With the Festive Season in mind, members are reminded that the Corps Carol Service will be held on Monday 15^th December at 6pm at the Corps Church of St Stephen with St John, Rochester Row, London. It will be followed with the usual social gathering for Sherry and Mince Pies in the Church Hall. This is an event to which the Aldershot Branch traditionally gives strong support, so do come along, enjoy the singing, meet old friends and possibly join up for an informal supper at the end.

Forthcoming Branch Events

261 SIGNAL SQUADRON IN THE GULF
 OPERATION TELIC – A FIRST- HAND ACCOUNT

Thursday 29^th January 2004
7.30 for 8.00 pm in the Sergeants Mess, Buller Barracks

The cost of the supper will be £6 per head.  All members are encouraged to come along to hear about what really happened in the second phase of the recent Gulf War.

Please return Annex A with your cheque to reach Peter Sharpe by Friday 16^th January or click here to make your booking..

VISIT TO ALDERSHOT MILITARY MUSEUM, QUEENS AVENUE
Thursday 18^th March 2004 at 7.00 pm

At the conclusion of the visit we will provide light refreshments including wine in the Reception Area. The inclusive cost per head for these refreshments and entrance to the museum will be £7.

Please return Annex B with your cheque to reach Peter Sharpe by Friday 5^th March or click here to make your booking..

DEDICATION OF NEW BRANCH STANDARD FOLLOWED BY LUNCH AND AGM

Sunday 18^th April 2004
11.00am in the Royal Garrison Church
Hot Buffet Lunch and AGM in the Garrison Sergeants’ Mess

This is a big day in the life and history of our Branch, for which we need full support from members.

The event will commence at eleven o’clock with a service in the Royal Garrison Church of All Saints in Aldershot conducted by the Chaplain, the Reverend JM Loveday CF. We have invited neighbouring branches of the Association and other local organisations to attend and to parade their Standards. At the end of the service, our new Standard will be dedicated and the old one, which has served us well since the end of World War 2, will be laid up. This will be the first time an RSA Standard has been laid up in the Royal Garrison Church.

After the ceremony, we adjourn to the Garrison WOs and Sergeants Mess for drinks and a hot buffet lunch, where the padre and our friends from the other branches will be our guests. At the conclusion of lunch, we will hold our AGM. As time will be tight, we will concentrate on just the essential Branch business.

The cost of buffet lunch will be £8 per head.

Please return Annex ‘C’ of the hardcopy newsletter with your cheque to reach Peter Sharpe by Friday 2^nd April or click here to make your booking.

TROOPING THE COLOUR CEREMONIES IN 2004

If you wish to be present at any of the following ceremonies, it is by no means too early to be thinking of booking, as bids for tickets have to be lodged early in the New Year.

 Dates and prices of tickets are:

• Colonel’s Review (Second Rehearsal)    5^th June £8
• Queen’s Birthday parade    12^th June £16

Following the general enthusiasm for group attendance of Branch members at the Colonel’s Review, similar arrangements are proposed for 2004.Those wishing to join the Branch group should complete and return Annex ‘D’ with cheque to reach Peter Sharpe by 31^st January or click here to make your booking.

For anyone wishing to attend the Queen’s Birthday Parade itself, the limit is 3 tickets per head and all are subject to ballot. Write as soon as possible, requesting an application form and enclosing SAE (no money at this stage) to:

The Brigade Major, HQ Household Division, Horse Guards, Whitehall, London, SW1 2AX.

Corps and Association News

Our congratulations to General Sir Sam Cowan on his appointment as Master of Signals. We wish him a tour as successful and stimulating as that of his predecessor,  Maj Gen Ian Sprackling.

The Royal Ghurkha Signals Association and the Essex Yeomanry Association have applied for Affiliation to the RSA.

The main focus of effort in the Central Committee of the Association is taking forward the various recommendations and actions arising from The Plan for Change initiated 18 months ago. As background material for the work, Branches have been asked to supply their histories. Fortunately we compiled ours in 1999 and we have forwarded an updated version to RHQ. This can be viewed on our own Website.

The IT situation is advancing rapidly with improvements to the RSA Website, more branches opening their own Web pages and general increase in use of e-mail.

Panels have been set up to address some of the more knotty issues including soldier recruiting, officer recruiting, advertising and publicity. Our own chairman, Noel Moss, is heading up one of these panels to consider setting up Association branches linked to serving regiments of the Corps, both regular and TAVR.

It is anticipated that a completed package embracing all these issues will be presented to the Association AGM to be held at the Victory Services Club in London on 26^th March 2004.

