Newsletter No. 19

CUHK Newsletter No.19 June 1991 Dead Letters Whose Letter Is This? A letter ‘dies’ when the name or address on the envelope is incomplete, or illegible, or similarly when the recipient of the letter has left the University without leaving a forwarding address. Another cause is when letters are sent out in University envelopes, but with no proper return address. If the GovernmentPostOffice is unable to deliver them to the correct address for any reason, they are returned to theUniversity Mail Room, which then has the unenviable task of trying to identify the original sender on campus. Handling these ‘dead’ or otherwise undeliverable letters is just part of the daily routine of the campus post team. Mr. Yu Wan Sing of the University Mail Room says that the University receives hundreds of these ‘dead’ letters every day, mostly from off-campus senders. Reviving 'Dead' Letters To deliver letters with addressees but no specific address, staff in the Mail Room have to search their memories for the whereabouts of the recipient, and if that fails, the staff list is searched and the help of the Personnel Section may be enlisted. If both of these attempts fail, the letters will be posted on the bulletin board of theMail Room for a period. If no one claims them, they will be returned to the Government Post Office. It is not often that on-campus letters 'die', but occasionally this does happen, and when it does, the ‘dead’ letters will be taken to the Business Section, where they will be opened in the presence of responsible staff to determine to whom they should be sent or returned. A Mobile Post Office Every weekday at around 2.50 p.m., a government post van parks next to the University Library. For the next hour and a half it is open for service to members of the University. At 4.20 p.m., the van leaves the campus, carrying with it post bags full of mail for the outside world. For the last 20 years, the University has been engaged in a struggle to win approval for the establishment of a Government Post Office on the campus. What has been procured so far, however, is only a ‘mobile post office', which was first introduced to the campus 13 years ago. The story is a long one. When the major administrative units first moved to the Sha Tin campus from Mongkok in the early seventies, a request was already lodged with the Government for a post office to be set up at the University. The Government Post Office was however not convinced that the population of the campus area was large enough to j us t i fy the cost of maintaining a branch office. Undaunted, the University persisted with its request and more letters of appeal were sent to the authorities. After much negotiation, the Government finally agreed, not to the establishment of a post office, but to the dispatch of a post van to the University to serve its members. The van made its first visit to the campus on 3rd July 1978. As the post van had to serve a wide area including Sai Kung and Tai Po, it could only call at the University on Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoons, for half an hour each time. Despite such limitations, the van relieved much of the demand for a real post office on the campus, since its services were not confined to selling stamps and collecting letters. Aerogrammes, registered letters, parcels and UK post remittances could all be taken care of. It was not long however before the University outgrew this embryonic service, and another request for a branch office was soon on its way to the Government Post Office, only to be turned down a second time. This time, though, the Government allowed one small concession - from 1982 on the van could call at the University five times a week instead of three, and for 90 minutes each time instead of 30. Six years later, in 1988 ， the John Fulton Centre was completed, and a third request was lodged w i th the Government for the establishment of a post office inside the new amenities centre. A third rejection followed. According to the authorities, the space proposed by the University for the project - 150 square feet - fell far short of the government norm of 1,000 square feet, and besides, there was still the problem of the small university population... The story ends, but the fight continues, and will continue until the battle is won. 8