Postcrossing Blog

Have you been in a Postcrossing meetup before? How about an International Postcrossing meetup? If not, here’s your chance!

Like all Postcrossing meetups, this one is also organized by the users themselves and it’s been in the works for quite some time. Now that the details are pretty much decided, it’s time to spread the word. This International Postcrossing meetup is going to be in Helsinki (Finland) in the 28th, 29th and 30th of August.

If you are interested, here’s a summary of what’s currently planned:

Friday, 28th August:

A small pre-meeting in the afternoon for chat and coffee in a cafeteria.

Saturday, 29th August – the official meeting day

The official meeting day starts at 10am with a guided tour around city center and a trip to the Suomenlinna Island, an UNESCO World Heritage place. On the Island it’s possible to do a small picnic or have a cup of coffee. Of course, the city tour will have plenty of stops in many postcard shops!
Later in the day everyone can enjoy a meal together in a restaurant followed by plenty of time to write some more postcards.

Sunday, 30th August

A visit to the biggest flea market in Helsinki, Valtterin Kirpputori, and continue to the amusement park Linnanmäki which has an unique atmosphere. The last stop on Sunday will be the Olympic Stadium Tower in Helsinki.

Many users are already arranging to go, some from abroad with plans to visit the country for the first time!

To know more details about this meetup, just check the Postcrossing Forum where you can find more updated information about it.

With the summer stretching it’s arms and warming up more and more countries, the Postcrossing meetups are also on the rise. April was a particularly active month with at least 5 meetups that we know of and May seems to be following the same steps.

Finland on its own had 3 of them just in April, all in different cities throughout the country. Russia followed, and Taiwan had its first meetup in Taipei which gathered quite a few Postcrossers.

Here’s a quick run down of all the meetups that happened since the last update with links to photos of the events:

4th April

Finland, Jyväskylä (photos, photos)

12th April

Finland, Kalajoki (photos)

18th April

Taiwan, Taipei (photos, photos)

25th April

Russia, Moscow (photos)

Finland, Joensuu

6th&7th May

Finland, Helsinki (photos)

9th May

England, Ipswich

Finland, Jyväskylä (photos)

But it doesn’t stop here. There’s quite a few coming up soon! Here’s the agenda for the upcoming meetups:

17th May

Brazil, São Paulo

31st May

Portugal, Coimbra

27th June

Canada, Ontario

As usual, for the most updated list of the upcoming meetups, be sure to check the forum.

And because it’s much easier to describe the meetups with photos, here are some taken by Headstandguy on the Taipei meetup:

For more photos of this meetup, check this slideshow.

PS: By the way, soon we will be publishing details here about the upcoming International Postcrossing Meetup 2009 so keep tuned!

Päivää and God dag Postcrossers!

Many of you are already avid fans of Moomins/MuminTroll/Muumi. The Moomins are the major characters in the series of comic strips and books illustrated and written by renowned Finnish artist Tove Jansson, who declared that his characters are partially based on many of her family and friends.

The main appearance of Moomins is very similar to hippopotamuses but they are actually a family of trolls who live in Moominvalley. The Moomins interact with their friends such as Hemulens, Sniff, The Snork maiden, Snufkin and Little My. The major premise of most Moomin stories revolves around the idea of accepting the differences of others and accommodating their specific needs.

The first book was released in 1945 and soon more books, a comic strip series, and a television adaptation followed. There are even a number of movies based on Jansson’s lovable family of trolls. Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Russia, Poland, Britain, Austria, Germany, and Japan all made TV and movie adaptations of the Moomins.

It was not long after the success of Moomins (called the Moomin Boom) reached its peak as operas, Moomin products, playrooms, museums, albums, and even a Moomin theme park emerged in many parts of Finland and Japan.

If you have any other interesting information about Moomins, just comment and share!

Hola Postcrossers! We hope you had a wonderful Easter! We found another interesting topic about postcards: Kaj Stenvall and his famous Duck.

Lots of Postcrossers have been emailing us about this amazing and creative Finnish painter and his wonderful masterpieces that frequently feature a duck in many settings and characterizations.

Stenvall’s paintings are now being used in postcards everywhere. So you either have seen some of these postcards lately but didn’t know who the painter was or you’re familiar with the painter but do not have any idea why he paints the way he does.