Recent Branch Activities

The third Branch Dinner in recent years was held on 26^th September in the Garrison Officers Mess, which is also the Mess of 12 Mechanised Brigade HQ and Signal Squadron. We were most grateful to Major Chris Paterson for arranging our use of this facility and delighted that he and his officers joined us for the evening. We were also glad to welcome Major Nick Beecher, newly arrived OC of 251 Signal Squadron, and many other friends and guests. A total of 70 sat down for an excellent 5-course meal. The Mess Manageress, Karon Bramley and the head chef, Suzi Palombi, did us proud, both overcoming a few taxing problems behind the scenes.

We were pleased to welcome the Signal Officer-in-Chief, Brigadier David McDowall, as our guest of honour. After dinner he spoke enthusiastically on the state of the Corps at the present time and, in particular, its involvement in recent operations. He declared his support for the work of the Association and kindly proposed the health of the branch.

Music by our old friends from the Farnborough Concert Band of the Royal British Legion greatly added to the atmosphere. A surprise performance by a Gurkha piper, created a fitting finale to a superb evening.

Our Autumn Curry Lunch was again held at the ever popular Aldershot Military Golf Club on the 2^nd of November. It was great to have an increased attendance of members and guests, which provided an extra buzz to the occasion right from the start. Our official branch guests were Tony and Anita Whydell. Tony has audited our branch accounts for some considerable time, so we felt he deserved some high quality sustenance!

Our Deputy Chairman, Mike Wilson, spoke at the end of the luncheon. He included a warm welcome to a new member, Howard Greville, noting that this was the first time that Howard had attended an RSA event since his release from prison; the prison turned out to be a POW camp in Austria where Howard had languished from 1941 to 1945. His route there had been via training in Catterick, North Africa under Wavell and then the campaign in Greece.  Welcome back, Howard, indeed!

Mike also announced dates of future events, particularly important being the dedication of our new Standard to be followed by the Spring luncheon and AGM on Sunday 18 April next year, now detailed elsewhere in this Newsletter. There followed a successful raffle which raised £137 and much credit for this must go to Apple Ward and Jean Wilson who sold so many tickets in a remarkably short time!

Annual Welfare Appeal

We again appeal to the generosity of members for donations to the Royal Signals Association Central Fund. The Branch has collected for the last six years for this good cause, raising so far a total approaching £1300. RHQ has greatly welcomed our annual contributions and they publish examples of deserving cases regularly in ‘The Wire’.

Please make a special effort to remember ex-members of the Corps who have fallen on hard times and use the form at Annex ‘E’ to the printed Newsletter or contact Peter Sharpe to send your contributions to the Treasurer. Members may, of course, give anonymous contributions if they wish.

You may be interested to hear………….

Readers of The Pennant, Journal of the Forces Pension Society, may have read some interesting snippets in the November issue about release of Service Records and also the Suez Canal Zone Medal. In case you have missed them, here is the gist

Release of Service Records

Under the terms of the Data Protection Act, 1998, MoD are required to release Service Records including medical records to certain entitled people. These are:

• The ex-Serviceman/woman to whom the information belongs.
• The widow/widower of a deceased ex-Serviceman/woman.
• The legal next of kin, if both the ex-Service person and their spouse is deceased.

In all normal cases the service is free. Details are available at www.veteransagency.mod.uk in the ‘Service Records’ section. The application form and procedures can be downloaded. Or call the Helpline on 0800 169 2277. MoD is required to satisfy your request within 40 calendar days.

The Suez Canal Zone Medal

The Prime Minister announced on 11^th June that clasps to the General Service Medal would be awarded for all those involved in the 1951-54 Canal Zone operations. Qualification criteria have yet to be announced and it will be some time before issue of medals and clasps can begin. Once the procedure has been finalised, army applicants will need to submit details of their service to: Army Medal Office, Government Buildings, Worcester Road, Droitwich Spa, Worcestershire, WR9 8AU. Details will be announced on www.veteransagency.mod.uk/medals/suez/htm, or you can contact the Helpliine on 0800 169 2277.

Out of the mouths of babes………….

Instead of our customary Christmas Quiz, we think our readers may like to be entertained by some written answers to a biblical quiz put to children at a primary school:

• Samson slayed the Philistines with the axe of the Apostles.
   
• The Egyptians were all drowned in the dessert. Afterwards, Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten amendments.
   
• The seventh commandment is thou shalt not admit adultery.
   
• Solomon, one of David’s sons, had 300 wives and 700 porcupines.
   
• Jesus enunciated the Golden Rule, which says do one to others before they do one to you. He also explained, a man doth not live by sweat alone.
   
• The people who followed the Lord were called the 12 decibels,
   
• The epistles were the wives of the apostles.
   
• Christians have one spouse. This is called monotony.