The 2019 European Championship of Thematic Philately (ECTP), in Italy

Dear Friends

The year 2019 will be very important for the Italian Federation of Philatelic Societies since they we will celebrate our first Centenary.
One of the highlights of the celebrations will be the 9th European Championship of Thematic Philately (ECTP), to be held in Verona from 22 to 24 November 2019, with FEPA recognition.

It is the second time in the history of ECTP that such important event takes place outside Germany, since – thanks also to the support of Damian Läge – the German Philatelic Federation (BDPh) and the Regional Philatelic Federation of Nordrhein – Westfalen (VDPh) kindly agreed with the proposal of our Federation to host the 2019 edition of the ECTP in Italy.

The ECTP will be held in the framework of the 133th VERONAFIL International Stamp Fair, on the grounds of the Verona Fair. This biannual event, organized by Verona’s Associazione Filatelica Numismatica Scaligera, ranks amongst the most successful philatelic trade fairs in Europe.

The Italian national thematic association (CIFT) and the Union of Olympic and Sport Collectors (UICOS), are cooperating to organize a successful event.

As for previous ECTP, the collectors who want to participate at ECTP 2019 must submit their application, accompanied by the scan of the plan page and a synopsis, to their national delegates to the FIP commission for Thematic Philately. The deadline for that is 28 February 2019.

The national delegates shall then enter said applications at the special section of the exhibition website expo.fsfi.it/ectp2019, after having checked the data entered, with specific reference that the exhibit has the requested qualification, as far as previous results are concerned.

The full IREX is attached hereafter, together with the application form to be filled in by exhibitors.

These are the key characteristics of the exhibition:

• the registration and all preliminary phases will take place completely online, including the payment of the frame fees;

• the ECTP is open to exhibits of thematic philately, to be classified in eight different thematic classes, according to the themes of the exhibits; besides, those exhibits winners of one of the eight thematic classes at previous ECTP events may participate in the Champions’ Class;

• the frames will allow the presentation of 12 sheets of normal size;

• 11 frames (allowing for 132 pages of normal size) are allotted to those exhibits that received at least 85 points at a previous FIP or FEPA exhibition; any other exhibit receives 7 frames (allowing for 84 pages of normal size);

• the jury will work online in the months before the exhibition, allowing a more thorough evaluation of the exhibits;

• in each theme class the exhibits will be ranked in order of points assigned by the jury, with the exhibit with the highest score to be proclaimed as European Champion of that theme class, and thus be candidate for the Grand Prix;

• during the award ceremony each juror shall present his/her own ranking of the very best exhibits included in the pool of candidates; the exhibit obtaining the highest total out of such rankings will be awarded the Grand Prix ECTP 2019.

Several events will animate the exhibition, including seminars and the palmarès dinner.

All the information about the exhibition will be presented in the website expo.fsfi.it/ectp2019.

We hope you may disseminate this information among the thematic exhibitors of your Country, and we do look forward for receiving the application from the exhibitors of your Country. We remain available for any clarification you may need.

Best regards