THE ROYAL BRITISH LEGION

COLSTON BASSETT, OWTHORPE AND COTGRAVE BRANCH

www.britishlegion.org.uk/branches/colston-bassett

Chairman, Trowell Stud, Owthorpe Road, Cotgrave, Nottingham, NG12 3PU.    0115 9899094

2013 SPRING NEWSLETTER

Dear Member,

A very Happy New Year to you. This is my Spring Newsletter which I hope will bring you up to date with what is going on in the Branch and what the future holds. I won’t duplicate what is in the ‘Legion’ magazine, although much of it is of great interest as the RBL moves forward at a busy time.

Membership.    In the last calendar year we have recruited 17 new members against our target of 20! Those joining us are, in Cotgrave: Jean Barratt, Lisa Bell, Richard Butler, Maureen Gregory, Sybil Griffiths, Russ Hamer, Johnathon Hicks, Val Holmes, Stuart Jarvis, Elaine Jarvis, Marion Lanyon, Peter Mclaughlin, Jodie McCabe, Wayne Rogers and Margaret Wills. Elsewhere in the area: Marion Betts. We are now 112 strong and at the recent County RBL meeting we were presented with a certificate for being the second best recruited of the 44 Branches over the last three years (123% increase). Since the start of 2013 one new member, Derek Pullinger, has joined us and we have another couple waiting in the wings, so we are off to a good start. Very sadly Margaret Goulding passed away late last year and we send our condolences to Ian and Gail.

Fund Raising.  It was a magnificent year for fundraising both within and without the Poppy Appeal. Outside the Poppy Appeal our BBQ in July was a resounding success with about 120 people attending and over £900 being raised. Those sponsoring the Chairman on his Coast to Coast walk provided £250 to the Branch and £1050 gift aided direct to the RBL through Just Giving, in all £1300.  Adding to these, money raised at our raffles, other donations and the Branch Tombola at the Cotgrave Festival of Sport the Branch raised in total £1800 against our target of £1000.

Trip to The National Memorial Arboretum.         On 15 September we joined up with Bingham and Granby, Barnston and District Branches to visit the National Memorial Arboretum. We chose a fantastic day and the sun shone throughout our trip. Anyone who has not yet visited the NMA should do so and we will be running another trip in future years.

AGM.               In early October 2011 we held our AGM in The Lime Kiln where we decided that our 2012 donations should go to Byng House and Galanos House (£250 each), the RBL HQ for the recovery centre (£500) and Nottinghamshire RBL Welfare Fund (£1000). We agreed our Strategy and our activity plan for 2013 which is on the next page. 47 members attended the AGM which was almost double the number attending in recent years. Possibly the Fish and Chip supper had something to do with it! We will follow this format in future years.

Poppy Appeal/Remembrance.         We did remarkably well with our Poppy Appeal collection this year receiving over £4200 during the fortnight leading to Remembrance Sunday. At the recent County RBL meeting we were presented with the Jarratt/Cross Memorial Shield having the largest increase in collection of any Branch in the County over the last three years (195% increase). Well done Sheila Gray, Bryan Tansley and all those who helped. On Remembrance Sunday we supported services at all 3 churches and paraded with the other uniformed services through Cotgrave. At All Saints we hosted Ted Cantle one of the Deputy Lord Lieutenants of Nottinghamshire (another first). 66 members and friends sat down to eat a very good lunch at the Nottinghamshire Golf and Country Club, well done Gilly Cross for organising it and Mary Myles for running the raffle.

Welfare.       Mary Myles our excellent welfare case worker has dealt successfully with 4 welfare cases this year. Welfare is our top priority and it is good to see us helping those in need.

2013                  In 2013,as well as continuing to recruit andraise as much money as possible for our cause we will be running a good program of activities in which I hope you will take part. We start with a quiz at the Welfare on Thursday 24 January, a visit to the Reinforcement Training and Mobilisation Centre on 7 Feb and our Spring supper on 2 March. The full list is below. Please note that times and cost are mostly yet to be confirmed.

2014                  2014 is the centenary of the start of WW1 and events are being planned across the Country and the County. We have now started to plan a 5 day Branch visit to the WW1 battlefields and will keep you in touch with progress.

And Finally      I would like all members to get involved with Branch activity wherever possible. The social side goes without saying and is great fun but there is much, much more. It could be visiting a sick member, attending a funeral, shaking a tin, helping prepare food at an event or contributing to clothes collection for children in Afghanistan. Whatever it is, by joining the Branch you have said ‘yes’ to helping those Servicemen, Ex Servicemen, their families and dependants who are in need. I have asked the Committee to involve as many members as possible in all our activity.