[Alice]

As someone who has both received and sent seed to the MGS seed bank, run so successfully by Chantal, I am concerned that the increasing postal costs might threaten its existence.
Last week I went to the post office to mail a small letter containing four packets of seed, weighing about 30g (not much of a harvest this year). I was shocked to hear that the postage would be £3.00 (3.50 euros), since it would be classed as a parcel and that was the minimum charge for a parcel. I went home and re-packaged it in a even smaller envelope, sent it as a letter (postage £1.28) and hope I got away with it.
Have other members had similar experiences?

[David Dickinson]

Postal rates have gone up in Italy too, I'm afraid. Standard letter rate used to cover anything up to 30g but that has been reduced to 20g. It might be cheaper to send three 20g envelopes than one 60g package? 3 or 4 years ago I could send a parcel up to 2kg from Italy to the UK for €9.50. Now 2kg costs €18.00. I fear that you might be right about the cost implications for the seed bank. I wonder if there might be a simple way of sending small sums of money from one country to another to cover postal charges?

[Fleur Pavlidis]

Dear Alice and David
I’m quite sure that as long as the members who support the seed bank continue to send in seeds, if needs be exploiting whatever loopholes the postage systems allows to reduce costs, then the MGS will continue to cover the costs of posting seeds to members. However a few emails with multiple signatures expressing that hope sent to the Secretary at MGSsecretary@gmail.comwould be useful for the AC to have in reserve to flash if ever cost-cutters come fossicking.

[Hilary]

Alice,
I assume you are talking about Greek postage costs.
last week I was introduced to prepaid envelopes.
The long narrow envelope 22cm x 11 cm for Europe costs 1.10E,  regardless of the weight of the contents.
This is cheaper than the stamp
If you look up ελτα.γρ on the Internet all the information is there.

There also used to be something you could buy to send to the person you are corresponding with to pay for the postage of their reply . Unfortunately i have forgotten what they called this

[Alisdair]

Thanks for raising this, Alice - and for everyone else's contributions. I think it's well worth airing at a committee meeting.
(I cheated the postal highwaymen by giving my own seed to Chantal at the meeting in Greece last month!)

[JTh]

I did the same, Alisdair, a lot easier than mailing them, and a lot cheaper than mailing from Norway, a regular letter (max 20 g) is more than 1.6 €, a 2 kg parcel (smallest size) is 15 €.

[Alice]

No, Hilary, I was referring to UK postage costs. Most of our seeds come from Greece, but up until now I have posted them from the UK. Thank you for bringing the long narrow prepaid envelopes to my attention. I will try the Greek post office next time.
Postal highwaymen indeed, Alisdair!

[Chantal]

I'm sorry to answer so late, but hope that I can contribute to this interesting subject.
Of course, I noticed, when I receive your seeds, that usually, the fare is higher than the french one.
I made an investigation and found out that the law in France is interpreted in different ways by the post-office employees.
No special restrictions affecting seeds -
     Requires that the letter is not more than 2 cm thick (entry of a standard letter box) and there is no obvious risk of damage to the passage of automatic sorting machines. The regulation is even more "wide" than that.
So, I generally use the special machine, when I go to the post office, for weighing my envelopes (bubble ones to protect the seeds) and I'm not sure the bubble envelopes are necessary, because a seed is very hard). I just click on "mail" and not on "goods" (marchandise) and this make a big difference. I'm doing this by myself and put the envelopes in the mail box and don't have to queue and no talking with the employees.
Regarding all this, I can advice to the european donators and if  they can use the same weighing machines, assuming the laws are identical within Europe, to send their seeds in small quantities (it is much better for our seed list to propose fresh seeds every year) every year. I don't need lots of seeds, especially if they are tiny ones like Papaver or Nicotiana ones. I can remember somebody sent me perhaps one hundred pods of Thevetia peruviana. First of all, I would have prefer having the seeds cleaned of the pods, which are tough and heavy. I suppose this had a very high cost and it could have been avoided. Donators should avoid too, sending very big seeds as palm trees ones (wider than 1 cm width), because, in that case, the envelope would be 2cm thick.
The price in France for sending normal mail in Europe but over 20 g, which occurs regularly when I send seed orders, is 1,35 euro. Under 20 g, It is 0,95 euro.