1982 - a Time Capsule of a year's events in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
The 13th Australian Jamboree - 75 years of Scouting
The final event was the International Scout Jamboree celebrating 75 years of the Scouting movement. It involved a huge amount of planning, and a tent city was set up in Collingwood Park, Redbank Plains.
Australia Post did not issue a postage stamp, but they issued instead a pre-stamped envelope No.059, and it carried this information.
75th Anniversary of Scouting 1982-1983
Lord Baden-Powell's book, Scouting for Boys, was published in Britain in 1908 following a successful camp at Brownsea Island in the previous year. The publication of the book inspired the spontaneous formation of Scout troops in many parts of the world, including Australia's first Scout patrols.
To celebrate the 75th anniversary Scouts of Australia and twenty overseas countries are joining in a Jamboree at Collingwood Park, Ipswich, Queensland, 29 December 1982-7 January 1983. The issue of this envelope coincides with the opening of the Jamboree.
A portrait of Lord Baden-Powell appears on the envelope together with a Boy Scout's membership Certificate, circa 1918.
Much publicity was given to the postal arrangements that were going to be in place. This was the article in the Australia Post Staff magazine in December 1982.
The post office was not the only commercial enterprise on the site, hundreds of scouts at a time have been lining up at the scout outdoor centre souvenir shop and banks.
A report in the Queensland Times showed a 12-year old scout from New South Wales posting a letter home, and the report quoted one of the 6 full-time postal clerks (Ron Shanahan)
"Opening the doors of the 13th Australian Jamboree site post office in the morning is like stirring an ants nest with a stick. We opened the doors this morning and there was a big rush - I served 100 customers in the first hour - about 2000 kids are coming through here each day. The special pre-stamped envelope is proving extremely popular, we had 33,000 for sale and had sold 20,000 of them in the first five days".
A medallion was struck bearing the Scout emblem, the years 1907-1982 and bearing the words "TO COMMEMORATE THE 75TH ANNIVERSARY OF WORLD SCOUTING.
The 1st of January is a public holiday in Australia, and all Post Offices are usually closed, however for the Jamboree, the Post Office on the camp site was open for business, and this pre-stamped envelope shows the date in the special cancellation.
Finally, the local dairy produced a special run of cartons for milk just for this Jamboree. I would be surprised if there are many of these empty cartons still around - I am amazed that a used waxed paper object is still here in my album 25 years later.
This ended the year with a great influx of thousands of scouts and their families, and the events of the whole year proved that Brisbane, Queensland's capital, would be capable of hosting an international 'happening'. This led six years later to the most successful event ever....Expo 88, but that is another story.