Has it really been a week? It feels like we’re still in a strange daze, dreaming of postcards, stamps and cancellation marks…
Anyway, it was a blast! It felt like the second World Postcard Day was bigger than the first edition, which is awesome — there were a lot more events, but also more postcards being sent in Postcrossing and more buzz on social media all throughout the day as well. The excitement was palpable, and it seemed like everywhere we looked, a celebration was taking place!
Take Jersey Post, for instance, who set up a display at their main post office where people could write words of wisdom in postcards, to share with others. Sage advice has been pouring in from post office visitors, and it’s really heart-warming to see! A few other postal services joined in the day, issuing a number of special cancellation marks and even some postcards, and there were quite a few events taking place in museums too, like the popular “From Me to You” workshop at the London’s Postal Museum’s café, and events for children in Slovenia and Finland.
Where possible and safe, meetups took place to celebrate the day, in places like Mumbai, Lisbon, Taipei or Bonn! If you were in a meeting, please upload some photos to its forum topic – so few people do these days, but we’d love to see your happy faces and your piles of postcards too.
In London, at Stampex (the biggest stamp collector’s fair in Europe), postcrossers got the chance to listen to a couple of interesting talks about postcards, peruse the stands, and enjoy sending postcards from the show. A total of 3000 World Postcard Day postcards were distributed to visitors this year, so everyone could send a postcard to celebrate the day!
This year, we were happy to see more libraries join in as well, with pop-up postcard writing stations inviting visitors to mail a postcard! A few of these were set up by postcrossers, who donated unwritten postcards to their local libraries and let them know about the World Postcard Day. That was really sweet, and it’s something we’d like to try to replicate in more places next year — wouldn’t it be cool if all libraries had a little postcard basket, encouraging visitors to grab one and mail it on the day? Libraries (and librarians) are the best!
Still, some things didn’t quite go as planned… 😅 Postcrossing’s infrastructure wasn’t made for these peaks of activity, so it struggled a bit to come up with addresses to give out on that day. You might have noticed the site was a little slow or unresponsive at times. Paulo kept an eye on the servers, made some tweaks here and there and slowly things improved towards the second half of the day. We hope to be better prepared for this avalanche next year.
That said, a lot of you have already started seeing the badges on your profiles as your October 1st postcards make their way to their destinations, and I’m sure you’re curious to know how many postcards were sent on that day, right? During October 1st in the UTC timezone, 70,381 postcards were sent through Postcrossing, and that number increases to 75,659 if you count with postcards requested on October 1st in other timezones as well. Hurray! This is about four times more than any other day of the year, so we are super impressed with everyone’s energy and readiness to write a few extra postcards! I bet you looked a bit like us in the gif below…
We’d like to think that these are just a small percentage of postcards sent on World Postcard Day though — hopefully a lot of postcards also went out to friends, family members and other people who we treasure and appreciate.
We hope you all had a wonderful World Postcard Day, surrounded by postcards and the warm fuzzy feeling of knowing you’re making other people happy! Thank you for enthusiastically embracing this idea as a community and for making this idea come true, pushing it forward and making the world a better place, one postcard at a time. 💛
PS – Today is World Post Day! UN’s Secretary-General António Guterres said: "On World Post Day, we recognize the invaluable contributions of postal workers to our societies and economies. The vast postal network – involving millions of workers moving billions of pieces of mail through hundreds of thousands of post offices – is woven into our societies, connecting communities the world over. ” It is decidedly so, and we are thankful for all of their hard work that brings us closer together through the mail.
52 comments so far
Lovely.
I really enjoyed it. And it's so good to see what was happening elsewhere. Well done everybody.
So cool!!!
Great! 😍
It kind of made me happy when the servers were slow with providing me addresses. It made me happy that apparently a whole lot of people were participating, which is awesome!
Really exciting to be part of such a global phenomenon! ❤️😊 📬 🌏
👏👏👏Congratulations with World Post Day !!!💌💌💌💨💨💨💬💬💬
Thank you for this report - you guys did a great job last Friday keeping the site going! :-) I had a wonderful day sending out lots of postcards and I am still enjoying the incoming cards. :-D
I have already received 4 WPD postcards. Last year I received a total of 3. I'd call that a successful WPD. :) Thank you to the entire Postcrossing staff. You are a treasue.
Thank you for all you do to help us keep our hobby thriving. This site and you two too, are amazing.📬💕🎉
Nice one. :-)
Congrats on a successful WPD! Knowing that the Postcrossers were addressing, stamping, and mailing together on that day, made it even more special.
Thank you to everyone and especially the moderators who keep things humming.
Awesome! Let's do it again next year!
What a great day and a great turnout!! I have received 4 different WPD cards so far! Congrats on another great WPD!!
Good to read.
Next year I would like to inform my local newspaper well in advance so they can print an article encouraging people to send a postcard on World Postcard Day.
Loved the library idea. Hope I remember it for next year! Thanks for providing such a fun experience.
