Postcrossing Blog

Ruan from South Africa has an interesting request on his profile: he wants to learn which are the cool (pop&rock) bands in other countries and asks postcrossers to talk about them. We think that’s quite a fun way to learn about music and other cultures, don’t you think?
Here’s what he has to say about his Postcrossing hobby.

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

I first read about Postcrossing in a local stamp collector’s magazine, and then forgot about it. Months later I remembered again, and thought I’d just have a look to see what all the fuss was about. Well, I got 100% addicted straight away! I love the randomness of the project – to hold in my hand an object chosen specifically for me and sent halfway around the world by a stranger; and then to return the favour. It’s great to be able to exchange ideas and information with people you would propably never meet.

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

I also collect stamps, I have a large music collection, do a bit of gardening, and when the mood grips me, I imagine myself to be an amateur artist.

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

This is the post ofice where I do all my postal bussiness.

This is the posting box where I send all my cards and letters.

And this is the mail collection point where I receive all my mail. I have circled my box.

At first, I kept all my received postcards in a box, sorted by country. We are now busy putting a selection of interesting cards up on a wall in the passage, hoping to have the entire wall covered soon!

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

If I had to try to pick only a few favourites, I’d still end up with almost a hundred! So thanx to all the wonderful people in the Postcrossing community whose thoughtfulness never ceases to surprise me.

Maroussia, a French Postcrosser who lives in China and is collecting postcards since she was 12 years old.

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

I have collected viewcards and had penfriends since age 12, the cards always made me day dream about places I might never see with my own eyes and a penfriend of mine from Sweden (but actually Finnish) thought I would be interested and introduced postcrossing to me. I loved the idea, the mystery of where the next card will come from, and the opportunity to make new friends, to “meet” interesting people. I must say I have NOT been disappointed and I love postcrossing! To my happy surprise, 99% of the cards I have so far received have been good and valuable for my collection, and many came with really great words written on the back!

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

Yes, I am crazy about cooking and baking, and collecting cookbooks and cookery magazines, recipes. My favourite passtime is trying new recipes. My other “hobby” is history (which I teach along with geography), and reading history books and magazines, also archaeology, learning about people in other times and places, and postcards here come very handy and are a real help. Many cards I received are directly linked to historical events and it is very thrilling.

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

I live in a village 30 km from the city and mail deliveries are not reliable where I live, to say the least. So I receive my letters and cards in that 1–2–12 box in the photo which actually is my husband’s office mail box in the city, where mail is delivered safely.

This is the one I mostly patronize when I have to send things a bit out of the ordinary like packages or registered letters. Otherwise I mostly drop my cards in that post-box in San Li Tun street, but occasionally in other ones. I know the location of about ten convenient mail boxes.

Well they are quite messy, but at least organized by countries. In boxes for the countries from where I have really many like Germany, France, the Czech Republic, the USA, Austria and such. The others are in two chests of drawers, also classified by country. My big hope (when I am retired, maybe) is to put them all in albums, with explanations about the place shown on the card!

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

Hard to tell! There are so many I particularly love either because the picture is really fantastic, or because I love the place or it makes me day dream…

From time to time we get requests to help many different causes by spreading the word about them. While we would like to help them all, that is not always possible. However, today one of our members brought to our attention something particularly touching and we had to share it with you all.

Here’s a text about it that explains it much better than we can:

“I am a fifth grade teacher in London, Ohio, and one of my most sincere and joyous students, Reagyn, has a brain tumor. It is now in stage three, and her family is being forced to move to Virginia for a few months so she can receive proton radiation from one of the best doctors in the country. Reagyn remains optimistic and spreads positive energy everywhere she goes. She helps others and puts everyone before herself. In fact, last week she headed a school wide campaign to start saving pop tabs so that Ronald McDonald would visit Children’s Hospital in Columbus. Needless to say, there are a few thousand pop tabs already. Recently, we had a conversation about what she collects, and she said nothing, well except for SillyBandz; but what fifth grader doesn’t? Then I asked her what she has always wanted to collect but never got the opportunity. She told me she wished she could receive ”postcards from all over the world." Let’s make this happen!

