7th Meeting of PPCP

VII. PPCP MEETING

Dear website readers of Prestige Philately Club Prague (hereinafter “PPCP”), on May 5, 2022 the seventh and so to speak traditional Club-meeting took place in Crystal The Ballroom of the Grand Hotel Alchymist. The majority of members was present together with some very rare guests. The program of this rather work meeting was very diverse. After a short welcome speech by JUDr. Tomáš Mádl, President of the PPCP, the inauguration of two new members took place according to established practices, ie with the contraction of The Founding Charter of the Association, handing over of the badges & certificates and lastly photograph the members.

The first member is Lubor Kunc, Chairman of the Czech-Moravian Postal Society (ČMSPH) and Field Post Section, member of the Royal Philatelic Society in London (RPSL), AIJP, ArGe Feldpost 1914-1918 (Austria) and other philatelic organizations; postal historian, collector of postal history of Austria, Czechoslovakia and field post shipments. The second member is Mgr. Petr Pflanzer Flaška, owner of a major Prague philatelic shop and auction hall FILATELIE PETR FLAŠKA, whose collector’s interest is Czechoslovakia 1918-1939.

The next item on the agenda was financial news and overview. The third and very important agenda’s item was the participation of PPCP in the planned exhibitions and Club’s presentation.

The first of these is HELVETIA 2022, which will take place between 18 and 22 May 2022 in Lugano, Switzerland. PPCP is competing at this world exhibition with its exhibition catalog from the Biennale 2020. Furthermore, PPCP is the exhibition’s patron with wide range of exhibitors, as the members will present 11 (5 new and 6 modified) contextual exhibits. Exhibitors will be: Mgr. Petr Pflanzer Flaška with Marek Vrba, Ing. Radoslav Míšek, Ph.D.; JUDr. Tomáš Mádl; Mgr. Jiří Střecha (Postal Museum) with Mgr. Pavel Mošner and Zdeněk Filípek; Ing. Jaroslav Hanák; Mag. Friedrich Winter with Dr. Pavol Lazar; Ing. Stanislav Havlicek; Jiří Kraus; Ing. Petr Valošek; MUDr. Peter Vaňuga, PhD.; Zdeněk Matějovský, MBA.

Despite minor organizational issues (with insurance and return transport), it will be a very valuable exhibition. There will also be two commercial “roll-ups” which will invite the visitors to the autumn-planned European exhibition in Liberec. The second one will attract attention to PPCP.

Another of the “spring” exhibitions is the BRATISLAVA COLLECTORS’ DAYS 2022 (June 3 and 4, 2022). This event is already planned for the following year as it will include the Slovak National Exhibition, which will be suitable especially for exhibitors who would like to confirm or increase qualification of their exhibits, as all exhibitor classes and grades will be open. New exhibits are especially welcomed and the organizers can already confirm about 200 exhibits registered. However, foreign participation is intended only for invited exhibits, so if members are interested in participation, they should contact Pavol Lazar.

The last of the exhibitions is the domestic LIBEREC 2022, which will be hosted in Liberec
from 13 to 16 October 2022 at the Babylon Hotel. In terms of international participation – 30 exhibitors from 29 different countries have already registered. The exhibition will also be attended by representatives of FIPA and FEPA. The second mentioned even has a congress planned at the time of the exhibition. This is probably the most important philatelic event held in the Czech Republic this year.

Jiří Kraus also once again thanked the Club members for their contributions – namely D. Kopřiva, V. Vaníček, T. Mádl, P. Valošek, P. Severín, Z. Filípek, J. Stuna, P. Flaška and PPCP. He also mentioned the creation of 2 stamps in regard of the exhibition – the first will be created as a part of the FEPA congress, the second stamp will be the LIBEREC 2022 exhibition stamp in the form of a 20-block.

The members of the Club were informed about the upcoming exhibitions – in addition to the 3 mentioned above, there will be exhibitions in Indonesia (August 2022), Cape Town (November 2022) and Essen (World’s Fair, 2023).

