David, more commonly known as Dingle Smith has been a driving force in promoting
philately in the Australian Capital Territory for many years. He has been a member of the Philatelic Society of Canberra for more than
20 years and a member of the Australian Capital Territory Philatelic Council
since its inception in 1980. He has held a number of positions in both organisations including terms as President.
He has also been a member of the organising committee of all National Philatelic Conventions in Canberra since 1982, holding various positions including Chairman, Operations Manager and Dealer Liaison.
He is a national judge in Postal Stationery, Aerophilately, Literature, and Revenues and Cinderellas. Dingle has formed a number of distinguished collections including Jamaica (traditional, postal history and postal stationery), Australian States’ Revenues and New South Wales Postal Stationery all of which have been exhibited nationally and internationally. He also has a number of other collections which have been displayed to philatelic societies in Australia, South Africa and Canada.
Dingle has been a prolific writer on philatelic subjects and has published over 50 articles in a number of journals. Whilst of a wide variety, the concentration of these articles has been revenues and postal stationery. He has been a constant promoter of revenues and has written the seminal work on judging Australian Revenue Exhibits. He is also joint author of The Specimens of New South Wales Postal Stationery, and is the current editor of the journal, Capital Philately. Dingle has been very prominent in the ACT in promoting and publicising philately.
He was an inaugural member of the ACT Youth Philately Clubs Organising Committee and acted as ACT Philatelic Council youth coordinator for several years. He organised and ran courses on stamp collecting for the ACT Stamp Promotion Council and the Philatelic Society of Canberra, been a teacher at advanced collector and exhibitor courses run by these organisations and been a member of the training panel for State level judges courses since 1984. He has also provided radio publicity for philately in the ACT region for both the ABC and commercial stations.