This is where my favor comes into play. We are asking anybody and everybody to send a little note of support and/or telling her something about your location on a POSTCARD. My entire class and our wonderful secretaries are helping Reagyn fulfill this dream. Please, please pass this email on to everyone you know. It would make a huge difference in Reagyn’s life. She received her first postcard today from London, England!

She now has her own website at www.reagynsworld.weebly.com. Feel free to leave her a short blog of support on her website.

All postcards can be sent to London Elementary at:

Reagyn Semler
c/o London Elementary
380 Elm Street
London, Ohio 43140
United States of America

Thank you for your support!
Chad Reeser
5th grade teacher
London Elementary School"

I don’t think there’s a better match than cards from Postcrossers for someone who wishes to receive postcards from all over the world! Grab a postcard and send her a bold Happy Postcrossing! Tell her about you location and make her smile! That’s it! As simple as a postcard.

Note: We want to underline that this is a request for postcards only. Please do not send any money – only postcards are being asked for. They also request for postcards to not be on envelopes so that it’s easier for Reagyn to go through all of them.

We have mentioned before how Postcrossing as a school project can be a great idea. Teachers all over the world are discovering how to use Postcrossing as an educational tool. English, geography, culture – there’s so much one can learn through postcards!

Adriana Salim is one of those teachers and we are happy to be able to share with you all how her experience has been.

I am an English teacher at a public school in Petrópolis, RJ, Brazil. I teach classes to teenagers who keep me busy trying to get them interested and motivated. The dean of the school where I work found out about Postcrossing and here we are, the students and I, involved in sending and receiving cards.

I surely couldn’t have run into something more helpful! Everybody waits anxiously for the mail and the school mailbox is checked every single day. Isn’t it fun to learn English this way? Each student is a single user. They write and receive their own cards. Our enthusiasm has also hooked the Biology teacher who has joined Postcrossing with his own kids at home.

We have many projects at the school: theater, dance, environment protection, reading and Postcrossing! Some of the students take part in more than one project.

Before Postcrossing, the students used to swap cards among themselves to practice their English skills. Nowadays we realise that it’s much more fun to write real postcards with Postcrossing.

This is where we have our Postcrossing meetings once a week.

Our postcards are mailed to the school address. The mail is always brought by the same mailman. We go to the main post office downtown for stamps. We usually post our cards once a week at a smaller facility. The students keep their own cards at home in albums or on a wallboard. Now and then we display all the received cards at school.

This is our mailman delivering some mail and the school mailbox.

This is the board we keep the cards sent to the group as a whole.

This is the main post office where we buy stamps.

We once had a picture of the cards exhibition we prepared to celebrate the 18th anniversary of our school on the first page of Petrópolis newspaper.

As part of that commemoration a school postcard was created and is now available to be send by the students.

Thank you Adriana for sharing this with us!

Have other stories on how Postcrossing is being used on education? Then let us know! We love to hear about them.

It’s the World Post Day, did you know? It’s celebrated every year, on the 9th of October and it commemorates the founding of the UPU (Universal Postal Union) in 1874 in Bern, Switzerland Capital.

So today, across the world, post offices are celebrating this special day in many different ways. This includes: special philatelic exhibitions, free entrance in postal museums, introducing new products and services, special cancellation marks, seminars, workshops and more!

Actually, in some countries you can even get free goodies (like free postage!) so be sure to check the website for the post offices of your country (hint: if you don’t know the link you can find it in your country page in Postcrossing). Let us know your findings in the comments of this post!

So, go out, buy some postcards or some nice letter paper and write to all your friends and family; remind them that the post is a very important part of our lives.

Happy World Post Day!