Poland 19th International Meeting of Collectors of Zoo Memorabilia and Literature

B

Baldur

Well-Known Member
In less than a month the 19th International Annual Meeting of Collectors of Zoo Memorabilia and Literature will be in Wroclaw in Poland. Wroclaw is close to the Czech Boarder so it would be easy to fly into Prague and take the train to Wroclaw. If you have the first weekend of September free or can have it free, why not join us. Even if it is in Poland, nearly all who attend speak English (collecting guidebooks is a great way to learn languages! :) including many from the UK, Belgium and Holland for instance. I have copied the program below. If you would like more information, I can give it to you or give you the email of Leszek Solski, the organiser. Leszek has been coming to this meeting from the start, and he knows what works. Given his almost 50 years of collecting zoo literature, his meeting is bound to be one of the best ever.

Meeting program:

Saturday, 6 September 2008

09:00 - 10.00
Registration: at the Zoo's Summer Restaurant (Restauracja Letnia)

10:00
Opening ceremony: short welcoming speech by Mr.Radoslaw Ratajszczak, the director of Wroclaw Zoo and a souvenir snapshot

10:15 - 13:30
Trading sessions

13:30 - 14:30
Lunch break or free time

14:30 - 17:00
Guided tours: two groups, English and German speaking guides

17:30 - 18.30
Dinner

18:30 - 23:00
Zoo Literature Auction (conducted in English and German)

Sunday, 7 September 2008

9:30
Departure to Opole Zoo; participants shall be picked up at Wroclaw Zoo's service entrance. For those of you who will travel to Opole by themselves the meeting place shall be the service entrance of Opole Zoo at 11.00

14:00
Warm farewell to all of you, with great hope of meeting you somewhere in Europe in 2009!

Anyone interested in more information or in hearing of my personal experience from those meetings, please feel free to ask. I also have photos from three past events that I attended on my website (which has not been updated for two years itself however) so you can get the general idea. Click on the photos to get to the albums.

Social Events

See you hopefully in Wroclaw!
 
Hi there has there ever been a meeting in the UK or just ever in Europe.
seems a great idea wont beale to make this years but will look out for the next one
 
It's always a good event.

The venues since I've been attending have been:

2001: London (UK)
2002: Wuppertal (Germany)
2003: Vienna (Austria)
2004: Arnhem (Netherlands)
2005: Berlin (Germany)
2006: Munich (Germany)
2007: Hamburg (Germany)
2008: Wroclaw (Poland)


I'm looking forward to Poland immensely!
 
Not going this year but hopefully next year i will be back having all the fun of zoo guide collecting at the fair.
 
At these meetings can buy zoo memorabilia or do you have to have guide books and such to swap.
 
Kiang, the fair basically takes the shape of a street market. Most people have a stand on which they exhibit their swap items, but those who do not have anything to swap just wander around, as do the others, looking at tables and see if they spot anything to die for. Those who like second-hand bookshopes will love it, but here at least you don't have to make effort to dig up zoo books because thats what the whole thing is about in the first place! :)

It will always depend on who the other person is and what his or her purpose is with the attendance whether you can swap or sell. In the past two people have attended the fair with only profit in mind. One sells nature literature for living online and his stand has only new items. The other one always brings in 10-15 boxes chocked with zoo literature old and new. Some are rare and some are new. You can haggle with him but not with the other one. But apart from those two, almost all the other people are there only for the fun of it and are fairly carefree about whether they sell or swap. You can get good deals, maybe you can buy the other person a beer in the evening, etc :) But it really is a fun thing first and foremost. Different individuals of different ages and nationalities, but all have at least one thing in common. And that thing is what gives this annual fair its special feeling.

I went to my first one in London in 2001. Had to skip Wuppertal 2002 and Berlin 2005 because of school and Hamburg 2007 because I was in Australia. But all the others I have been to. If you can possibly come, let me know and I give you Leszek's email address (don't want to post another person's personal email here on this form :)
 
Yeah, te zoo collectors meetings are great events, I look forward the next one in Breslau.
At which zoo will be the meeting in 2009 ?
 
Zebraduiker, it will be voted for in Wroclaw where next one will be held. I have heard stories that there will be bids (almost like deciding on the Olympics! :) both from London (now an official invitation by the ZSL, whereas in 2001 the invitation was by a British regular) and Parc Paradiso in Belgium, invited by a Belgian who always attends as well. In 2006 it was in Munchen but there is interest to hold the event at some point as well in the other zoos of southern Germany, such as Stuttgart or Nurnberg.
 
It is a lovely place indeed, only been there once though, in 2002, and aparently they have changed a lot since. It is regional, so perhaps not the easiest to get to, but as the Belgian once told me, you can get there by train, even if the occasion when the two of us went there was by his car. It would be a great 'neutral' place ;) There is always a certain tension between collectors in Britain and those from the continent as to where to hold the venue, as neither one wants to travel too far from home, but Parc Paradiso would just mean the Eurostar or one of the numerous budget airlines to Brussels or Amsterdam from London for the Brits, the Germans would be close to home as well, and the number of attendants from Belgium and the Netherlands would also perhaps increase. In summary: more or less a win-win situation for all! :)
 
I'm sure it would, if you pay for all the colletors the flight and the freight costs to get all the guidebooks which you want to get to the US...Maybe its easier you come to europe ?

