Commonwealth Day falls this year on Monday 11 March and just like every other year, has a theme to it which in 2024 is “One Resilient Common Future: Transforming Our Common Wealth”. The Commonwealth Secretariat in London puts out a logo every year to go alongside the theme and that for 2024 depicts a great green tree with spreading roots and branches and a stout trunk.
The Secretariat also releases various items to educate those interested in just what is The Commonwealth - one item for instance identifies that The Commonwealth has 2.5 billion humans living in its combined member states and that 60% of them are aged under 30 years -
There’s also a map of The Commonwealth identifying the 56 member states which highlights just how much of the earth’s surface the organisation spreads across -
It may well be the case that the hole in the map in Southern Africa which is occupied by Zimbabwe may be filled in by autumn of this year if the speculation is correct that the country will be readmitted to membership of The Commonwealth in time to enable its representatives to attend the CHOGM (Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting) to be held in Samoa starting on 21 October.
The announcement that Samoa will host the 2024 CHOGM - the Secretary General of The Commonwealth, Patricia Scotland, the present Chair of The Commonwealth, President Paul Kigame of Rwanda and the Samoan prime minister, Fiamฤ Naomi Mata’afa:-
This year marks the 75th anniversary of the founding of the modern Commonwealth when the heads of government of what was then just eight Commonwealth countries - United Kingdom represented by the socialist Attlee who had defeated Sir Winston Churchill (who will be commemorated by Royal Mail later this year) in an election in 1945, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Pakistan, India and Ceylon - met in London to sign the London Declaration whereby India, despite becoming a republic, would continue as a full Commonwealth member. This anniversary might have been worthy of a stamp issue itself but Royal Mail has more important bacon to fry this year with an issue marking the 20th anniversary of Peppa Pig.
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| The eight Commonwealth leaders meet with King George VI at a meeting held in London from 22 to 27 April 1949. |
A Commonwealth-wide omnibus issue was released in 1983 to commemorate Commonwealth Day. The British set of four attempted to depict four different environments to be seen in the various Commonwealth countries. This commemoration of Commonwealth Day by such a remarkable omnibus series was never to be repeated.
See also Blogs 2267 (2023), 2045 (2022), 1841 (2021), 1617 (2020), 1406 (2019), 1191 (2018) and 932 (2017).
