The PHILATELIC CONGRESS OF GREAT BRITAIN
Thursday 21st July to Sunday 24th July 2016
www.gbcongress.uk & www.abps.org.uk/Philatelic_Congress_of_GB
c/o 9 Oaker Avenue, West Didsbury, Manchester, M20 2XH.
24th Jan 2016
Dear Collector,
On behalf of the Association of British Philatelic Societies and the Cambridge Philatelic Society I would like to invite you to Cambridge for the 2016 Philatelic Congress of Great Britain to be held from 21st to 24th July at the Belfry Hotel, Cambourne, Cambridgeshire CB23 6BW
The venue is outside the historic city of Cambridge but with good bus and road links to the City Centre. The philatelic theme for the event is “Islands” with talks and displays on Friday, Saturday and Sunday mornings. The programme starts, however, with a talk and display from the Cambridge Philatelic Society archive on the postal history of Cambridge, and a talk on the history of the private Cambridge University College stamps and their suppression by the Post Office.
On the Saturday afternoon for the early bookers, as numbers are limited to twenty participants, there is a guided Postal History walking tour of Cambridge. For others and accompanying non-philatelists there are the other attractions of Cambridge such as the Fitzwilliam Museum, just one of eighteen museums and galleries in Cambridge. There are the historic Cambridge University Colleges, two free sculpture trails, the Corpus Clock, the daily market and shopping centres. For the more energetic there is punting on the River Cam. There is a hop on-hop off tour bus which will take you around the main sites including out to the American Cemetery.
The Congress Banquet will be in the historic Dining Hall of Peterhouse College that dates from 1290. The RDP Ceremony will be held in St John’s College Chapel on the Friday afternoon.
I hope you will put this in your diaries as “not to be missed” as I am sure this will be an entertaining and informative social and philatelic occasion.
David Stirrups, FRPSL.
Chairman, Congress 2016.