Postcrossing Blog

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.

Last July 14th, was not just the Postcrossing 5th birthday. On the same day, a village in the U.K. was trying to break a Guinness world record: the most postcards sent from one location.

The previous record belonged to the Indian city of Tamilnadu with the already impressive number of 5,216 postcards sent. Not bad at all! But the residents of Keyworth decided they could be better and they aimed for even higher: they are claiming to have sent a total of 8033 postcards in one single day! Quite something, isn’t it?

The event was organized by Brian Lund with the help of the local postoffice staff that started preparing the event 6 months ago, spreading the word and gathering sponsors. Some custom postcard designs were provided and there was even a postmark specific to that event. Postcards were sent all over the world, but some people mail themselves a postcard to keep a memory of participating in the event.

The exact value of the record is currently being submitted for ratification but with 8033 postcards, thinks are looking good – congratulations Keyworth!

PS: Speaking of records, to date the record of postcards sent in a Postcrossing meetup seems to belong to last year International Meetup in Helsinki with 545 postcards, signed (by all participants!) and sent on a single meetup. Do you know of another meetup with a higher number? Let us know!