Charity Postal Services

The majority of the charities involved Scouts, as the quantity and ability to deliver formed a very effective network. Some relied on rubber stamping envelopes to denote postage, where as some of the most organized produced Christmas stamps. The prices were geared around 50% of Royal Mail prices, and were very cost effective for local deliveries.

The most organized and productive of these schemes, was the Sheffield Scout post, organized by the Woodseat Venture Unit. They advertised the scheme in winter of 1981, and set up all relevant collection points and delivery infrastructure. Through an amazing sales push, they eventually ended up delivering 11,000 items of post, all of which were sorted from one leader’s house!

Sales and delivery areas increased rapidly, to its high peak of 1989, where the scheme was extremely effective and profitable. The facts are not clear, but during the threatened postal strikes of the following months, the Scout post was used in arguments by the strikers. The bad publicity did not help anybody and sadly the following year was not as successful. From then on there has been a gradual decline to the point where many charities have stopped the process altogether.

A wide range of stamps were produced, with different values and pictures. Some were better designed than others, although none have much relative value. Some are very hard to get hold of as they were only available locally, and most don’t have contact addresses. I do believe that a few years ago an attempt was made to catalogue them, but I cannot find any reference to this at the moment.

Mark Steele

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