Postcrossing Blog

In this week’s Spotlight feature, we interview Dimitris (aka dst121gr), from Greece. Besides being the top postcrosser in his country, Dimitris is also passioned about long distance running and his local rescue team, which he co-founded in 1995.

Here is what he had to say:

How did you come across Postcrossing? What got you hooked?

I read an article in a newspaper and I said “Ok, lets give it a try to see what this project is about”. I was never a fan of postcards and it was really strange to use a postcard to send a message to someone I didn’t know!!! I was hooked by this feeling and even now, after a few years and more than 2000 cards (sent and received), I have the same feeling. I think it’s something magic to communicate in this way, with people you don’t know and you may never meet. To find all the differences between your character and way of life, with the others in every country in the world. Also the happy feeling to discover that there is someone in the other side of the planet, who is just like you!

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

I’m a phonecard and euro coin collector. I’ve also start to collect Europa CEPT stamps. One more hobby I have lately is long distance running. I took part in mountain semimarathons. I’m not an athlete and I run just for the fun of it, but I always try to finish within the time limits. I also like the 4WD and I took part at races with my Nissan pick up, as a driver or as co pilot to a friends’ jeep.

Show us your mailbox, your mailman/mailwoman, your postoffice or the place where you post or keep your postcards!

Here is my postcard collection, and my mailbox:

What is it your favorite part of the Postcrossing process?

I really like and enjoy all the process of the project. From the first click to draw an address till the moment I drop the card to the post box. But now I think that I’m really happy when I realise that my card made the receiver happy and he or she liked it. I think it’s no need to talk about when I receive a card… :) I think the feelings are common for all of us!

Have you been surprised by any place that you have received a postcard from or sent a postcard to?

I think I was surprised when I drew an address to a school in Northern Mariana islands – but the biggest surprise was when I’ve got “thank you” cards from the kids there! I also was surprised when I receive my first card from a Greek who lived abroad and from a Russian member who learned Greek language and dances.

Is there anything that you are passionate about?

My biggest passion is the local rescue team. I’m proud to be one of the founders and one of the 4 people who worked hard to make it known for its work in Greece. It was founded in 1995 and our members have been in Turkey and Algeria for the eartquakes, we have sent humanitarian loads from Greece to Iraq and Serbia and lot of activities like search, rescue, fire fighting etc.

We’ve mentioned the EUROPA stamps a couple of times on the blog before, but never properly introduced them… so if you’re interested in the history of this postal collectible, this post is for you!

The idea of making a “join stamp emission” came up in 1952, as a way to symbolise the joint community of interest and objectives that was starting to take shape in Europe. When the Treaty of Rome was signed some years later, the six countries that joined the new European Coal and Steel Community (Belgium, France, West-Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands), issued a commemorative stamp: the first EUROPA stamps.

The stamp design was made by the French artist, Daniel Gonzague, it was a tower formed by the 6 letters of the latin word for Europe: EUROPA.

The newly created European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations (CEPT) took over the administration of the EUROPA stamps in 1960. In 1973 they decided that, in order for stamps to remain interesting for collectors, the common design should be replaced by a common theme, that each country was free to interpret in their unique designs. The themes would be chosen as a way to bring the different countries together to represent Europe.

In 1993, the management of the EUROPA stamps was taken over by PostEurop and the CEPT logo was then replaced by the new EUROPA logo. Today, all of these stamps that are released are done so by PostEurop, the association which represents the interest of European public postal operators.

In addition to deciding the themes of the future EUROPA stamps, PostEurop members have also created an annual competition, where everyone can vote for the “Best Europa stamp” of the year.

The popularity of the EUROPA stamps prompted many smaller administrative regions or special territories to express their interest in joining the group of issuing countries, and thus the circle grew larger. Currently, over 60 European countries issue EUROPA stamps annually.

To learn more about these special stamps, check out Jürgen’s fantastic blog on EUROPA stamps (which he has been collecting since 1987). He also wrote a comprehensive 5-part series on the history of the stamps, which he kindly allowed us to condense for this blog post.

Recently, Postcrossing has been featured in some very interesting scientific essays, focused on the study of people interaction through communications. Today we’d like to share with you one of these papers.

Ryan and Daniel are PhD students in Computer Science at the University of Bath, United Kingdom. Both are interested in how people interact with, and through, information technologies. Daniel’s PhD research looks at support for intimate communication between people in long-distance relationships. Ryan’s research is about understanding fairness in collaborative work tasks, and he has been a postcrosser since March 2011.

Ryan writes:

"The inspiration for our research came back in June 2011. We were interested in learning why people enjoy using Postcrossing, and what they value about correspondence through postcards. We hoped that such knowledge might allow us to derive some design criteria to help improve digital communication systems.

