GREATER ACCESS TO POSTAL SERVICES

A further five highly popular self-service Pay and Post kiosks are being introduced into the local community, in a bid to give customers greater access and choice of location for transacting their postal business.

Additional kiosks will be housed in Shoprite stores in Ramsey, Port Erin and Derby Road in Peel as well as the Sea Terminal, Station Garage, Castletown and the new Customer Services Centre at Postal Headquarters which opens on December 3. This expansion continues Isle of Man Post Office’s strategy to increase the availability of postal services beyond that of the normal Post Office retail network opening hours.

Marty Quine, General Manager Retail Network, Isle of Man Post Office said: “The locations we have chosen reflect the areas where we felt there was a need for additional outlets for postal services. I believe these will be convenient to customers who struggle to find the time to visit a post office during the normal working hours to buy stamps, post parcels and pay bills. Each of the new kiosk sites have early morning and late night opening hours, giving customers flexibility in the time they choose to transact their postal business.”

Meanwhile the Pay & Post kiosk which was installed in the Crosby Hotel in March last year has seen very little customer usage and is not proving commercially viable in this venue. Therefore the kiosk has been withdrawn from the Crosby Hotel and placed in one of the above locations.

Geoff Corkish MBE MHK, Chairman of Isle of Man Post Office said: “We appreciate the withdrawal of the kiosk will be disappointing news to the small number of customers in the Crosby area who did find the postal kiosk convenient and we apologise for any inconvenience it will cause. However, we have to relocate the kiosk in order that it is more cost-effective in terms of revenue for the business. We have consulted with the Member for Middle Howard Quayle MHK and Marown Commissioners explaining our reasons for this move and appreciate their understanding; however the kiosk in this location was heavily underutilised.” 

The kiosks enable customers to weigh, stamp and pay for packages to be posted quickly and efficiently, using a simple touch screen device. As well as the postal capabilities, customers can also pay their electricity, gas, phone bills and government rates through the machines.

Marty Quine said: “We are always keen to receive any feedback from customers about their experience of using the kiosks and an exit poll will be conducted at all the new locations and existing ones, in order to gauge customer feedback about the kiosks, how easy they are to use, their overall experience and whether they would use them again. Customers will also have the opportunity to add any further comments in order that we can continue to improve the standard of service we deliver. All participants who take part in the exit poll no later than December 31 will be entered into our prize draw to win an Isle of Man Post Office Yearbook 2012.”

Pay & Post kiosks were first introduced into the Island in August 2010 in Regent Street Post Office, following a response to customers’ desires to have self-service weighing positions, reduced queuing times and provide quick and simple service to purchase stamps, weigh and pay for letters and parcels and pay utility bills. Following their introduction, kiosks were also placed in Shoprite, Victoria Road, Douglas and the Wessex Garage, Alexander Drive, Douglas. The kiosks have been an overwhelming success with customers praising the out of hours access to postal services and their simplicity to use.

Isle of Man Post Office has continued its relationship with Integrex, one of the UK’s foremost providers of electronic and IT solutions to the retail sectors and the Escher Group, a leading provider of distributed messaging and data management solutions and services to introduce these additional kiosks. 

 

Bee Fauna Of The Isle Of Man

Click On The Image For More Information

The Isle of Man Post Office is pleased to present this beautiful stamp issue dedicated to one of our most popular and beloved insects and recognising its crucial role in the life cycle of the natural world.

Apart from the honeybee, the Isle of Man is home to approximately 15 species of bumblebee and 57 species of solitary bee. To put this into perspective, currently there are known to be 24 species of bumblebees and over 200 solitary bee species recorded from the British Isles. On the Island these bees can be found foraging from flowers on our mountain moorlands where the lovely Bilberry Bumblebee, amongst several other bee species, can be found visiting bilberry and heather flowers, right down to the Island’s coastal fringes where a number of bees make a living on the Ayres and the soft cliffs of Ramsey Bay for example.

Most of us will be familiar with some of the various species of bumblebees that visit our garden flower beds, but the solitary bees will be less familiar and it may be only when they are nesting in our lawns or flower beds that we may notice them. They are called solitary because, unlike the honey and bumble bees, there is no worker caste and they do not live in colonies although they can form large nesting aggregations such as those of Colletes succinctus.

Click On The Image For More Information

Other solitary bees, known as cuckoo bees, forgo the labour of building and provisioning their own nests but sneak their eggs into the nests of other bees and where they develop and eliminate their competition for the nest’s provisions. The silver and white Epeolus variegatus is one such cuckoo bee which can be found on the Ayres where it takes advantage of the efforts of bees such as species of the genus Colletes.

On the Isle of Man there are in the region of 120 beekeepers with varying numbers of colonies, 100 of them are fully paid-up Members of the IOM Beekeepers Federation affiliated to the BBKA, comprising of three districts. It is estimated that there are at least 400 colonies kept by these beekeepers or the Bumblebee Conservation Trust.

Click On The Image For More Information

These images are so life-like you can almost smell the honey as this issue is made extra special printed on honey-scented paper.
Please visit our website at www.iomstamps.com to find out more about the Bee Fauna of the Isle of Man collection of stamps and products and to pre-order.

HM Queen Elizabeth II – Diamond Jubilee 1952-2012

HM Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee First Day Cover

We are  pleased to present a set of six stamps to commemorate the Queen’s reign.

