but many other forms are possible. You can add interest by conducting a quiz or "find it" competition which requires visitors to complete a quiz or find the frame number in which certain items can be found. Find-it competitions are one way of encouraging people to look more closely at exhibits on show at fairs – not to mention the fact that they can learn a thing or two from participating in the exercise!

The incentive of a good door prize or two should always be considered. In Melbourne’s eastern suburbs, a number of fair organisers offer a full suitcase of goodies as the door prize! As filling the suitcase can be a year-long exercise, this in itself can be a great way of building up interest in the fair.