Our fiftieth anniversary issue which is quite an achievement.  The committee trust that you will like the colour used with this edition of the Bulletin.  On a number of other pages of this issue you will find the history of the last fifty years which, as you can imagine, has taken many hours of reading and going through all the old Bulletins.  The first 25 years was originally published in 1982 and has been updated.  It was not possible to mention everybody who have helped towards the success of the club, as each year is only briefly reported, but thank you all those many people who have helped to keep the club running for such a long time.

Unfortunately once again the Annual General Meeting was very badly supported with only one non- committee member being present.  This is a pity, but I guess it is the sign of the times.  Membership continues to fall and we now only have 256 members compared or some 700 many years ago.  We must all try to recruit new members and hope our SGSC representatives at the World Jamboree will be able to sign on more members.  It was mentioned that we should try and find a meeting place in central London, so if anybody can suggest where we can meet that would be most helpful.  We used to meet at Baden-Powell House for many years but this is now extremely expensive and the letting of rooms has been taken over by an outside company.  A Church Hall or Scout Hut which is available to rent and fairly close to an underground station would be great.  I guess even a pub with a room to let would be okay!

We have a number of changes to the officers of the Club.  Peter Duck will be retiring at the end of year after some 32 years as Editor which must be a record.  I am delighted to report that Terry Simister, our current Treasurer has offered to take over as Editor from January 2008.  Bob Lee has given up the position of membership secretary after some 27 years and we are most grateful for what he has done over such a long period.  Tim Reed will be taking this job after the World Jamboree, where he is involved as a contingent leader.
At the end of the day we now desperately need to find a new Treasurer to complete our team.

Some of our members may recall attending our meetings at Roland House in London and were sad to see that this was sold off many years ago, I was interested to hear from a purchaser on eBay to whom I had sold a Roland House label that "We get unannounced visits from former residents and local Scouts from time to time, though the only time they have expected to be put up was one Christmas when we had done a house swap with an American family who one day were stunned to find a group of German Scouts on the doorstep wanting accommodation.  The Hall is now eight separate houses.

For sale on eBay earlier this year was a very small cover (120mm x 95mm) sent from Hatch End, Middlesex U.K. and posted on 12th August 1924 to a Scout attending the Copenhagen Scout World Jamboree of that year.  The letter was under franked for a Copenhagen delivery and the 38 øre tax was collected by way of postage due stamps to the tune of 3 øre together with a 25 øre postage stamp, which were affixed and cancelled at Gjentofte (a district of Copenhagen) on the 14th August before the letter was carried to the camp - some five miles out of the city.  The stamps shown are the UK 1½d chestnut and three Denmark 1 øre orange postage dues (upside down at top left) and one Denmark 25 øre black and brown postage stamp (bottom left).  The envelope has been quite roughly cut open along its upper edge and a small portion of the flap is missing.  The cover was sent to Scout T. S. Evans of the Stretford, Manchester Scout Troop at the Scout Jamboree, Copenhagen, Denmark.  Starting at £4.99 it had 25 bids and made £1027.84 (approximately US$ 2055, Euro 1526)

The rare Mafeking overprint error illustrated in the last bulletin was sold by Grosvenor Auctions in May made £29,000 plus buyers premium against an estimate of £10,000 - £12,000.  Only two stamps of this variety are recoded, and shows the very high price being made these days for rare material.

It is hoped that this Bulletin will appear before the World Jamboree takes place at Hylands Park, Chelmsford.  I do know that many of our members will be going as visitors, and if so please call in at the International Badgers Club and meet our representative from the SGSC.  They should be wearing our own special tee-shirts.