It was G.R.E.A.T. 🤩!
2 weeks before World Postcard Day, it was rrreally hard to still have to wait and be patient.😅. Then -finally- October 1st . I felt the same as KitKat7576 writes above, (hi Kitkat!) about the website going slow, I felt kinda connected to you all, everyone was 'on it' 😃.
Thanks people 😘. HAPPY POSTCROSSING! 📬 💌
I was very happy writing postcards on WPD. And today!
I have enjoyed this year so much through Postcrossing! I had just sent out my change of address PCs to all of my mail buddies in early September. Then to send out some more FUN World Postcard Day postcards was delightful! Writing postcards has helped me through so much! Happy Postcrossing everyone!
Cool Gif. ;)
♥♥ Thank you guys, WPD was really great, and the meetup in Bonn was amazing, too! Sadly I didn't take any pictures to upload.
It was just wonderful! 💖
Awesome!
Thank you all Postcrossing "worker bees" for making this whole experience possible!
d
Ah, I had been wondering about the site being slow, but it’s great that so many people were requesting addresses! ^-^
It was a great experience ❤️.
I wrote so many postcards that I had cramps in my fingers and arm in the evening 🤣.
PS. The GIF is great! 😁👌🏻
I was very worried when Postcrossing searched for the last address for me for a long, long time, but he still found it!
Thanks everyone! I'm happy!
All the best! Success! Take care of yourself!
Sincerely, Alexander
Thanks so much for all you do! I knew that it was a great success when the servers couldn't keep up with the postcrossers- a great sign of community!
You guys are the best, thank you for all the work you do.
Such a fun day! I was so excited when I received mt WPD badge!!
My postal facility celebrated World Post Day & I organised a display of my postcards & first day covers. We had a BBQ & everyone got a goodie bag. :-) Such a great occasion.
Love to all!
Thank you all so much; WPD is truly a holiday for me-it makes me so happy to send cards and put smiles on other's faces! :)
Between Postcrossing, Instagram swaps, and sending cards to customers and friends I've made in the snail mail community, I swapped 25 postcards this year. I feel like every year we're going to see more unique WPD designs made by the different postcard artists we follow, too, which is exciting - so far I've gotten 4 different WPD '21 designs in the mail, each a collectible. Now if only we can convince USPS to do a WPD postmark!
Super super to be:
1. celebrating the WPD (with an immense feeling of gratitude to Postcrossing)
2. Being featured here as well! (the second image - I'm in the blue shirt!)
Thanks to Kedaar, Bharti, Megha, Anushka, Jinesh, Charu, Heena, Rishabh, Madhavan and everyone else who made it! Of course, Swati Pandey (PMG), Orchida Mukherjee and the staff of Mumbai GPO - you made us feel really special!
Congratulations, everyone!!! :)
Next year let's make it even better! :)
WELL DONE, POSTCROSSING! :)
I’m a retired postal worker. Thank you for recognizing us! We get criticized a lot and I really appreciate your support! Happy Postcrossing!😊😊
Thank you for the Wrap-Up...it looks like you two are writing at a 100mph/160kmh pace (always enjoy seeing Anna & Paulo doing what they do best). I usually stay at a snail's pace when sending cards, but managed to step it up a little more (with no delays in request assignments). I was super surprised to get a great extra postcard from fellow Texan Postcrosser "Ezredax" with whom I had become acquainted through a Postcrossing exchange some time back. . .we only live four hours from each other, so hope to meet in person some day.
Already looking forward to next WPD.
the best hobby- thank 4 all body-,
Congratulations, everyone, and #Kudos for the nice WPD postcards!
Congratulations to everyone and hats off to postal teams of all countries. Nice report
I enjoyed reading the feedback about World Postcard Day. Next year perhaps an early reminder about the event? I think you two need a holiday after this hectic activity!
THANK YOU, THANK YOU, everyone how organize this day and How participated on the WPD.
I'm really and proud that I got my WPD badge.
I'm looking forward for next year.......
HIEP HIEP HOERA!
Yay! I’m so honored to have participated on that day. I’m looking forward to next year’s! 🥰🙌🏽
So cool to live this frenetic moment as well. Thank you, Postcrossing team for always find ways to motivate us! <3
Long life for Postcrossing and postcards!
So great!
It's a really good trip for me to travel around the world by postcards.
A wonderful experience. Thank you all so much.
I enjoyed sending postcards especially World Postcard Day and receiving is even fun in return. Great job to all the postcrossers.
Several weeks ago I had a direct request from a lady in Great Britain who wanted a postcard from my home town. Today I got a postcard from her that was from World Postcard Day. She was so excited at the coincidence of being given my name and address so soon after getting the card from me. I love coincidences. Thank you postcrossing!
Thank you for running this fabulous site
So cool 👍
It was grand to see such excitement leading up to WPD. I saved my new addresses and sent 4 on that day. Can't wait for 1st October 2022 to come around. Well done Postcrossers🦘
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