The Czechoslovak Philatelic Society of Great Britain was re-founded in 1953, so this year celebrate its 50^th anniversary. One of the events accompanying the celebration was the weekend congress organized by the organization in September in English town Leeds in Yorkshire. The event was held in beautiful old palace Hinsley Hall.

It started on Friday by dinner and continued by very interesting lecture on Czech postal cancels and cards from time of Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The main day of the philatelic action was Saturday. Before the noon a lecture of Czechoslovak rail mail was done followed by workshop on postal rates. Within the workshop the postal rates from 1938-1945 as well as Czechoslovak air mail rates were discussed by participating collectors.

In the afternoon two main actions were organized: first of them were competition of George Pearson (exhibits of Czechoslovak material 1918-1939) and France Pettitt Salver (exhibits of Czechoslovak material after 1945). All exhibits have high level of philatelic quality, you can see there e.g. the Haydrich sheet of Protectorate.

The second part of the day was created by displays of philatelic material with spoken introduction to the exhibited material. Among the discussed topics we can find e.g. Sokol, field post, German postal codes, postal history of Olomouc etc. . Very useful for the visitors was, that the speaker don’t just introduce their material, but also make available philatelic literature relating to the topic. This was interesting especially for me as Czech collector, because I can see a lot of foreign philatelic literature (British, German etc.) dealing with Czechoslovakia, which would be very useful for our collectors, too.

This day was finished by dinner and philatelic story displayed in Yorkshire dialect (totally strange for me as foreigner). In the attractions took part not only the philatelists, but also their partners accompanying them to the action.

The last day continued the displays, e.g. dealing with Czechoslovak 1918-1939 stamps (containing nice material like Mr. Obrovsky´s drawing of Agriculture and Science issue or non-philatelic registered letter franked with Legionary Issue of 1919 sent to United Kingdom), Protectorate and Slovak stamps of WWII and Eastern Silesia postal history. The pleasant philatelic action was finished by group photo and lunch of all participants and their partners.

The action was not pleasant only for high philatelic quality of all displays and exhibits, but also for nice discussions with other participants and chance to meet new people. The action was attended by collectors of Great Britain, Norway and Czech Republic.

Very good idea was to involve in the displays leading local collectors as well as other experienced British collectors opening the event for people outside of society. For me as Czech collector was also nice surpass, that the society produces special ties and pins for its members, which nicely accompany significant events of society life.

It was also good chance to find new philatelic material for your collection, because it was possible to buy plenty of nice covers for special weekend price.