If you don’t know anything about this painter at all, read along because we’re sure you’ll find him and his paintings very interesting. Who knows, you’ll even want a postcard with his famous duck paintings.

It all started in 1989 when Stenvall made a few paintings featuring a duck that looks very similar to Walt Disney’s Donald Duck. However, his duck’s appearance has increasingly moved away from the Disney character’s guise through the years. The duck’s gender, age, and skin color have all shifted from one painting to another. The Duck has slowly become its own character.

According to Stenvall himself, the Duck is a symbol of humanity. Contrary to popular belief, the Duck isn’t Stenvall’s alter ego nor does it serve any purpose in delivering some kind of message from Stenvall. According to Stenvall’s official website,

It’s simply a jumping off point into the multidimensional world of Stenvall’s art, to draw the viewer deep inside his paintings and then, to step aside.

Isn’t that genius thinking?

What’s even better is that the duck makes viewers think about its purpose and imagine things that Stenvall himself wouldn’t even think about his own paintings.

Challenge yourself and your postcard recipients by sending them one of Stenvall’s paintings. Let’s see what stories you guys can come up with just by looking at the duck and its surroundings.

If you want to see more of Stenvall’s art, visit his website here.

We aren’t sure if these postcards are available online but we found a couple at this website: Art Unlimited.

If any of you have any idea where your fellow Postcrossers can get one online, please comment on this blog post and leave a link! Thanks a lot!

Till next time!

On the 13&14th earlier this month another large Postcrossing meetup took place, this time in cold Tampere in Finland. The meetup had over 25 Postcrossers with some coming from Germany and The Netherlands.

Here’s what happened described by Soili, one of the attendees:

Some of the guests arrived Tampere on Friday already and they spent some time in a pre-meeting in the night life of the city. The main meeting day was on Saturday. The day was cloudy and streets were slushy but it wasn’t too cold. Some snowflakes came down from the sky every now and then. At 11 am one part of the group went to visit the Tampere cathedral and another part gathered in a postcard shop. I myself arrived Tampere later than the others and the first thing when I got there I went to that shop to check out if they had left any postcards for me. :D Then I phoned them to find out their location. So, we met each other in Moomin Shop downstairs of Tampere library. Those who visited the cathedral were there already, too.

Then we went upstairs to the library cafe and had a cup of coffee and tea. Then we started writing and signing postcards to fellow postcrossers. Previous evening I had prewritten and stamped some postcards already but since I didn’t have any Tampere postcards at home I had to write them at the cafe. It took a while to sign all the 354 postcards. Postcards kept coming endlessly to our table. Luckily, my user name is short enough to write it over and over again. :D After about two and half hours they were all signed. We put postcards to a mailbox next to the Moominvalley to get a special Moomin cancellation to them.

Our Dutch friends gave to the participants delicious gifts they had brought all the way from the Netherlands. Thanks again! Also recycling is in! Anyone could bring unsed postcards they didn’t want to keep anymore to the meeting. So anyone could take as many postcards as they wanted. Someone’s trash is someone else’s treasure. I found many beautiful postcards in the trash piles. :D

At this point some of the participants left the group. The rest of us headed for an Italian restaurant Bella Roma. On our way to the restaurant we popped in another postcard shop to buy low-price postcards. I never miss a chance to buy postcards because in the village where I live the postcard assortment is poor and they are also expensive. So, I left the shop with 60 postcards. :D

At least I was hungry when we got to the restaurant. Bella Roma is a cosy Italian ristorante. Pastas and pizzas were delicious as well the desserts like real Italian gelato (ice cream). Yummy! I was stuffed when I finished the dinner.

After 7 pm it was time to say goodbye. Some went home, some for a drink in a bar. After a couple of hours’ driving I was back at home at 10.30 pm. It was a long day but worth it.

It is great to meet other postcrossers in the real life. Some of them I had already met earlier because this was my 8th Postcrossing meeting already. It is wonderful to get to know new people, too. The disadvantage of a meeting this big is that there isn’t necessarily time to talk to everyone but maybe next time.

Luckily enough, Finland’s FI-500000 was sent from this meetup with meeting signatures. Congratulations too all Finnish members for the achievement!

(pooca with the 500,000th card to be sent from Finland.)

Don’t forget to check the forum for updates in the upcoming meetups!

PS: For more photos of this meetup, check here, here, here, here, here and here :).