Many of the things we found in our study relate to the treasured elements of paper-based correspondence that are lost during digitisation. For example, we found that people value things like stamps, postmarks, wear and tear from travelling, as well as personalised postcards. We also found that people love the random aspects of Postcrossing: not knowing what you’ll receive, who it will be from, or from where it will come. These are the things we believe could be useful in certain digital technologies, and we are currently developing ways to use our design criteria to build new systems that help to connect people together.

One of the other things we found, but didn’t have space to write about in the paper, is linked to reciprocity – the expectation that others will treat us as we treat them, and will respond to our actions in kind. From reading our survey responses, people said they loved knowing that recipients enjoyed their postcards, but what we also observed was a clear dislike for empty 'thank you’ messages in the hurray email. This tells us that, even though Postcrossing encounters are essentially one-off experiences, we still expect others to treat us in kind and to thank us for our efforts. People don’t like it when the norm of reciprocity is broken, even in a setting where it seems like it might not matter all that much.

In the future, we hope to do more studies involving Postcrossing, and we hope to look at other practices like online pen-palling and use of christmas cards. These will give us new ideas about how to link digital and physical technologies."

Very interesting results – thank you Ryan and Daniel! If you want to read more, you can download a free copy of the paper from Ryan’s publications page at: http://people.bath.ac.uk/rmk22/RyanKellyWebsite/Publications.html

Last week we introduced you to Christine’s postcards, and gave you a chance to win some of them in a fantastic giveaway. Hundreds of you participated by leaving a comment, and we bet you’re anxious to know who got one of the postcard sets… but first, here’s a word from Christine herself:

Dear postcrossers,
I was overwhelmed by the fantastic response on the By Kris Give away. I congratulate the winners! To say thank you to everybody else that did not win: if you place an order this week in my etsy shop, I will charge NO shipping costs. Just use the promo code: FREESHIPPING.
Happy Postcrossing!

Christine/ By Kris

Sweet! So without further ado, here are the 10 lucky winners: Iefonnuh, Saouri, fory, zphyrs, Linni, Hildegarde, ParallelSouls, Sisko1, WeepingWillows and red_sun. Congratulations! You’ll be receiving an email from us shortly!

A huge thank you to Christine for sponsoring the giveaway, and also to everyone who participated!

This week on the Spotlight interview, we feature Rita (Gogge1), from Denmark. Besides being an avid postcrosser, Rita is also into penpalling and baking!

Here is what she had to say:

How did you come across Postcrossing? What got you hooked?

One of my old penpals told me about Postcrossing, and I decided to give it a try. Soon I was totally hooked on this project! And I have to admit that I just love it. To me it is not just sending and receiving postcards from all ower the world. Well of course thats a huge part of it, but at the same time, I see a lot of views from arround the world, and I also “meet” a lot of great people. And then I do learn a lot about both my own country (I love to write and tell about what’s on the cards I send out) as well as many other countries. That’s a huge part of it for me.

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

Oh yes, I love history, which goes a bit hand in hand with Postcrossing, doesn’t it? I also enjoy penpalling (but sadly I haven’t much time for that these days because I’m studying). And I always bake our own bread, which I’ve done for ages. I also bake some cakes etc. now and then.

Show us your mailbox, your mailman/mailwoman, your postoffice or the place where you post or keep your postcards!

Here are my own mailbox where I pick my mail 5 – 6 days a week and the postbox where do send most of my postcards from. It’s standing just outside the local liborary in the tiny town I’m living in.

Sadly there aren’t many post offices left in Denmark. They close down, and we have to drive around 13 kilometres to the nearest post office.

I keep my postcards in albums and boxes.

Show and tell us about your favorite received postcard to date, and what makes it special.

This is difficult, because I’ve received so many beautiful cards… It’s simply sooo hard to pick one, two or even 10 cards and make them to favourites. But these are some of those I really do love (among many many cards I love):

What is it your favorite part of the Postcrossing process?

Surely it’s exciting to see which card I receive myself – I like that very much. But my favourite part is to find nice cards, and to pick them for each person I’m going to send a card. I always try to find the perfect card for each postcrosser, if its possible for me at all. And I always read the postcrossers wishes for cards and try to fullfill them.

Have you been surprised by any place that you have received a postcard from or sent a postcard to?

Yes! Places like Tuvalu, Turkmenistan, etc. I’d never heard of these places before I started Postcrossing.

Have you met any other members in real life?

I’ve meet Dorthe from Denmark and Christa from Germany several times to meetups arround Denmark. And at the Postcrossing meetup in Copenhagen in September 2011, I’ve meet GForp from Denmark, Lotty from Belgium, Ritva, Dollart from Finland and several more from Finland, Poland, etc.