Welcome to the Lincolnshire Club Home Page
updated 13 November 2024
A QUICK CHAT ABOUT OUR MEETINGS
Our club gets together from 10.30 a.m. at Kirton Leisure, which is based at 31a Willington Road, Kirton, Boston PE21 1EP.
This is a very friendly venue and if you live nearby do keep an eye on their instagram page as they have lots of social events, including sports, and even a five a side football team. Quite a change from its original use, as a potato storage shed.
Here is our 2025 Calendar - and we really hope to see you come along to one of these.
- January 4th
- February 1st
- March 1st
- April 5th
- May 3rd
- June 7th
- July 5th
- NO MEETING IN AUGUST
- September 6th
- October 4th
- November 1st
- December 6th
-
A LOOK INTO OUR ARCHIVES
The Lincolnshire Cigarette Card Club was formed in November 1994, and we have just discovered this wonderful clipping from Card Times which proves that our first venue was the Poachers Inn, at Kirton Holme, near Boston in Lincolnshire.
These premises had been in business way longer than us, for parts of them date right back to the 1800s.
The club officials at the time of inauguration were Ted Aistrup (Chairman) and Mavis Dakin (Secretary), along with Peter Dakin. However the other members shown here are not named, so if you recognise anyone, or if they are even you, please do tell us so that we can add everyone in.
At that time our meetings were held on Saturdays from 10 am to 4 pm, and included dealers, a raffle, and even an auction, which started at 2pm.
We know this, along with our founding date, because in 1996, quite early in our career, we co-hosted the Cartophilic Society Annual Convention, along with the Humberside Branch - and all our information was printed on the back of the commemorative card that was issued at the event.
The card shows a lovely image of the Cathedral on the front, but there is a slight mistake as the address is given as “at the Lawns” and it should have read “The Lawn”. This used to be the Lincoln Lunatic Asylum, opened in 1820, and it was supposed to be one of the most humane, in fact within twenty years of its opening they boasted that no form of mechanical restraint was still in use. In 1905 it was renamed more gently to the Lincoln Lunatic Hospital, becoming The Lawn Hospital in 1921.
It closed forever in 1985, when the Council bought it to use as a venue for events, including our convention. Then in August 2016 it removed the lovely glasshouse, and sold the rest of the premises for a new business headquarters, cafe, restaurant and theatre.
This card was truly multi-purpose. On the reverse of the large card, which was given away to mark the Convention, there were two text boxes, one being given over to each of the co-hosting clubs. However there was a second printing, which had two smaller versions of the original front image - and this was printed then cut in half, so that each of the co-hosting club had their own advertising card to give away at the convention to anyone who asked about becoming club members. By the way the smaller cards are much scarcer than the large one.
Now it turns out that we were at the Poachers Inn for a long time, as the Card Times magazine for February 2000 lists a meeting for the 5th of that month. But, at some time (anyone remember when?) we did move to another venue, just up the road. This was the “Ruddy Duck”, in Great Fen Road, which is now a restaurant and Freehouse. We liked it there so much that we stayed on after the arrival of new proprietors in March 2008, who changed the name to “Merrimans Lounge and Restaurant”. And some of our members were actually old enough to remember this building as “The Aero Club”, because at one time it was the home `drome of The Boston Aero Club. Now this has a very long story, and it was already an airfield when Sir Alan Cobham based himself there in the 1930s. He appears on several cards, four of which can be viewed online courtesy of the New York Public Library / Cobham - and also look out for the album for ‘A Day on the Airway’, issued by Sarony, as it has a foreword by him; the cards are very attractive too, showing a flight from Croydon to Amsterdam.
In 2012, we again hosted a Cartophilic Society Convention. It was rather rainy, but a success nonetheless, with almost 150 members turning out. We also had a voucher system in conjunction with the local paper, where readers would cut out the coupon and hand it in to receive free admission; this was very successful.
This is the commemorative card for the 2018 Cartophilic Convention, which we co-hosted for the third time. This event took place on Saturday the 28th and Sunday the 29th April at Lynnsport in Kings Lynn, and our partners were the East Anglia Cigarette Card Club. You can read more about this event at our archive page for the 2018 Convention
We also agreed to provide free valuations to the general public and give advice on any cards that their family had collected in the past, or found in attics etc.
However this was a time of great change for our club, because we were again on the move - and our meeting on October 6th 2018 was the first to take place at our brand new home. This was the Rugby Club, which was part of The Princess Royal Sports Arena in Boston. It was not much of a move though, because this building was the next one on the left to The Ruddy Duck. Has any Cartophilic Branch re-located closer? However nothing else changed, all our meetings still started at 10 am, still regularly featured at least one visiting dealer, with a range of cards, binders and pages, and we also continued to host our very popular auctions.
Sadly our stay here was not a long term one, and we moved again, this time to our current home, Kirton Leisure. Strangely, this is again not too far, and it is also very close to our first home of all, the Poachers Inn, at Kirton Holme.