Hey, at last, there is something we have here in europe which you don't have in America.What would Nelson Muntz say now ? Ha,Ha.

Remember,we have here a lot of okapi holders....
 
Antwerp is even easier to get in Belgium if you look only at the transportation, and there are many people who prefer the Antwerp Zoo above Paradisio i think, thanks to the historical and monumental character there ;)

If you ever take Planckendael, well, then i am there for sure :p :p
 
There would be several problems with holding the venue in the US. One is that enough Americans would have to attend to propose a US zoo and then give it enough vote to outdo the strong British and German bases. There has never been an American attending the venue, to my knowledge, even if Ken Kawata will be this year's guest of honour. I am aware of two well known curators in the zoo world, one from Chicago and the other from Los Angeles who have sometimes thought about coming, but never done. Actually there was someone planning to come to London in 2001, a zoo personel from the East Coast I think, but the venue was held between 13-15 of September, and what happened two days earlier in New York City and Washington shut down his plans. The best venue for the fair in the US would perhaps be Florida, as I understand that there are some very cheap flights from the European continent to Miami etc, but Florida is inconvinient for those who do not drive, and I know of several regular attendees who do not. Instead they usually put their trust on railways, which is not the same in Florida as in most parts of Europe. As someone else said, weight restrictions by airlines would not assist those who have to bring with them a lot of exchange material. But at last, I would like to welcome any and all American collectors to this venue and those in the future. It would be a refreshing change in the group of nationalities present. If either the United Kingdom (English first language) or Belgium (English third language and widely understood) would win the fair next year, it would be ideal opportunity for Americans to come over without having to fear language issues. For sure the first time the venue was held in London was like energy injection into British interest, before London those from Britain were rarely more than 4, nowadays they are 10-12 and even more at times.
 
Thanks for the invitation Baldur....and I also want to thank you for your incredible website for zoo guides. I have used this resources countless times to date guides in my collection.
 
okapikpr said:
Thanks for the invitation Baldur....and I also want to thank you for your incredible website for zoo guides. I have used this resources countless times to date guides in my collection.
Click to expand...

Could you provide a link to this site, sounds interesting.
 
Thanks for the website compliments ... A bit embarrassed for that I haven't updated it more or less for two years, but now that I'm about to finish my education soon (knock on wood) and will be doing less travelling for at least the next year, I will hopefully have the income and time to inject into this great old hobby of mine :)
 
The website is: Zoo Memorabilia

Again, no update since March 2007, but soon I will have time and income to inject life into this old hobby. I am hoping to totally change the layout of the website, but it will depend on my skills in web design. We will see. But if you are trying to find info about UK or US guidebooks, Zoo History (maintained by Paul Murphy, Rob Vaughan and co) is really much better for the details. All that my site has above theirs is the graphics :)
 
Dear All Zoo-Enthusiasts !
I am really very embarassed to be so late in joining you at "zoobeat forum" but am always busy with some other activities, not neccessairly those conected with zoos.
Below please find some comments and explanation.

First come the full list of all the meetings of collectors of zoo-litearture and memorabilia.

I 26-27.05.1990 Hannover
II 19-20.05.1991 Köln
III 23-24.05.1992 Poznan
IV 11-12.09.1993 Magdeburg
V 10-11.09.1994 Berlin(Zoo)
VI 9-10.09.1995 Rotterdam
VII 7-8.09.1996 Frankfurt a.M.
VIII 13-14.09.1997 Antwerpen
IX 12-13.09.1998 Hamburg
X 18-19.09.1999 Hannover
XI 8-9.09.2000 Münster
XII 15-16.09.2001 London
XIII 7-8.09.2002 Wuppertal
XIV 6-7.09.2003 Wien
XV 11-12.09.2004 Arnhem
XVI 3-4.09.2005 Berlin(Tierpark)
XVII 1-2.09.2006 München
XVIII 1-2.09.2007 Hamburg
XIX 6-7.09.2008 Wroclaw
XX 2009 - Amneville (France)??????
As you see very likely next meeting wil not be in Paradisio (Belgium) but in Amneville Zoo in France. This meeting will be organized by our young French zoo-enthusiast and collector Jonas Livet. Actually you may want also to visit his web site at Les zoos dans le monde - where, inter alia, you will find a full description of his extensive zoo-guide collection including cover pictures.
The other source of reference, as it was pointed out by Baldur, is the UK website zoohistory whwre you can find a full list of UK zoo/aquarium guides and recently also those of USA and Canada.
I do not think that such a meeting will be possible in USA or Canada. After more then 40 years of gathering different zoo materials I know (well, I am in touch) one collector on Canada and one in USA. That's it. I hope so much one day they will be able to attend one of our meetings here in Europe.
 
Amneville will be an exciting destination - it is a great zoo - although isn't the pattern one year in germany, the next not?

As an English person who has been to most of these meetings since 1994, I would have to disagree with the earlier comment suggesting that Brits would want the meeting in Britain, and ''Éuropean" in Europe. The meeting is a great chance to get away from Britain and its zoos, to go to other more exciting destinations. The one occasion when it was in England - at London, in 2001 - was the worst ,meeting yet (through no fault at all of tis organiser, but rather because the hosts were completely passive and uninterested).
 
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