Events.
The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting opens in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, on 20 June 2022, bringing together senior politicians from the Commonwealth’s 54 member states. The meeting was originally due to take place in June 2020 but was delayed until June 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic and then delayed again to this year for the same reason. In Blog 1617, I related the history of Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings and the stamps which were issued over the years by various postal administrations to commemorate the events. The most recent meeting held in London in 2018 was not associated with an accompanying commemorative stamp issue though Royal Mail grudgingly produced a slogan postmark for use on ordinary mail at the time (commonwealthstampsopinion.blogspot.com/2020/03/1617-commonwealth-day-2020.html).
It seems unlikely also that there will be any postage stamps released by I Posta, the Rwandan postal service, because it has not issued any postage stamps since 15 November 2010 - almost 12 years, the longest period in modern times of not issuing a postage stamp of any country in the Commonwealth - and looking at the company’s internet site I could not find any reference to postal rates for ordinary mail in the country with the only postal services getting any mention being EMS (Express mail service) and parcel post. This is the case in a number of countries. The postal service of Samoa (expected to be the next CHOGM host country) for instance rarely releases stamps now after an unfortunate experience in dealing with a United States-based ‘philatelic agency’ and when it does the issue is usually a series of surcharges, some with high face values for use on parcels and express post.
The Meeting’s chair will be Paul Kagame, Rwanda’s fourth President in office since 2000, who takes over the chair from the current holder of the position, Boris Johnson, the British prime minister. The theme of the meeting is ‘Delivering a Common Future: Connecting, Innovating, Transforming’. The Prince of Wales will represent the current Head of The Commonwealth, 96 year old Queen Elizabeth II, at the meeting: the Prince himself has been elected previously by Commonwealth leaders to succeed his mother as the next Head of The Commonwealth.
Ali Bongo, the President of Gabon, has made a number of announcements in the past year or so saying that he expects his country to be admitted to membership of The Commonwealth during the Kigali meeting and the government of Zimbabwe will be hoping to hear of progress in its application to rejoin the organisation after the downfall of Robert Mugabe who withdrew the country from Commonwealth membership.
As it seems unlikely that there will be any philatelic commemoration of the event I have put a stamp design together on my I pad (in about 5 minutes, stamp design really isn’t that hard) (see the head of this Blog) and the Meeting’s emblem is featured along with a small cameo of President Kagame. And by the way, if you want a rare error, the ‘stamp’ below has an error of date.
someone who works at stampworld.com apparently thinks your Rwanda creation is a real postage stamp : https://www.stampworld.com/stamps/Rwanda/Postage%20stamps/g1489
ReplyDeleteWK - Thank you, Sébastien, Regrettably my Italian is limited to a few words so I really do not understand the comment in Vaccari News but it’s fascinating to see someone writing about this wholly hypothetical illustration!
ReplyDeleteWhat Google Translate proposes:
ReplyDelete"Since 2010, the African country has not issued stamps. A controversial realization formulated last year ended up in a digital catalogue.
The catalogues, whether paper or digital, under the heading Rwanda are stuck with the series dedicated to mountain gorillas dating back to November 15, 2010. Then nothing, for a country that previously had certainly not skimped on emissions. The reason is most likely to be found in the rather simple internal situation.
In any case, it would appear that productions resumed with a stamp dated June 20, 2022. The result is a local 5,000 francs which underlined the meeting of Commonwealth Heads of Government opened that day in the capital, Kigali, bringing together representatives of the fifty-four member states of the organization based in London. The symbol of the appointment appears on it and, in the upper right, President Paul Kagame.
A rather credible outcome, so much so that it induced an electronic mercurial [catalogue as a listing] to consider and insert it. But the situation is different and it is explained by the author himself who, to manage the blog "Commonwealth stamp opinion", signs himself White Knight (White Knight). “As it seems unlikely that there will be a philatelic commemoration of the event, I made a sketch of the stamp on my ipad (in about five minutes, designing a stamp isn't that difficult).” By adding a second copy on the page with an error in the year, 1922 instead of 2022. In short, it is nothing more than a small indented controversy!"
I watch the live zoom for the anniversary of VaccariNews this winter - I can't speak Italian either. The journalist in charge is very keen to educate readers, verify sources. So his article is more a warning for new stamp collector using unchecked ressources than your creation.
Keep up this good job!
Hello Sébastien, Thank you. That’s very helpful. What a fascinating article. What a very wise commentator. A lesson to us all to read all the information supplied & if something looks suspect to check it out. Best wishes, WK.
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