Postcrossing Blog

BrainTrust Canada is a Canadian foundation that supports people who suffered brain injuries as a result of traumatic and non-traumatic injuries such as stroke, car crashes, falls and diseases. Although often invisible from the outside, brain injuries bring about dramatic changes that many people struggle with for their whole lives, including poor fine motor skills and social isolation… which is where Postcrossing can come in! Writing short texts can help improve some of those abilities, and also increase contact with the world.

Realizing this, Arlene (aka whodalalee) decided to help others in the organization use Postcrossing for this purpose. Last year, she created an account for them on the website, and invited BrainTrust members to participate in monthly meetings to go over the postcards received and to write some together. Arlene even made a board with a map where postcards are shown and everyone that walks by can interact with!

We asked Arlene how the experience was going, and this is what she told us:

“It is a healing time once a month for us…we listen to soft music, chat a little but mostly, it is the companionship that is happening that they love. I print out the profiles we have been given and they all get to chose who they want to write to. Of course the benefit of connecting with the world outside of our injury is so exciting and helps with the re-generation of our neurons in our brains too! When you have a brain injury, you have to learn about your ”new you" and this makes a person very introspective and self indulgent, because we have to work on ourselves only before we can expand into the “normal” world. Postcrossing has been a step into the world beyond injury, and this is a BIG step and exciting step for all of the clients who share in our Postcrossing Partners Group."

Congratulations Arlene — what a brilliant idea! 😊 We love seeing all the different ways in which the Postcrossing community uses postcards to connect (and heal) the world. If you’re inspired by this story and have an idea for a partnership that would make the world a better place, get in touch!

PS: Quick update from Arlene, to show us some of the postcards they’ve received so far:

She mentions that their little group has been overwhelmed with the warmth of the senders and the inspiring stories everyone has shared with them. Hurray! 😍

Remember the Sister Cities of Düsseldorf call for postcards we did a few months ago? The day of Düsseldorf, Haifa, Chemnitz and Reading’s jubilee finally arrived last weekend, and with it the opening of the fantastic exhibition created with all your postcards!

Sonja (aka Sonne89) from the Mayor’s office reported that it was a perfect sunny day when Düsseldorf’s mayor and delegations from the other sister cities opened the exhibition, and the atmosphere was happy, with lots of enthusiastic visitors. She sent us some nice pictures that their intern Claire took, so that we could share them with you! Without further ado…

In total, they received almost 500 postcards from 79 different countries, all with messages of joy and celebration. They even took a few quotes from the postcards and printed them on the walls, with the postcards hanging from the ceiling!

Doesn’t that look amazing? All those postcards within easy reach, the quotes, the wall of postcards they built… they even set up a little mailbox, so that visitors could send a postcard on the opening weekend, and over 60 people took the opportunity to write to their beloved ones! :)

I confess I’m getting a little teary eyed looking at all these photos… Isn’t this amazing? We brought a world of kind wishes to Düsseldorf! 😊 And if you’d like to experience it yourself, there’s still time to see it: the Sister Cities exhibition will be shown on Café Europa (Marktplatz 6A) for the next 3 weeks. If you’re in the area, don’t miss it!

Our huge thank you to Sonja, Claire and Vera of Düsseldorf’s Mayor’s office for this wonderful experience. On top of putting all of it together, they’ve generously written over 100 postcards back to postcrossers who included their email addresses on the postcards. Thank you! ❤️

All photos by Claire Brantley

Remember back in July, when the Singapore Philatelic Museum asked everyone’s collaboration with Harry Potter postcards for their newest thematic exhibition? Mishelle Lim from the museum recently wrote back to let us know the responses to this call for postcards were stunning, and that they’ve received almost 100 beautiful postcards — including hand-made ones and some bearing Harry Potter stamps. Woohoo! Ten points to Gryffindor Postcrossing!

The museum is now busy replying to the submissions, but have sent back some photos of the exhibition which opened last month. Have a look:

Merlin’s beard… that looks amazing! We’re always in awe of SPM’s exhibitions — you can tell they work hard on all the details to really take the experience to the next level.

If you’re in the area or planning to visit Singapore in the next few months, “Collecting Magic: From Stamps to Wands” will be open until June 2017.

Good news, everyone! We’re super excited about this upcoming exhibition curated by the Singapore Philatelic Museum, which features one of our favourite series ever… HARRY POTTER!!

Since the first book came out in 1997, J.K. Rowling's young wizard and his friends have been hugely popular all around the world, influencing a generation of readers. Postal operators have also joined in celebrating the series, which are naturally featured in plenty of stamps as well as postcards and fan art… which is where YOU come in. The SPM is looking for your collections and postcards, to feature on their next exhibition! 😀

If you’re a collector of Harry Potter postcards or postal stationery and would like to showcase your collection in the exhibition, please contact Mishelle (the curator) at SPM179807@gmail.com by August 10th.

But you don’t need to be a collector to participate! As is tradition, the museum is also calling all postcrossers to send in their themed postcards to them. So grab a Harry Potter card and share something with the visitors! For instance, what do you like about the series? Who’s your favourite character, or what’s your favourite scene or quote? Do tell! Here’s the address:

The exhibition is already on display, so this activity is closed.

If your card arrives before August 21st and includes your address, you’ll receive a postcard back! :) Sadly, the reply won’t be a Harry Potter card, due to licensing fees, but the postcards of the museum never disappoint.

The Harry Potter exhibition at the Singapore Philatelic Museum is scheduled to open in November, and stay on until July 2017. Now if only we had a magic spell to teleport us there…

With love from Snoopy, Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang is the name of the most recent exhibition at the Singapore Philatelic Museum. The characters of the comic strip are often portrayed writing letters, so with the new Peanuts movie launch, it seems like a fitting and fun exhibition! They have Snoopy-themed stamps, comic strips and other collectibles on display from all over the world, but they’re still missing one thing… your postcards! :)

Keeping on with the tradition, the museum invites all postcrossers to send in their Peanuts’ themed postcards to:

The exhibition is already on display, so this activity is closed.

Include your favourite quote from a Peanuts character or your thoughts on the comic strip, if you’d like! :)

The exhibition closes at the end of April, and the museum promises to send an exclusive museum Peanuts postcard to anyone who includes their address on the postcard.