President: Lieutenant Colonel Robert Cartwright LVO
Branch Chairman: Mr Frank Hooley
Branch Treasurer: Mr Frank Hooley
Email: hooleyt@aol.com
Honorary Branch: Les Cox
Tel: 01525 852229 / 07966 203799
Email: lescox01@aol.cox
Welfare Secretary: Mr Mike Bunch
Tel: 020 830 34086
Email: mkb@gmx.co.uk
Social Secretary: Vacant
Welfare Officers
Mr Gary Taylor: garyataylor@hotmail.com
Mr P Nash: petetnash449@yahoo.co.uk
Mr P Smith
London Branch Website
www.londonbranch-grenadierguards-association.net
Dear Members of the London Branch 1st Januar2021
I would like to wish you all a very happy new year for 2021, and hope you all had a fantastic time over Christmas with your family and friends where these times aloud you too. And if things go well this year we may be able to have face to face meeting at Wellington Barracks. So this year it is more imperative that I have your Email Address so I can let you know in advance what is going to happen, things like Grenadier Day they hope it will go ahead in July but there is no date as yet, Black Sunday and the Troop all these things. Dates will be at short notice and you will not know so if you don’t want to give it to me then you will have to follow the dates on our website or hope for the best.
Also only 55 members have paid their £6.00 Review contributions and this will make it very difficult to send out a Spring/Summer Review as I have to order them in a minimum of 100, so let’s hope more members pay their £6.00.
I would like to thank all members and their friends that did buy this year’s Christmas Raffle tickets; it was a good response with Gordon Verran taking first prize of £500.00 and will also help with branch funds this year. (You will find a list of winners and ticket numbers)
For many years I have asked you to contribute to your Review News Booklet, and yes some of you have sent in a story or two and they came too late to put into the last edition of the review so please find enclosed I hope you like them it made me laugh any way.
Many thanks to all members who have returned the requested details to me so promptly. However, I am feeling very frustrated that I have not received anything from a large number of members (159) which does make my task of communication very difficult. If I have not received your updated contact details in the very near future I will not be sending out further bulletins or newsletters to you as I can only assume they are not getting through!
If you had read the Review you would have found that I said that I had lost all of the branch details due to a computer fault, and the only details I could find was years out of date. And again I apologies to the families if members have passed away, to overcome this problem I need everyone to confirm their Current Email Address – Army Number – Partners Name, again thanks to those who have done so. (Sending a note to me saying no change is not very helpful as all previous details have disappeared!
So to help the 159 members again you find enclosed a copy of page 45 from the Christmas Review that I sent out to all known Email Addresses and home Addresses, please fill it out and send it back to me with your cheque for £6.00 to help with the cost of the review 2021.
I am sorry to say if I do not receive anything from you by Sunday 31st January 2021, this is so I can move forwards in 2021. I will take it that you no longer wish to be a member or a part of the London Branch, and I will have no other option but to hand your details back to RHQ as a member of the Association but with no Branch. Lady members I am sorry to say cannot be handed back to RHQ and will lose their right to be a member of the Association, so please all help me to help you when needed.
Members are of the understanding that I am standing down as the Honorary Branch Secretary I’m not; it really saddens me to think that you do not read what is written in the review. It does say that I am standing down as the Brach Social Secretary as I was doing both rolls, and members were not happy with the way trips and functions were being organized. So we do not now have a Social Secretary and no trip or function will now be arranged for the foreseeable future, so let someone else take it over and run it, to do this you will have to.
1. 2 years full time membership of the branch
2. Have your own car
3. Be able to go to all meetings
4. Be able to Attend all Function and Trips
5. Ideally be Retired
6. You will then have a full time seat on the Branch Committee, after 12 months you will receive an Honoraria per year paid in arrears
As yet I do not have any dates for anything RHQ is like the lof the world stuck and don’t know which way to turn, with the release of the new vaccine let’s hope with get our jabs soon. And we go back to getting on with our lives, from me and my family to you and yours stay safe and I do hope to see you all soon.
Les Cox
Honorary Branch Secretary