American Kitefliers Association

Greetings -

Seems that the consensus is to go with United Kingdom.

I will ask the webmaster to edit the drop down menu to show that.  While he is at it, I will ask him to bring the county list to show all of the counties (for some reason, it does not have Middlesex on it) and to use abbreviations instead of the full length name.

Speaking of abbreviations, we just received a ballot that was mailed from the U.K. in late September.  As best as we can figure out, someone at the U.K. post office saw the "WA" abbreviation for Washington and took it to mean Western Australia, so off it went to Perth.  Someone there saw the city name of "Walla Walla", noted that Walla Walla was really in New South Wales instead of WA and sent it on its way.  Once it arrived in Walla Walla, NSW, someone there finally figured out that it was meant for Walla Walla, Washington, USA, and sent it on its journey again.  I dare not calculate the miles that this ballot traveled before it reach us here at AKA HQ.

Mel at AKA

If we divided it up into Mercia, Wessex, Northumbria, etc., then whenever we have an international kite fest we'd be able to claim that many more nations had attended.

On the other hand, I'm all for re-uniting Gondwanaland and putting an end to all this business of nationalities.

Someone (above) asked if UK counties/shires were needed. Mel's post reinforces the importance of prominently including country names when mail is addressed to out of country.

I think there ought to be an award for "most industrious postal worker" - considering that the ballot could have ended up in the dead letter office ("rubbish bin") so easily!

pwmeek wrote:

Someone (above) asked if UK counties/shires were needed. Mel's post reinforces the importance of prominently including country names when mail is addressed to out of country.

Peter or anyone -

Is there an "official" list of the abbreviations for counties and shires in the U.K.?  If so, could you direct me to it?

Thanks,

Mel at AKA

Googling on [ postal abbreviations shires UK ] I found this, which may help

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_cou … ed_Kingdom

It looks as though some shires/counties do not have abbreviations.

pwmeek wrote:

Googling on [ postal abbreviations shires UK ] I found this, which may help

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_cou … ed_Kingdom

It looks as though some shires/counties do not have abbreviations.

It also seems that they are no longer in use.

The postal counties of the United Kingdom, now known officially as the former postal counties, were postal subdivisions in routine use by the Royal Mail until 1996. ... According to the Royal Mail, the former postal county data no longer forms part of postal addresses.

ChuckS wrote:

It also seems that they are no longer in use.

The postal counties of the United Kingdom, now known officially as the former postal counties, were postal subdivisions in routine use by the Royal Mail until 1996. ... According to the Royal Mail, the former postal county data no longer forms part of postal addresses.

Greetings -

Tell that to some of our members who are adamant that we include the county in the address regardless of what the Royal Mail says.   

Mel at AKA

Hey. It easily takes me more than 14 years to get new ideas through my aging brain. I doubt if Her Majesty's postal workers would toss a letter just because it had a shire in the address. However, it might delay it if the automated sorting equipment got confused. I know that in the US, an improperly formatted address can add two or more days to the delivery time.

Moral: print those zip-codes clearly and use Zip+4 if you know it. Zip+4 will get it into the hands of a route carrier who probably knows the names of his/her customers. My name and 48198-9429 would probably get a letter to me eventually, although the receiving post office might refuse to accept it.

Is this one any use? http://www.royalmail.com/portal/rm/cont … d=32700664

And, it's dated 2010, so...
http://www.royalmail.com/portal/rm/cont … 78#4300060