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Join
Today
- The Bechuanalands and Botswana Society
2019 Annual Subscription -
Inland £15, Europe £20, Overseas
£23
Each member receives six Journals per Year
The Runner Post
x 3 and Southern
Africa Philately x 3 |
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Issue No
101 June 2019 |
Issue No
100 February 2019 |
Issue No
99 October 2018 |
Issue No
98 June 2018 |
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| Issue
No 97 February 2018 |
Issue
No 96 October 2017 |
Issue
No 95 June 2017 |
Issue
No 94 February 2017 |
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| Issue
No 93 October 2016 |
Issue
No 92 June 2016 |
Issue
No 91 February 2016 |
Issue
No 90 August 2015 |
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A
Brief History of the Bechuanalands &
Botswana Society
Please note a review of the Society 'through
the eyes of its journal' was published in
The Runner Post No 95
In the Spring of 1984 Roy Setterfield mailed
a two page newsletter simply entitled BECHUANALAND
to a group of collectors that he knew were
interested in Bechuanaland Philately with
a subheading that read - This
is the first attempt at a (newsletter) for
our Project ...This
newsletter was typewritten and photocopied
with a single illustration of a GUBULAWAYO
BECHUANALAND cancellation.
Roy sent out forty copies and besides himself,
he and Brian Trotter were essentially the
most enthusiastic and at the time Brian
was working on his postmark typology that
was later to develop into a special society
postmark study.
From these humble beginnings the Bechuanaland
Study Circle with its Journal
came to life - A more Comprehensive
History appears under Publications.
By December 1991 the Society
had one hundred members living in the United
Kingdom, Botswana, Canada, Denmark, France,
Germany, Hong Kong, Norway, Saudi Arabia,
South Africa, Switzerland, The Netherlands,
U.S.A. and Zimbabwe.
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The
Society Journal
The next newsletter was distributed later
that same year and was adequately headed NEWSLETTER
No TWO BECHUANALAND PROJECT.
The third newsletter was distributed early
the following year and was headed BECHUANALANDS
NEWSLETTER No 3. Given that there
are two versions of the second and third newsletters,
it intimates that they were retyped and copied
as required and were distributed to an increasing
larger circle of interested parties.
Besides Roy Setterfield, the first contribution
to the newsletter came from Jim Catterall
who reported on high denomination stamps used
at Francistown on parcel labels of gold sent
through the mail. Brian Trotter and Karl Seligmann
also contributed and Roy Setterfield noted:
This is more like a Newsletter should
be - not just an one man effort. |
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NEWSLETTER
No 4 was distributed in the autumn
of 1985 entitled The
Runner Post and it is
considered that this issue was the inaugural
Runner Post
given that it includes the minutes of the
Inaugural Meeting of the Bechuanalands
and Botswana Society and a quote from
that meeting notes - Having regard to
our scattered membership, a Newsletter is
essential, to be issued quarterly, by Airmail
where necessary. The next issue No 4, to include
the report of this meeting, to be improved
in appearance, and to be entitled The
Runner Post. The style, content,
format, costs of production and postage were
discussed, also editorship.
Subsequent issues often contained references
to both NEWSLETTER and RUNNER POST and maintained
a sequence of parallel numbering for the
two. The former numbering continued to Newsletter
No 12, with Runner Post No 9, after that
several years elapsed before another newsletter
was issued. Possibly due to a lack of indexing
NEWSLETTER No 4 appeared in January 1999
and following Newsletter No 6, its name
was changed to Runner News. Only six editions
of Runner News
appeared and the last in March 2003 as
No 11. The revitalized Newsletter - Runner
News occurred during a period
of little activity and the former included
Society news, whilst the Runner Post featured
philatelic and postal history news and articles
From the first issue in 1985 The
Runner Post rapidly developed
into the Journal we know today and from issue
No 2 Alan MacGregor
joined Roy Setterfield as
editor and continued in that role for some
seventeen years until Neville Midwood
took over in July 2000, he resigned,
without prior notice, in August 2015. Otto
Peetoom currently holds the reins
as Editor. |
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The three Official
Logos of the Bechuanalands and Botswana first
appeared on the front cover of Journal No
1 and the iconic Runner
was introduced from Runner
Post No 4 in August 1986 and an ISSN number
(0953-3354) was allotted from No. 10 in March
1988. The front cover of The
Runner Post has changed
little in its design
since it was launched in 1985.
