Our website continues to grow thanks to the work of Randall Frank, our webmaster.  It was good to see in the September issue of Scouting Magazine a mention of www.sgsc.org.uk although unfortunately details of our club have been removed from the Scout Association site "ScoutBase".  I continue to request that we have a link to their site, but without success, as they do not answer correspondence!  For those from overseas and are interested in learning more about the 2007 Jamboree, the Scout Association has a special site for this www.scouting2007.org.uk

Francesco Messina, one of our members from Italy has written to say that a friend of his had sent him copies of the 1933 Hungarian set of stamps overprinted "Jamboree 1934".  I had never seen these overprinted stamps before and had no idea how they came to be for sale.  The actual stamps as issued were only valid for postage from July 10th to 30th September 1933, so this makes these overprints invalid for postal purposes.  On a recent visit to Hungary, I called to see the archivist of the Scout Museum in Budapest who confirmed that there was no National Jamboree in Hungary in 1934.  I then visited the Hungarian Postal Museum who confirmed that they did not consider these a genuine overprint, and did not have them in their collection.  At the end of the day I guess these maybe modern overprints to deceive the collector.

I mentioned in my last Chairman's Notes that we had reduced our meeting dates in London due to a lack of interest.  Frank Spencer our member from Worcestershire had offered to try again to have a regional meeting in his area.  He wrote to some 40 members enclosing a small form asking if they would like to attend.
He had thirteen replies and only three of these expressed an interest in attending.  Therefore this proposed meeting has been cancelled.  I guess that most of our members are happy to be closet collectors, which is a pity as attending meetings broadens ones interest in the hobby.

On the suggestion of Terry Sinister, the SGSC had a stand at the Annual Wood Badge Reunion held at Gilwell Park.  Peter Duck and Melvyn Gallagher manned this throughout the day, and handed out information and application forms to those interested in Scout stamp collecting.  Although no members were signed up on the day, it is hoped that some will eventually join.  It was a public relations exercise and Peter and Melvyn were pleased to speak to a number of our members.

Since the end of communism, a considerable amount of Scout Philatelic material has surfaced from Eastern Europe.  In particular Hungary and Romania, and latterly the Baltic States.  Another country is the Czech Republic where auctions are held fairly regularly.  Trial printings of the 1918 Czech Scout stamps have recently been offered for auction.  Our member Frederick Lawrence writes "In each case, the printing and

cutting die was not pressed hard enough on the stamp paper to cut or punch out the individual stamps.  There are a few examples known for each value, so they may have been made for collectors.  The 10h blue "trial printing" is known as singles, pairs, strips of three and strips of four,  the  strips  of  four  are  very

scarce and command the highest price.  The 20h red "trial printings" are only known as singles and pairs.  The pair of 10h had a starting price of approximately £1016 (US$1,555) and the 20h pair had a starting price of about £1089 (US$1,666).  Also at the same sale was an essay (unissued stamp) of the Arrival of President Masaryk overprint on the 10h blue stamp with the overprint in black instead of red as issued.  The black overprint was later used on the 20h red stamp.  This had a starting price of approximately £20,575 (US$ 31480).  However they all failed to sell!"

Before I write my next Chairman's Notes, I will have attended the 25th Anniversary of the Austrian Club StPS, which is holding a meeting in Graz as part of the JugendPhila `03.  A few days later I leave for South Africa for a few weeks and, at the end of my tour I will be joining Colin Walker for a visit to Mafeking where he will be continuing his research into those who were in the town during the siege.  I trust many of you have visited his website www.scoutingmilestones.freeserve.co.uk.