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History of the Association

The Association of Scottish Philatelic Societies

The Association's purpose is to co-ordinate and further the interests of philatelic and postcard societies in Scotland and to encourage the study of philately in all its branches, from traditional collecting to thematic, postal history and even postacrd collecting.

The association can trace its origins back to the 1920's when Dundee Philatelic Society proposed "a conference of Scottish Philatelic Societies" in 1921.  A publicist Dr R Corbett, who was editor of "The Scots Philatelist", brought the early Joint meetings to the attention of a wider audience.  Although this meeting was agreed upon by a number of societies no official record of the meeting is available.

After a number of attempts a meeting was held on 17th February 1923. Another meeting was set for February 1924, but as only 1 other society attended this was a bit of a disaster as a Joint Meeting, this was due to the inconvenience for some associations to attend, so undettered the next official meeting was agreed to take place in 1925 where displays were held.  The next meeting in 1926 took place but no official record of the event is available so at the meeting in 1927 hosted by the Scottish Philatelic Society a proposal was made to hold the meeting annually, in fact a "miniature Scottish Congress". At the Joint Meeting in Perth in 1928 it was agreed that each society should send a delegate to a Joint Committee which would meet annually to arrange future Joint Meetings. At this first meeting Dr A E Kidd was elected convener and stayed in this position until he resigned in 1934.

Dr Corbett continued to edit "The Scots Philatelist" until its demise in October 1931 and was also chosen as the one and only editor of "Philately in Scotland" which first appeared in April 1932 and ran for exactly 4 years.

The Book of Scottish Philatelists was introduced in 1963 and Dr Kidd was the first person to be recognised, albeit posthumously. A full list of those philatelists who have had the honour of signing the Book can be found on the Honour Roll pages of this web site.

Today each member society elects one of its members to represent them at meetings of the Council. Usually there are three meetings of the Council per year, one of which is the AGM and this is held at Congress. The Annual Congress of the Association of Scottish Philatelic Societies is currently held in the Dewar's Centre, Perth. Each year one of the member societies is charged with organising Congress. The delegate of the organising society will be elected President of the Association for the year. The host society will present a 60 frame display of members' material, organise the Tom Reilly display and may provide souvenirs of the event. During Congress the National Exhibition is held providing an opportunity for anyone who wishes to engage in competitive philately. Entries will also be displayed and awards are presented at the Congress Dinner. There is also a Junior Competition and other competitions at Congress. Links on the menu above will provide more information on these and the member societies.

The Association of Scottish Philatelic Societies is affiliated to the Association of British Philatelic Societies (ABPS).

There are currently 38 Local or Specialist societies affiliated to the Association of Scottish Philatelic Societies and Norman Kelso is the current Secretary of the Association and may be contacted at this email address - secretary@scottishphilately.co.uk

This page was last modified on 7th March 2022


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