Hi folks, I thought I’d ask the community how they have been successful at getting support from their own postal services in supporting us sending postcards. And what would be on our collective wish lists?
Promotion of World Postcard Day? Any specific actions/suggestions here? Any postal services that created their own postcards?
Were there any stamps created for World Postcard Day?
Creating a Postcrossing stamp
I know the German postal system supports the literacy campaign fundraising from postcards sent by members
What else?
I’m asking because Canada Post is doing this neat free, postage paid postcard mailout to 13 1/2 million households as part of their #writenowwritehere campaign to increase letter mail in Canada - asking people to mail the cards to someone they miss, love, are thinking of etc. I thought it might be a great time to follow up ask for more postcard support.
Plus it would be a great time to spread the word about Postcrossing. I’d appreciate hearing people’s successes & their wish lists please. @meiadeleite any thoughts?
Well, that would depend. The criteria for selecting topics for US stamps is restricted to American or American-related subjects. If someone has the energy to submit a proposal for a US Postcrossing stamp, they will need a very good justification that this is a hobby that a lot of Americans participate in. Emphasizing that it’s an international organization won’t fly with them. So in my mind, the best chance of this happening is if the justification emphasizes that there are a lot of American Postcrossing meetups happening across the country all the time and that there is a fair amount of participants. The justification would need to include statistics of how many American participants are active in Postcrossing, how many meetups are held per year in the US, and how widespread it is within the US. You might also need to include some stats of how many participants also swap Postcrossing cards within the country.
I think the best comparison is the special stamps the USPS has issued for wedding invitations. People often want a stamp that fits the particular occasion, and the USPS is sometimes willing to provide that.
I would be happy just to have my cards and stamps arrive in decent condition. The most disheartening part of this hobby is seeing so much damage from sorting machinery and pen scribbles.
Hi Patrick, good goal and it’s not great to have that happen, not sure how we’d petition to solve that one though. I can imagine perhaps getting the manual cancelling process changed over time, but I don’t think we’d have much luck getting rid of or slowing down sorting machines.
Yes, a bit more care would be nice! Somehow, the bills and advertising arrive in pristine condition, but postcards and other personal mail look like they’ve gone to war.
Yeah and they charge more for those bills & advertising - that’s the challenge.
To be honest, I think we’re going to have to fight hard to maintain any kind of accessible & affordable postal services going forward and I mean that worldwide. The drums of privatization & profit making are way too strong these days.
Postal services should be an essential public service, accessible & affordable to all plus better pay & working conditions for postal workers - that might help our quality of mail service too.
Totally agree, almost all the nice postcards and stamps are damaged in some way while the bills are unscathed. This doesn’t seem like it should be a problem, with better engineering of postal sorting machines. I understand that means USPS would need a better budget, to hire better engineers…
I’d personally like postnl to offer a wider range of stamps, especially for international postage. And to stop sticking stickers on the postcards which ruin decor.
Potentially create a smaller rate for postcards. We are double what Germany costs.
Today I got 2 cards that were chewed by machinery
Other than that I’m happy with the service and have a good relationship with the local postlady
