Last November, a group of Indian postcrossers got together in Mumbai, on 11/11/11. The goal? To bring postcrossers closer together, and create a Postcrossing family in India!

In attendance were exactly 11 postcrossers (what a neat coincidence!): indianfriendszone, seetas, Yuktie, Kanthi, anushankarn, kevindesai777, NishaJ, manojkamat_2005, kaushal, aditicm and Manasi.

Together they wrote and sent postcards with India's Post special cancelation mark of the day, showed each other their collections, and shared tips on to store and preserve postcards.

Here are a few photos from the event:

Amit S, organizer of the meeting told us that "With all the excitement members didn’t realise how time flew by, some had to rush back home and the others decided to move on to a nearby restaurant for some coffee and snacks and more discussions!"

Time does fly when you're having fun! :)

PS - Never been to a Postcrossing meetup before? Look up the upcoming meetings on the forum, or set up your own!

Hi! We're the Little Mail Carriers, Little Paulo and Little Ana! In the last months, we've been busy cruising the world in the hands of postcrossers, but we've recently came back to the office for an impromptu visit... You see, we've heard rumours that there was going to be a huge Postcrossing meeting in Germany, and we didn't want to miss out!

We've been to a few meetings before, but nothing compared to this one! There were almost 60 people in attendance from a dozen different countries (including Australia!), all staying in the same house... we knew it was going to be a blast! :)

Let us show you what we did there:

On Friday, we took a day trip to Münster, the "bicycle capital of Germany". We did the tourist tour through all the main sites with a big group of postcrossers and visited a few Christmas markets. We loved the gingerbread hearts, and the giant nutcracker!

Postcard shopping was, of course, an important part of the trip. This little shop was crowded with all the postcrossers ooh'ing and aaaah'ing over the cute postcards!

While we were waiting for everyone to finish their postcard shopping, we spotted a postman on his bike! We asked him if we could take a ride, which he graciously allowed!

Back at the Einschlingen Guest house, there was much to be done! Have you ever received a postcard from a meetup? They're usually filled with signatures from all the participants. In a meeting this big, it takes a long time to sign all the cards... We chose a few, and made sure that Paulo didn't miss a card. Then, we gave it a go as well!

All the postcrossers seemed to have brought something sweet from their country, and the tables were piled up with deliciousness!

And oh! There was a huge pile of presents for the Christmas lottery! Everyone's names were entered on a bowl, and norbaer helped people draw out names and presents! In the end, all postcrossers had received something cute or funny :)

On Saturday morning, there was an article on the local newspaper about the meeting! We didn't understand all the words, but it sure looked good.

On Saturday, we also wandered on the streets of Bielefeld. We visited a famous postcard shop, met a few local postcrossers, saw the Christmas market ... and a crepes stand which had soooo much Nutella! :)

We were almost the last ones to leave on Sunday afternoon, and we were quite sad to go... We loved meeting so many people that share in common a passion for postcards and Postcrossing. Old and new, from near or far... we had a lot of fun in the days we spent together! Perhaps we'll see you there next year?

PS - Can you guess how many postcards were signed on this meetup? Answer on the forum in this thread for a chance to win some prizes! :)

The weather up here in North Germany has been cold and rainy for the past weeks, so we've been day-dreaming about southern beaches and warm sunny days. Pretty much like the ones in Balaklava, Ukraine, where a group of intrepid postcrossers decided they should have a meetup... on a desert island!

The gathering was attended by postcrossers in the Sevastopol area, who loaded their kayaks with postcards and paddled in the beautiful Black Sea. They settled on this small island and spent a few hours checking out each others cards, talking, enjoying the sun, signing RAS cards, and swimming, of course!

The meeting was attended by (left to right): BlackDrago, Ael, alter_ago, a_ur, Mirrora and foksik, who sent us this lovely report.

So the challenge is on! Can you outdo these bold postcrossers and come up with a different activity for a Postcrossing meetup? We'd love to hear about it! :)

For someone that has ever participated in a Postcrossing meetup, he or she knows it's always a very special event. From afar, no one would say that postcards could make such a strong connections between people. But as we know, they really do.

And that was very obvious this last weekend at the international Poscrossing meetup in the German city of Bielefeld. With an impressive participation of over 45 people - despite the very cold weather, it was a big success and everyone had a very special weekend meeting the faces behind postcards and the usernames they have become familiar with overtime. Smiles were plentiful and many are still claiming to have them, days after returning home.

There was something quite particular about this meetup - this time, everyone stayed at the same building for the whole weekend - some even called it a Postcrossing retreat. Whatever you call it, it was a fantastic time. With white landscapes everywhere, the popular Christmas markets and many many postcards and smiles - the hard part was actually to leave.

The participants came from many different countries: Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy, UK, Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia and even from as far as Russia and Romania! And what's more impressive, they all faced quite cold harsh weather to get there as large part of Europe has been covered in snow in the past weeks. Nonetheless, that was not a big problem for such a warming crowd which faced the below 0°C temperatures with a smile and headed to Bielefeld to be together and disprove the Bielefeld Conspiracy.

And because wherever there are Postcrossers, there are postcards, can you guess how many were written, signed and sent from this meetup? A grand total of 1250 postcards - can you believe that?! Bielefeld post must have had quite a surprise. And in our books that's certainly a record!

But words don't quite describe how great the spirit was on this meetup, so let's try with some photos.

Haus Einschlingen, the place where everyone stayed during the 2 days.

Some serious postcard writing.

And some more...

The table with some of the postcards stacks to be signed.

The Christmas market visit and the popular glühwein.

And, of course, restocking on more postcards!

Who said you can't play football when it's snowing? (side note: the girls won)

The youngest, cutest and playful participant :).

Our postsnow-man.

And finally, a group photo.

We also want to use this opportunity to publicly thank nordbaer for organizing this meetup. It was fantastic and he did a great job putting it together.

Want to see more photos? You can find links for more at the forum thread of the meetup.

The Postcrossing meetups continue occur all over the world; Spain, Brazil, Italy, Netherlands, USA, Israel, Switzerland, Portugal, Canada, Germany - the list just doesn't stop!

To keep you all updated on the next meetups, here's the list of the upcoming ones:

1st May

UK, London

15th May

Canada, Niagara Falls
Russia, Moscow

22nd May

Australia, Brisbane

29th May

Netherlands, Leeuwarden

19th June

Germany, Leipzig

26th June

Netherlands, Den Bosch

27th June

U.S.A., San Francisco

3rd July

Poland, Wroclaw (Breslau)

For the latest about meetups, just check the forum - there's always more meetups being organized!

And as a teaser, here are photos and links of some of the latest ones:

Meetup in Madrid, Spain


Meetup in Rome, Italy


Meetup in Tel-Aviv, Israel


Meetup in Rotterdam, Netherlands