The issue date for this collection is Feb 6th 2012.You can now pre order the collection here.  Please see the terms and conditions for pre ordering here. The collection will be available to order on our eBay Store from Monday 30th January 2012. Please also note that items will be dispatched from the issue date onwards. Please be aware the issue date for the miniature sheet is on HM Queen’s birthday, 21st April 2012.

Each year one of the themes of the Christmas message to the Nation and the Commonwealth is a reflection of events during the year, we are pleased to include extracts from some of the broadcasts.

HM Queen Elizabeth II - Diamond Jubiliee Miniture Sheet

58 Pence Stamp
This photograph of the Queen was taken when she attended a film premiere in 1955. That year her Christmas Message, broadcast live from her study at Sandringham, focused on the Commonwealth.

She said: ‘Great opportunities lie before us. Indeed a large part of the world looks to the Commonwealth for a lead. We have already gone far towards discovering for ourselves how different nations, from North and South, from East and West, can live together in friendly brotherhood, pooling the resources of each for the benefit of all. Every one of us can also help in this great adventure, for just as the Commonwealth is made up of different nations, so those nations are made up of individuals. The greater the enterprise the more important our personal contribution.’

£1.10 Stamp
When this official photograph was taken of the Queen in 1968, she had already visited Brazil and Chile. It was the year in which civil rights leader Martin Luther King was shot dead in Memphis and the Queen focused her Christmas broadcast from Buckingham Palace on the theme of brotherhood.
She said: ‘Christmas is a Christian festival, which celebrates the birth of the Prince of Peace. At times it is almost hidden by the merry making and tinsel, but the essential message of Christmas is still that we all belong to the great brotherhood of man. This idea is not limited to the Christian faith. Philosophers and prophets have concluded that peace is better than war, love is better than hate and that mankind can only find progress in friendship and co-operation. Many ideas are being questioned today, but these great truths will continue to shine out as the light of hope in the darkness of intolerance and inhumanity.’

HM Queen Elizabeth II - Diamond Jubilee Presentation Pack

38 Pence Stamp
Taken in 1979, the international Year of the Child, when thousands of refugees fled the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, this picture features the Queen on horseback during the Trooping of the Colour. That year she visited Tanzania, Malawi, Botswana and Zambia.
In her Christmas message she said: ‘This year people all over the world have been asked to give particular thought to the special needs of sick and handicapped children, to the hungry and homeless and to those in trouble or distress wherever they may be found. It is an unhappy coincidence that political and economic forces have made this an exceptionally difficult and tragic year for many families and children in several parts of the world – but particularly in South East Asia. The situation has created a desperately serious challenge and I am glad to know that so many people of the Commonwealth have responded with wonderful generosity and kindness.’

68 Pence Stamp
In 1982, the year of the Falklands War, the Queen undertook two Commonwealth tours – of Canada, Australia and the Pacific. She is photographed here in Tuvalu where she and Prince Philip were borne aloft in ceremonial litters. That year her Christmas message marked the 50th anniversary of the first yuletide broadcast and was filmed for the first time in the library at Windsor Castle.
She said: ‘The poet John Donne said: “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.” That is the message of the Commonwealth and it is also the Christian message. Christ attached supreme importance to the individual and he amazed the world in which he lived by making it clear that the unfortunate and the underprivileged had an equal place in the Kingdom of Heaven with the rich and powerful. But he also taught that man must do his best to live in harmony with man and to love his neighbours.’

HM Queen Elizabeth II - Diamond Jubilee Single Stamps

37 Pence Stamp
This portrait was taken by photographer Terry O’Neill in 1990, the year that the Queen celebrated her mother’s 90th birthday and the christening of her youngest grandchild. But the threat of war in the Gulf dominated her Christmas message as she paid tribute to servicemen around the world.
She said: ‘I want, therefore, to say thank you today to the men and women who, day in and day out, carry on their daily life in difficult and dangerous circumstances. By just getting on with the job, they are getting the better of those who want to harm our way of life. Let us think of them this Christmas, wherever they are in the world, and pray that their resolution remains undiminished. It is they and their kind who, by resisting the bully and the tyrant, ensure that we live in the sort of world in which we can celebrate this season safely with our families.’

HM Queen Elizabeth II -Diamond Jubilee 1952 - 2012 Souvenir Sheet

£1.82 Stamp
The Queen stayed closer to home in 2008 – the year her son, Prince Charles, celebrated his 60th birthday – visiting Slovenia and Slovakia. She is photographed at the Derby at Epsom racecourse that summer, one of her favourite events of the season. That year her Christmas message was reflective.

She said: ‘In this 90th year since the end of the First World War, the last survivors recently commemorated the service and enormous sacrifice of their own generation. Their successors in theatres such as Iraq and Afghanistan are still to be found in harm’s way in the service of others. For their loved ones, the worry will never cease until they are safely home. In such times as these we can all learn some lessons from the past. We might begin to see things in a new perspective. And certainly, we begin to ask ourselves where it is that we can find lasting happiness. Over the years, those who have seemed to me to be the most happy, contented and fulfilled have always been the people who have lived the most outgoing and unselfish lives; the kind of people who are generous with their talents or their time. I think we have a huge amount to learn from individuals such as these.’

HM Queen Elizabeth II - Diamond Jubilee Sheet Set