Past exhibitor’s successes were also recalled – Mr. Severin, Lazar and Kraus received gold medals at the Budapest Hunfilex Exhibition (March 2022), Vít Vaníček won the Grand Gold Medal and Lubor Kunc received the so-called Vermeil Medal – both at the London Exhibition (February 2022). Vít Vaníček also won a large gold medal at the Emirates 2022 exhibition in Dubai, together with a prestigious award for the best foreign exhibit of the exhibition.

The next and no-lesser important point of the meeting was the preparation of the next Biennale 2023. It is still not known where the event will take place as the PPCP Committee is discussing possible Prague exhibition spaces. The Committee is interested the most in the premises of the Municipal House, Prague Castle, and the National Museum. Tomáš Mádl pointed out the fact that some exhibition spaces may charge fees in case of lower attendance of the exhibition and these fees would then have to be paid by the club. From this fact, the choice of location and duration of the whole event will evolve. The date of the Biennale was tentatively set at 27.10. – 3.11.

PPCP is interested in creating new promotional material in a similar style as at the last Biennale. Considering the fact of the last catalogue and its high quality, it is almost impossible to repeat such format and quality. Therefore, the task of creating a new catalogue is very difficult, so a supplement catalog would be preferred, or a new “version” of the popular black-print. The 2020 Biennale also offered stamps and banknotes; so a stamp booklet could be created for the next Biennale. Banknotes are unlikely to repeat, as they do not fit into the agenda of philately, but rather notaphilia. The club would like to incorporate foreign rarities into the exhibition that were not at the 2020 Biennale. These would be rarities from the US (eg Inverted Jenny, borrowed from the National Postal Museum in Washington DC) or from the British Royal Collection (eg Kirkcudbright cover, the so-called Mulready envelope, “Ball envelope” with the Mauritius stamp “Post Office” from 1847).

The last topic of the meeting was about the life of PPCP. Mr. Mádl proposed the continuation of cooperation with the EDVARD BENEŠ COMPANY, in the form of a smaller exhibition and meeting in the villa of Dr. Edvard Beneš in Sezimovo Ústí. Another proposal for a 3-4day exhibition is in the Lobkowicz Palace at Prague Castle. He also recommended holding another lecture at the Faculty of Arts at Charles University, which would follow on the first successful lecture – the First Republic. Therefore the topic of next lecture would be the Second Republic and would take place in the spring of 2023.

Another meeting’s topic was the creation of a key-word for PPCP on Wikipedia. There was a majority consensus that this would increase not only the prestige of the Club itself, but also public awareness of PPCP among the general public.

The end of the meeting was devoted to the renewal of the membership base (ways to gain new members) and the fact that in Slovakia philately is also subsidized from the state budget. In the same way, David Kopřiva concluded and commented on the individual appearances of PPCP members in the media for the period from January to April 2022 and highlighted the most important moments, which were dominated by D. Kopřiva, T. Mádl and M. Němeček. Mr. Kopřiva also pointed out that members should be more involved. He remarked that it is often enough to notice philatelic news around the world, then comment on them and then send a comment (article, story, …) to Tomáš Hejda, who will take care of the promotion in the media. The search for new, and especially young, members is also related to the above, as the older generation of philatelists is leaving and there is no one to replace it.

The date of the next meeting has not yet been set, however, after the decision of the committee, it will be distributed in advance by the club’s secretary, Hana Fenclová. Until then, the club and its members have a lot of conscientious work to do – whether in the preparation of dignified exhibits (such as BRATISLAVA DAYS, Liberec 2022) or BIENNALE 2023 preparations, presentation of the club in the media or charitable activities.

Successes at the Biennale 2020 and at other philatelic exhibitions held over the last years create a moral and a society-wide commitment in the current complex economic, post-Covid (with soaring inflation) and unhappy international situation in connection with the Russian aggression in Ukraine.

The philately consistently represents a long-term and stable alternative investment (unlike real estate or gold), a source of enlightenment for future generations in geography, history, art, education and macroeconomics, and a completely apolitical dialogue between philatelists around the world, regardless of political attitude, regime, religion, skin color or language. Philately “simply” unites cultures, nations and individual citizens.

 

For the PPCP website Mgr. Petr Jezdinský with notes Mgr. David Kopřiva