PNWRG 2008 Weekend Meeting at Fairmont Hot Springs Resort, East Kootenays

The PNWRG held its annual meeting at the Fairmont Hot Springs Resort in the East Kootenays of British Columbia. The meeting is history, and we had a ball. Peter Jacobi and John Burnett put this meeting on.

Arline Burnett enjoying the view at the Fairmont Hot Springs Resort in the East Kootenays

We were disappointed with the turnout of PNWRG members but we heard from a few: "too far", "too early for that location", and the real easy to understand "too much snow in the pass from Alberta"! All that aside, we had a great meeting.

The format for this weekend was a little different than our previous get-togethers. Pushed by member Bev Wallace, we changed our meeting format to "philatelic and regional stuff" in the morning and "social activity, attended by all" in the afternoon. I think this worked really well and will become the way we do business in the future. I really enjoyed the afternoon out with all the folks and I enjoyed my time at Fort Steele.

Our business meeting was productive. One of the main items that came out of the meeting was that rather than asking for additional dues for Regional Group membership, we will spend down our accumulated funds. Effective immediately, every person residing in our Region's area is a member of the PNWRG. And everyone is invited to attend future regional meetings. We will continue a "no dues" policy until our funds run low and we need money to operate.

Pete Jacobi agreed to Chair the Regional Group for two years: 2008 and 2009. John Burnett, our newsletter editor, will take over for 2010 and 2011. Cec Coutts has agreed to become our Treasurer.

John Burnett announced that he had been approached to Chair the 2010 annual meeting of BNAPS in the greater Vancouver area. Peter Jacobi will assist and John Keenlyside has already volunteered to help also. John, being a national judge, will be asked to handle the judging.

• Currently locations in Richmond are being looked into.
• As yet, no budget has been approved so no formal announcement can be made of the location.

After the business meeting, we had a clothesline exhibit by several members.

The PNWRG business meeting

Pete Jacobi works hard at getting his point across

After a no-host lunch, a group of ten of us in three cars drove to the historic Fort Steele Regional Park for a very enjoyable afternoon of tours and a trip down nostalgia's road. Fort Steele is approximately an hour's drive from Fairmont, but it's a neat drive through some very impressive scenery. The Fort is like a restored town with many people acting the part of its citizens of the mid 19th century. Every actor was having fun doing their job, and that just made you enjoy being around them and listening to their talk on their specialty. The museum is great and I wish I had more time for that visit. I think everyone came away with a new found appreciation of British Columbia's early years. Peter Jacobi having spent years in the area in his former life as a mining engineer was a great tour guide, and Cec Coutts added his own slant on the police barracks as he was with the RCMP before his retirement.

Fort Steele is laid out with lots of space and many things to see and do. I really enjoyed the blacksmith's presentation. We visited the Northwest Mounted Police barracks. As you might expect, the officers lived a lot nicer than the enlisted folks.

Bird's eye view of Fort Steele

Northwest Mounted Police barracks at Fort Steele

A group of PNWRG folks explore some back areas (probably looking for old covers)

Supper that evening was an "Italian Buffet". We all enjoyed dinner and fellowship here. There were 18 of us. Our guest speaker was Dorothy Blunden, the curator of the Windermere Museum. Shee gave us a wonderfully entertaining talk about the history of the Columbia Valley, entitled "Hats Off to History". She tied her talk to the headgear one would find being worn by folks during their time in the history of the Columbia Valley.

Ed Harris and Cec Coutts have a hearty discussion while June Coutts and Jon Johnson look on

Dorothy Blunden speaking about the history of the Columbia Valley

Everyone at John Arn's table was captivated by our speaker

Ed Harris was the first to be asked to wear a hat as the talk discussed local Indian traditions

By the time Dorothy had finished, a lot of folks were wearing hats from the various eras in the Columbia Valley historical times

Sunday morning's program was totally philatelic, starting with Bob Lane's talk of "Birding, Stamping, and RPO'ing", a neat talk about how two distinctly different hobbies are so alike.

Peter Jacobi gave the next presentation. He held his audience with a great talk on "The History of Cominco".

Our philatelic program ended with a talk from BNAPS Chairman of the Board of Directors, Jon Johnson. Jon's "Flying High" was a most interesting talk on the various illustrated, commercial air mail covers on a wide variety of preprinted air mail envelopes, all displaying the red and blue border designated air mail border in different configurations and varieties of styles.

Peter Jacobi and "The History of Cominco"

Living in the Pacific Northwest Region, we've had the opportunity to participate in numerous regional meetings. Our regional meeting locations have allowed us to see a number of places such as Barkerville in northern British Columbia to Tacoma in Washington State, and from Galliano Island in the Gulf Islands to Fairmont in the East Kootenays. These meetings have been fun; we've had a chance to get to know other serious collectors and to bond socially with them. We count many of these fellow collectors among some of our best friends. So while these regional gatherings are ostensibly to enhance philatelic knowledge, they have also become mini social events, in which we and many have enjoyed participating.

We will be meeting again next May, and I really look forward to working with someone to help put on as much of a fun meeting as we had at Fairmont.

►  Text by John Burnett
►  Some photos by Bob Lane