June 30th 2011 will see a general strike of sorts in England, teachers, public sector workers (upto 750,000) will walk off the job. Open Democracy analyse whether this June 30 strike can go beyond the failure of the March 26 strike. 

Here the postal workers legislated back to work by the government were seen back at work today. It reminded me of the ambulance/paramedic strike which the govt also broke if I recall. One thing that has struck me about the postal strike was hearing the lack of solidarity at times from other union workers and reading such warbling on comments section of news reports. It’s dismaying. I was walking with a friend when we saw a postwoman today and called out support to her. Then as we carried on we were both remarking on how much we like our individual post people and how some of the posties we know are also musicians and are an eclectic, vibrant bunch.

Greece! 

In Victoria as of Oct. 3, 2010 they are introducing two seperate postal boxes beside each other. One will be for mail that is destined to remain on Vancouver Island and the other box will be for mail heading off out to the rest of the world.

I await with curiosity whether both boxes will look identical and will they be misfortunate enough to both be slathered in that unsightly graphic covering design. I think a post box should be a strong single colour or a two tone. Something you can spot in the distance. Heck I’d even take a dalmatian design over what we are getting. When it comes to the post I do not have an appetite for the vague!

57c

More impressive news from the Post Office. During a late evening run to get a few stamps I noted they are undertaking a campaign to raise funds for mental health charities.

The goal in our local Post Office is to raise $450.00  and they encourage a twoonie (toonie?) donation. Great to see Canada Post taking a lead on this — have no idea if this is an annual campaign — but much needed services/charities/non profits in the city are being supported.

In case you are wondering and I often am since I can never recall the price of postage it is 57 cents to post an average letter nationwide.  But HST on a few stamps ends up being almost half the price of another stamp.

Hauled & Shawled

The mystery of the postboxes is unravelling. Today I discovered talking to the shop owner where one of them has disappeared from that…. hark … it had moved across the road and gained an unsightly pattern around it like a shawl.

Another citizen I talked to suggested all post boxes where now moved to the right hand side of the roads.

The first shop owner told me to call the post office and give them some “boom boom” about the moving and disappearing postboxes, which made me chuckle.

I also learnt from my friend’s 16 year old son last night that there is a postbox just around the corner I had never ever sighted. If the topic of postboxes had never come up I would not have encountered these three snippets.

My friend’s 11 year old also improved my vocabulary by adding the term “trash talking” in news unrelated to post boxes.

er where can I post a letter?

OK Enough is enough. I am now collating the information about where the postboxes (mail box?) in Vancouver once were and are no more. I will record and ultimately google map ’em.

You can visit my new er where can I post a letter in Vancouver? blog at wherehaveallourmailboxesgone.wordpress.com

Canada Post is disappearing the postboxes. There are three gone from where they once were. Where are they going? Is there a postbox graveyard in Vancouver we can raid and replace them?

Box ****

Today’s dilemma was the disappearence of the red mail box (post box). I had a letter to post and a hard time finding a mail box.

Then Ding Ding! I will look up and find a map of all the mail boxes in Vancouver so I can carry it with me. But no map. Just this message from Canada Post

Our red Street Letter Boxes are a standard feature of the Canadian urban landscape and are conveniently located in public areas such as street corners, shopping centers and public transit locations.

Canada Post boast there are 900,000 places across Canada to post a letter. Am I alone in thinking given the size of this country that’s not very many?! In fact I think that number in one place would keep the population of Kamloops happy because we all know it’s necessary to have 10 postboxes per person.

But I did learn some spectacular news — you can indeed print a stamp online, so I set about investigating clickety-click and

The Canada Post Ship-in-a-click tool you have chosen is not available at this time.

We are actively working towards a solution to resolve this issue.

We thank you for your patience, and apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Please try again later.

You can now pay your library fines online that’s v useful.

When is the day coming when you can buy a stamp online in this vast land?

Would it ever hurry up please.