Isle of Man Post Office is getting involved in celebrating Commonwealth Day which takes place on Monday 14th March.
Commonwealth Day has been celebrated around the Commonwealth on the second Monday in March every year since the 1970s. On Monday, the UK's largest multi-faith celebration service in Westminster Abbey will be held, expected to be attended by Her Majesty The Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, High Commissioners, the Commonwealth Secretary-General and dignitaries from across the UK and from around the Commonwealth as well as senior politicians and 1,000 school children.
Each of the 150 schools and youth organisations in attendance will each receive a Commonwealth goody bag from the Royal Commonwealth Society and a small piece of the Isle of Man will be contained within these bags. In November last year, Isle of Man Post Office worked with 26 other postal administrations from within the Commonwealth to produce a unique stamp sheet to mark the 50th anniversary of the Commonwealth Secretariat and the role as HM The Queen as Head of the Commonwealth. This was the first postal product of its kind and the launch of the sheet took place with a presentation to Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma at the biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Malta. The unique sheet will form part of the goody bags each organisation attending the service will receive.
The Commonwealth sheet took months of planning last year and the entire project was coordinated by Isle of Man Post Office including design and packaging and all orders have been and continue to be despatched from the Isle of Man. Each of the stamps featured within the sheet are valid for postage in the country of issue.
Commenting on the sheet of stamps being included in the youth and schools goody bags Graham Cregeen MHK, Chairman of Isle of Man Post Office said: "We are absolutely delighted to be involved in this initiative through the Royal Commonwealth Society and to be a part of Commonwealth Day. We hope our Commonwealth sheet of stamps, which encapsulates the values of the Commonwealth: shared culture and traditions, equality, respect and tolerance, will travel to many corners of the globe and form a small keepsake for those young people attending the special service at Westminster Abbey."
Each year the Westminster Abbey service is based on a theme which this year is 'An Inclusive Commonwealth', inviting citizens to consider what it means to live in a diverse yet equitable, fair and tolerant international community.
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