Edmonton Regional Group

In June 2024, the Edmonton Regional Group merged with the Calgary Regional Group to form the Alberta Regional Group. The Edmonton Regional Group included BNAPS members from several adjacent and nearby cities, towns and rural areas. Many members belonged to the Edmonton Stamp Club, which hosts the Edmonton Spring National Show.

What follows are reports of several group meetings between 2006 and 2010.

A small turnout of regulars met and heard a terrific presentation by Denny May about the first airmail service to the MacKenzie Valley. Routes and schedules were discussed, with many cover items signed by his father "Wop" May. There was much discussion.

This was followed by the usual show and tell, including some interesting cachets, more Alberta postmarks, covers from Red River Valley rail travel to RPO cars, a UK auction featuring material from a local collector now deceased.

December 16th saw eight members convene at Chandler's Restaurant for the third annual Christmas dinner meeting.

Back (L-R): Bud Cutler, Denny May, Ed Dykstra, Joel Weiner, Steve Friedenthal
Front, Jim Miller, Bob Lane, David Piercey

With good food, the group solved many world and philatelic problems. Show and Tell was a mix of post cards, interesting and puzzling postmarks, an unusual provisional overprint, and postal markings.

The sad state of the hobby, as reflected in diminishing memberships and shows, was reviewed, with no novel solutions appearing. The annual BNAPS breakfast at the Edmonton show is doubtful, due to the likely change to two days for the show.

Nevertheless, the group looks forward to the next meetings and wishes all the Season's Best.

The tradition of the holding the final meeting before summer break at Chandler's Restaurant continued this year. June 18th saw seven members gather for a very pleasant and informative dinner meeting. The competition of the opening Eskimos game kept the numbers down but the following attended:

L-R: Bob Lane, Jeffrey Wallace, Denny May, John Bucci, Joel Weiner, David Piercey, Steve Friedenthal

The only "business" discussed was the possibility of forming a phone committee to reach members without email addresses. David Piercey spoke briefly about the recent meeting of RPSC in St. Catharines, ON.

Jeffrey Wallace, one of the BNAPS web team, showed some material from Jersey, from which he and his family moved recently to St. Albert. Some postal history of the occupation during WWII was fascinating. John Bucci brought a real photo postcard showing Edmonton troops being reviewed locally. David Piercey showed a card of the main street of Bull River, BC, as well as three examples of postmarks made at post offices before they received their first hammers. Steve Friedenthal brought some new catalogues, and Bob Lane showed a nude 3rd-class mail Winnipeg postmark, a "DIRECTORY" mark from the Winnipeg post office, a "Palliser" map, and a DLO envelope.

Thanks again to Steve for organizing the dinner venue.

The Eskies whipped Saskatchewan 45-12.

Edmonton Regional Group members continued the long-standing tradition of organizing Sunday breakfast at the Edmonton Spring Show, the last remaining national level annual show in western Canada. This year, 2009, the guest speaker was Past-President Bill Pawluk, who presented a talk about the history of post card rates. Jeffrey Wallace took the following photos.

With Don Kaye in the background, show judge
Joel Weiner chats with Bill Pawluk and Ian Kimmerly

Don Kaye points to Bill Pawluk's frames,
watched by Kevin O'Reilly and Keith Spencer

Robin Clarke, newly shaven Bob Lane, Gail Lane, and Firmin Wyndels chat before the talk

M.C. David Piercey pours at one of the tables

Another table

Bill Pawluk presents his talk to about 25 attendees

On 17 December, the BNAPS Edmonton Regional Group held a Christmas dinner meeting. The nine members who attended enjoyed a fine meal and shared a great variety of materials and stories.

Denny May described the progress of the commemorative first flight of a replica aircraft from Winnipeg to Edmonton. As of this writing, the flight was postponed en route until January due to bitter winter conditions.

The group also heard about efforts to obtain modern postmarks from smaller locations, some frustration in obtaining correspondence from Russia and Cuba, a display of sheets of the Bileski Pembina labels, some history of forts in southern Manitoba, some humorous covers related to the current economic woes, Newfie corner covers, and slogans.

L-R standing: David Piercey, Denny May, Bob Lane, Bud Cutler, Ed Dykstra, Barend Wissink, Steve Friedenthal
L-R seated: Jim Miller, Vince Colwell

A good time was had by all.

The final meeting of Spring, 2008, was held June 18th at Chandler's Restaurant in Edmonton. Seven members attended, and it was deemed very successful. The room was cozy, the food was good and the show-and-tell was interesting, as always.

We heard more postal history of towns in the Rockies, saw some new books, some interesting First Flight Covers, illustrated ad covers, story of a 19th century Presbyterian missionary, northern flight covers, and two exceptional slogan covers.

L-R standing: Bob Lane, Denny May, Steve Friedenthal, David Piercey, John Bucci
L-R seated: Ed Dykstra, Jim Miller

The first meeting at the new venue, on 23 January, was well attended and the new venue was approved. There was some discussion of the recent website problems and some discussion of the forthcoming Edmonton Spring National Show. The usual show-and-tell was, as always, very interesting.

The BNAPS Edmonton Regional Group held its October meeting at Bob Lane's home on 1 November, the first of the 2007-2008 monthly meetings. The main order of business was to discuss options for where to meet for the balance of the year. Lack of liability insurance has closed the long-standing arrangement for the group to meet in an Edmonton school facility. A number of possibilities were raised and will be explored vigorously, prior to the November meeting.

David Piercey, in his capacity as the Chief Judge at BNAPEX, presented Steve Friedenthal with a certificate and APS Research Medal for his gold medal exhibit shown at BNAPEX. Steve's awards were late in being given to him, as he was not at the show.

David also mentioned that Bob Lane was admitted to the Order of the Beaver, along with Pete Jacobi.

Although more than 30 BNAPSers live in this area, the usual turnout rarely exceeds nine. Work will be done to try to improve on that. One possibility is to hold meetings in conjunction with the Edmonton Stamp Club meetings.

Members then conducted the usual show-and-tell, always an interesting experience. Items included Jasper Park Lodge scenic covers, an unusual registration marking, a fake RPO strike, a Barnardo postcard, a Herschel Island registered cover, and others.

L-R: David Piercey, Steve Friedenthal, Vince Colwell, Bob Lane, ?, Barend Wissink

On 13 December, the BNAPS Edmonton Regional Group held its final meeting of 2006, at the Alberta School for the Deaf in Edmonton. The season and the weather reduced the numbers to six, but they had an interesting session of business and then show and tell.

On business, the group was told that the question raised about liability insurance for the group was now included in a broad review of BNAPS insurance policies and a response is expected early 2007.

A question was raised about the "secrecy" of ballots cast in the 2006 BNAPS election. A member thought it was unusual for his membership number to appear on the ballot. Another member described how another society handled this by having an envelope system, whereby one party checked to see that no membership number was duplicated, and then opened the envelopes to turn the ballots over to a counter. It was agreed to forward this question.

Dennis May opened the show and tell with an update of his $5 CD on the history of air mail in Alberta. He also showed another project - a binder of signed air mail items.

Barend Wissink then passed around a variety of covers carrying interesting markings.

Bob Lane described four phases of mail transportation in the Reston-Pipestone area of Manitoba, with examples of each.

Finally, David Piercey showed a book of Newfoundland covers, prepared by Sammy Whaley. He also showed a few of his own covers that were either in the book or were connected to it.

The group will resume its monthly meetings in mid-January.