Rotary stamps from A to Z
The Rotarian -- August 2011
Stamps from Ajman, Angola, Anguilla and Australia.
The history of Rotary is illustrated in stamps – around 2,000 of them, enough to fill 14 albums, as the collectors in the International Fellowship of Rotary-on-Stamps have discovered. Take conventions. Both the oldest and one of the most recent Rotary stamps commemorate RI conventions: the 1931 convention in Vienna and the 2011 convention in New Orleans. Countries have honored many RI anniversaries with stamps – even those without Rotary clubs, such as Maldives, which in 1980 issued four stamps paying tribute to Rotarians’ work to fight hunger on the islands. And with the advent of personalized postage stamps, Rotary clubs have issued stamps to raise money for projects such as literacy and polio eradication and to celebrate their own anniversaries.
More than 200 people belong to the Rotary-on-Stamps fellowship, which publishes an encyclopedia and a newsletter and maintains a website to keep philatelists abreast of the latest Rotary stamp finds. The fellowship’s Bulletin editor, Emmanuel Serrière – who is 40 stamps away from a complete collection – walked us through some highlights, with the help of images provided by Richard J. Dickson, the group's curator and director of publications, and by Rotary History and Archives. See more at www.rotaryos.com (user name: visitor; password: therotarian).