QSL Bureau Report July 2008

The RSGB QSL Bureau at Potters Bar closed on 20 March 2008 and over a  two-day period the operation was moved to West Yorkshire.

Despite P.O. Box 73 Halifax being available and repeated requests being made, the Post Office remained completely intransigent and eventually issued the bureau with P.O. Box 5.

Further problems followed when it was discovered that Parcel Force who handle all incoming packages over 2kg would not deliver to a Post Office box number, despite being a Post Office organisation. Alternative arrangements have now been made for incoming packages from outside of the UK.

The 24 hour telephone message line number took until 1 May to install with the failure of BT engineers to keep appointments on four separate occasions.
Each broken appointment meant a further seven day delay.   All telephone calls are now logged and at the time of writing 83 incoming calls had been received and responded to within 24 hours.

A common question is “Who is my sub manager and can I have his details?”   The simple answer is look at http://www.rsgb.org/membersonly/qslbureau/ and follow the links.   At the time of writing the list was up to date to the 7th July 2008.

The Society is also aware of a number of problems involving sub-managers, some of who are apparently ex-directory and have no e-mail address. Others have moved address without informing the Society. Letters have been sent to all the 100 plus sub-managers as an audit exercise together with self addressed stamped envelopes. To date and despite further reminders being sent, some 20 of these have not responded.

The total number of cards handled to date exceeds 220,000 with 42,000 being sent to UK addresses in the last 30 days and a further 21,000 cards being sent to overseas bureaux.   It is anticipated these throughput figures will improve with experience.

Anyone having any questions regarding the QSL Bureau should contact –
RSGB QSL Bureau
P.O. Box 5
Halifax HX1 9JR
England
Telephone: 01422 359362
E-mail: QSL@rsgb.org.uk

Source: RSGB