In a continuing effort to attract the interest of the young, the Fédération Française des Associations Philatéliques, along with the collaboration of La Poste and ADPhile, are seeking new ways of promoting philately. Proof of this is the new Timbres Passion, the junior national philatelic exhibition held at the Parc des Expositions of Villeneuve-sur-Lot, at the southwest of the country, from October 30th to November 1st 2010. After the first Timbres Passion held in Dôle in 2007 (see article >, also published in VARIABLE 7), the Jeunesse Collection Passion in Villeneuve-sur-Lot, again brought together 3 youth competitions, the challenge Pasteur or national youth championship, the trophée Léonard de Vinci, for open-class collections, and the Jeux du timbre, a philatelic quiz, played by some groups of young collectors representing their region. The organization of the event was by the Club Philatélique Villeneuvois.

The philatelic event also hosted some competitions for adults. The France championships for the open-class category and a new postcards class, plus different complementary activities and games, as well as philatelic dealers, stands for philatelic promotion, and sales of regional products. It is worth mentioning an interesting display of philatelic display frames (see right picture, below) on the different French regions.
In short, the idea was to diversify the approach to philately to try to arouse the interest of new generations of collectors.

   

	For the Timbres Passion 2010, La Poste launched a new commemorative vignette LISA and an engraved stamp, both the work of Elsa Catelin. The stamp (right picture) shows a view of the city from the south bank of the Lot river, with the pont vieux (or pont des Cieutat), and the tower of the Église Sainte-Catherine, in the background.
	A first-day postmark (left) was prepared, for use with this stamp, with a design that includes two of the main monuments of Villeneuve-sur-Lot, the impressive brick tower of the Église Sainte-Catherine and the Porte de Paris, the last vestige, along with the Porte de Pujols, of the old medieval city walls (see the LISA issue).

The ATM issue, also designed by Elsa Catelin, is a composition that combines some of the main sights. From left to right, the Porte de Pujols, the Porte de Paris, the church of Sainte-Catherine, and a detail of an animal gargoyle located in an old building in the rue Lakanal.

	An exhibition commemorative postmark with the legend Jeunesse
	Collection Passion, was also prepared although on this occasion either postmark could be used with either of the 2 philatelic issues.

 

The vignette LISA was available in the exhibition for 3 days, in the 2 IER LISA 2 postal kiosks. The machines were installed between the La Poste stand and the sales stand, for philatelic souvenirs, of the local organizing club. To avoid queues at the distributors, many of the visitors bought their ATMs at the La Poste stand.

	One of the postal kiosks issued the ATMs with a bad-partial imprint (below), so most collectors avoided using this machine.

The labels have identical characteristics to other recent ATM issues in France. The rolls of labels were manufactured by Phil@poste and used offset printing on self-adhesive thermal paper. The label size is 80 x 30 mm. and incorporates a phosphorescent vertical strip at each edge of the design. The total printing for this design was 50,000 labels, many of them issued as ATMs with a face value 0.01 EUR.

According to current postage rates and the tariff program shown on the 2 IER LISA 2 postal kiosks in service at the exhibition, the basic postage rates for the first weight step of domestic mail for this design, excluding registered shipment options, are: 0.53 EUR LETTRE ECO (economic mail up to 20 g.); 0.58 EUR LETTRE PRIORITAIRE (high-priority mail up to 20 g.); 1.50 EUR MINI MAX (high-priority shipping option for small packets, up to 2 cm. thick and weighing up to 1 kg). For international mail (postage rates for shipments to the European Union and Switzerland): 0.75 EUR LETTRE PRIORITAIRE INTERNATIONALE (high-priority mail up to 20 g., documents) 2.00 EUR PETIT PAQUET PRIORITAIRE INTERNATIONALE (high-priority mail up to 100 g., merchandise). The minimum face value available was 0.01 EUR.

Minimum face value	Inland economic mail - LETTRE ECO
Inland priority mail - LETTRE PRIORITAIRE	International priority mail LETTRE PRIORITAIRE INTERNATIONALE
Inland priority mail - Small parcels MINI MAX	International priority mail - Merchandises up to 100 g. PETIT PAQUET PRIORITAIRE INTERNATIONAL