Report of the Meeting, February 22, 2014 Hotel Posts of Egypt

PRESENT: Twenty-two members attended; there were five apologies for absence. The Chairman welcomed an encouragingly large turnout of 22 members to our annual Live Auction meeting at Stampex, including no fewer than six from overseas, most of them old friends but also including a new member, Adel Eskander from France, attending his first meeting. As it was also our first meeting of 2014, the Chairman hoped it was not too late to wish all members and happy and successful New Year! Given that Stampex gives us only two hours these days, admin was rushed through, but not without welcoming two more new members in Khalid Omaira of the Emirates and Yasser Elshamy of Alexandria: we hope both will enjoy their membership and find it useful. There was also notice of a new and apparently fascinating book, The Arab-Israeli Conflict: No Service, Returned and Captured Mail by Daryl Kibble of Australia. Printed to order, this will cost approx £75 from www.vividpublishing.com.au/darylkibble. We hope to have a review in a future issue. The Secretary looked forward to a good attendance at our next meeting, the AGM on May 10, when we shall have much to discuss in terms of subscription and QC publishing in light of recent massive increases in UK postal rates. Jon Aitchison (ESC 661) reminded us that the meeting will include a mini-auction for which members are asked to bring up to five items for sale during the course of the meeting. Further details soon. Auctioneer Edmund Hall raced through the sale details - helped to a certain degree by members' apparent reluctance to bid on "stamps" as such; the postal history sold immeasurably better - and we dealt very quickly indeed with the sale of 119 of 205 lots. As ever, they were closely shared between email/postal bidders (65 lots sold for £1112.50), and room sales (54 lots, £1156.50). Commissions, together with the sale of material kindly donated for Circle funds by André Navari (ESC 534) and a recently resigned member, Hilary Shaw (ESC 594), meant a total of over £500 for the Circle. The Prices Realised list is on the website. Members keeping a sharp lookout for bargains