President’s address April 2023
Annual General meeting
Having served as President for some time and feeling somewhat perplexed at not having a vote at the meetings which I attended regularly, I decided to pass the post over to Michael Court who has done a fine job , not only as a committee member, but as the Branch Secretary for many years in addition to being the Branch Standard bearer Well done Michael.
The past year, very little has changed so please excuse me if most of this report shows very little alteration from the last AGM.
We are surviving but recruiting new members is a problem and I seem to think it is endemic throughout the RSA. I heard from Trevor Holyoake that even the Bedford Branch and Cambridge Branch are struggling with numbers. Therefore, as last year, we are just about keeping our heads above water both in numbers and financially. The reason is simple. It appears that The Royal Signals Association is not attractive to the younger generation and even though men and women are leaving the Services, to a large extent, many just want to forget they were ever in. “Little has changed”.
We had a try again on Facebook to find new members but the response has been very poor. We have one definite new member but several times I have written on the various Royal Signals pages on Facebook almost begging for new members, but to no avail.. I have kept the website up to date and have tried to incorporate all the Branch business. On the website too, I have asked for volunteers to “just give us a try”.
Of course Covid had a devastating effect on our membership and our activities. It meant that we had to cancel our very very successful Annual Dinner during lockdown and again this year due to costs and lack of suitable function rooms.
The latest Annual dinner appears to be going ahead and I will put further information on the website when it is finalised. There will be entertainment and to keep our members amused, I will provide the ubiquitous John Hill quiz.
We did take a coach trip to Nottingham which was an undertaking in itself as we had to use a double decker bus which had seen better days and due to accidents we were diverted to Heaven knows where. This detour did not take into account the low bridges and we could have “lost our heads” were it not for the timely stop by the driver. The river cruise however was very acceptable.
I wrote last time at the sad loss of our Chairman, Geoff Gardiner . He introduced many friends to the group and most of them are still with us (ex REME, ex RASC, ex Cambridgeshire Regt, ex RE etc etc.) He is still sorely missed but his name lingers on thanks to the hard organising skills of his widow Margaret.
However, thanks to Jane Crowe and the deputy Chris Williams we have an excellent team of Standard Bearers who have attended a number of functions including funerals in the past year. This is an arduous task and invariably meant representing the Branch on Armed Forces Day, Anzac day, National service day, VJ Day, the Falklands ceremony, and Royal Naval Association parades, RSA meetings, the Peterborough Veterans association, and Royal British Legion meetings. Thank you Jane and Chris. The Branch is chaired by Dave Stapleton now recovering from a very serious illness. In essence, thank you all my committee for all the input and assistance over this period who have assisted in running the Branch throughout this difficult year especially our current members and Associate members including, Gary, Chris, Betty, David, Loraine, Shirley, Rose, Pete , Gordon, Marilyn, Tom, Dave and often more.
Thanks you all sincerely…in the meantime stay alert and stay safe..
John Hill ex President