In August 2015 Graham Edwards,
a graphic designer, produced a 'New look'
to the front cover and
the society finally joins the twenty first
century
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| Subscriptions
for 2017 are Inland
£17,
Europe £22,
Overseas £25
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Past
and present Editors
Issue No 1 - Roy
Setterfield
Issues No’s 2 to 12
Roy Setterfield and Alan MacGregor
Issues No’s 13 to 21
Alan MacGregor and Roy Setterfield
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Issues
No’s 22 to 50
Alan MacGregor
Issue No 51 MacGregor
and Midwood
Issue 52 to No 89
Neville Midwood
Issue 90 onwards Otto
Peetoom |
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The
Runner Post was issued
quarterly with an average of about one hundred
pages per annum.
Production - Alan MacGregor
originally produced the Journal using Microsoft
Word and pasted illustrations onto a master
printout which was mailed to London. Each
Issue was photocopied and distributed using
a yellowish card cover for the European and
American members and those in Southern Africa
received their journal locally produced.
Peter Thy’s experience was that the
Runner Post was
photocopied and distributed from Botswana,
often of poor quality and frequently without
its cover and that was considered the best
possible effort available from Gaborone at
the time.
The previous editor collated The
Runner Post electronically
and printed it with a laser printer and in
June 2004 the first issue appeared in colour.
The journal continued as an in-house production
being on doubled sided A4 and stapled at left
- this continued until mid 2012 (No 84)
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From Issue
85 (Spring 2013) the journal is done by a
high street printer and produced as an A4
booklet, stapled in the centre making it user
friendly.
The above History of the Society
Journal is a condensed version
that was collated by Peter Thy
- Published in 2006 in a Cumulative
Index 1985 - 2005
A comprhensive review
of the Society is published in The
Runner Post No
95 June 2017 |
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The age of modern day Philatelists
invariably ranges from late fifties to their
eighties and many of them only posses basic
computer skills. For instance how many of
you know that in order to enlarge the text
on your screen simply hit Ctrl+ more than
once if necessary and to restore back hit
Ctrl-
I currently maintain four commercial websites,
a fifth for the South African Collectors’
Society and this site is number six.
They are all Philatelic sites and therefore
I have evolved an approach that the foregoing
websites are by and large for the benefit
of the mature population. It is therefore
essential that my websites are as uncomplicated
as is possible. Starting from the Home
or Opening page there are eight basic Pages
plus a static one, which is Links
to other sites.
The vast majority of Philatelic Websites
are dormant, out of date or lack the necessary
content to raise their searchable profile
with Google.
They are often dull and bland, therefore
I use colour and try to introduce some humour.
During May 2017 this Website has been completely
overhauled and rationalized and will receive
further attention during 2017.
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The Basic structure of this
website consists of an Index Page
known as the Home
Page
There are Ten Key Pages providing the same
number of Main Menus and these are displayed
at the top right of each page
Page one is a News
Desk and here the latest news
received or alterations to the Website are
announced and I recommend that whenever
anyone logs on, look at this page first.
About Us
Includes a Brief History my Philatelic Activities
and if you wish to be part of this Website,
you are invited to participate.
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Publications
Essentially anything
and everything that has ever been written
about Bechuanaland Philately may be Posted
here. Peter Thy in Amercica has already made
a substantial Contribution - Thank
you Peter
Collect Bechuanaland I
am currently in the process of laying on a
Picture show of all the Issues starting with
Stellaland. My source for these images is
courtesy of Alan MacGregor and myself Otto
Peetoom.
Images
for the Website
Must be jpeg and 200dpi is sufficient - All
images need to be resized in order to reduce
their file size.
A stamp at 200dpi is around 60KB and after
resizing it will be less than 10KB |
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