Red's File
Name: Red
Age: 14 Mailbot Years
Born: Mailbot Land
Favourite Colour: Red
Loves: Mail, pictures, writing stories and poems, stamp collecting, friends and family, space.

When you receive a letter, it’s really cool to then send one back or to someone else. Why not send your grandparents, cousins or friends a funnny poem or a story about what you have been up to lately. I know they would love to receive it in their post box!

Each week I will be choosing a RED HOT Letter of the week so send us a letter and you could win one of my cool RED HOT LETTER PACKS Post your letters, poems or stories to:

What Now
PO BOX 2489
CHRISTCHURCH 8140

Everyone that sends in a letter will get a letter back from me as well as one of these cool postcards which you can colour in and then send to someone else.

Print me out & colour me in! New Zealand Post

Red's top tips for cool letters:

  • Put the date and a greeting at the start of your letter. You can use different greetings depending on who you are writing to. There are formal greetings like "Dear..." for your grandparents or people you don't know very well. Or use something like "Hey" or "What's up?" for your friends.
  • Think about who you are writing to. Write about things that the person receiving the letter would like to know about.
  • Ask interesting questions - that way you might get a letter, email or phone call back!
  • Be creative. Red loves getting colourful, exciting letters so let your imagination run wild - you can cut out letters or pictures from magazines, paint or draw, use photographs, write on patterned paper, or even use invisible ink!
  • End your letter with a nice closing. Do you want your friend to write or call you back? Would you rather say "yours sincerely" or "love from"? There are lots of ways to end a letter.
  • Make sure you write the address neatly on the envelope.
    It should look like this:

    • Recipient
    Street
    Suburb
    Town & Postcode

  • Don't forget your Postcode! Postcodes help your letters get delivered faster and to the right place - you can find Postcodes on the New Zealand Post website: www.nzpost.co.nz
  • Put your address on the back. This helps the letter come back to you if there is a problem - and it means the person recieving it already has your address to write back to you.
  • Stamp the front of the envelope. Make sure your letter has the right value of postage stamps on it depending on the size of the letter and the destination. New Zealand Post makes all sorts of colourful and interesting stamps every year that you can collect and keep to use later.