Please note:

This website was set up to get parcels to Australian Soldiers/Sailors/Airmen/Airwomen deployed overseas.

You are welcome to cut and paste information and use it to support sending parcels to our service members serving overseas, however, when you do cut and paste please link back to Ocean Sky & Khaki to acknowledge OSK, and so that people can find the blog themselves.

If there are questions one of us will answer if you comment on a post at the blog.

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Saturday, May 30, 2009

D is for despatch

One BM box, filled to the brim with goodies. The box looks nicely full.


Oops, don't forget a note of thanks.


A final weigh-in before sealing - 1933 grams. Nicely under the 2kg limit.


A final application of packing tape to all the open edges - remember to seal all of them tightly. If you forget to do this, the nice person at the post office may do it for you - then again, they might not. Make sure you have some sort of packing tape handy.


One care pack, ready for addressing. That address again:

“An Australian Soldier”
Op Slipper
AFPO 13
Australian Defence Force
SYDNEY NSW 2890


On three occasions to date, the postie has failed to read the address properly, and has tried to charge me $7 postage. If that happens to you, just politely point out that it is going to an "AFPO". They should understand what that means, and they'll rapidly backtrack and take it for free. They're busy people, and at the end of a long day, I can understand them not reading the address properly.

If your postie doesn't know the rules, you might have to explain that postage to an AFPO is free if it is under 2kg. That happened in one post office I visited - there were three posties on duty, and only one of them knew that rule - he backed me up and explained it to the others. They looked puzzled when they were told about it.

In a way, that is a sad indication of how few packs are being posted to our troops.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi,
I am sending my very first care package to my partner
He is part of SOTG.
The address he gave me is different from what you have listed on this site.
He gave me:
*Number & His Name*
TG 633.11 (Not Op Slipper)
ASPO 13
ADF
NSW

Can you please tell me if I should follow his instructions or if it is incorrect?

Thank you
Kylie

kae said...

Hi Kylie
Send it to the address he has given you - there are many different units over there and they have their own specific addresses which will find the particular unit. The "An Australian Soldier" addresses are just general addresses which take the parcels to the areas where our members are deployed and they are distributed as needed.
Mail for service personnel overseas is distributed by AFPO (Australian Field Post Office), which knows where every soldier is by their number and name so it will find him!
He'll really appreciate your thoughtfulness!
Good luck!