Castillo de Montemar donate to Poppy Appeal

EVERY little bit counts when it comes to rising money for charities, Torrevieja’s Royal British legion was delighted to receive a cheque for €100 from the residents of Castillo de Montemar, in Algorfa, as part of their Poppy Appeal.

Branch Chairman Gill Borden was personally handed the cheque by outgoing community president John Massey who explained that “in 2010 when we were planning our AGM, we noticed that this year’s gathering would fall on 11/11/11.

It was suggested that we should support the Royal British Legion on this special day and along with observing the two-minutes of silence at 11am, we decided that we would also donate €100 to the Legion in recognition of the sterling work they provide.”

After ten years as community president, John has stepped aside as he and his wife plan to return to the UK to fulfil a desire to spend time travelling along the 3,500 miles of waterways and canals, onboard a Narrowboat, which will be their new home.

John and his wife Jennifer have really immersed (no pun intended) in their new lifestyle and designed a new website www.canallife.co.uk, which Jennifer runs.

John added “our community is now very settled, stable and made up of a diverse international mix from England, Ireland, Spain, Sweden, Norway and Belgium. We decided unanimously that we should support the cause of the Royal British Legion and are delighted that Gill could join us today.”

On behalf of the Torrevieja’s RBL, Gill was delighted to receive such a generous donation as said that ‘it’s very difficult to raise this sort of money from one location through pure Poppy donations, and so it was a pleasure to come to Castillo de Montemar today and thanks them personally for their donation.”

Torrevieja’s RBL have just held their AGM following this year’s Poppy Appeal and Gill was voted back in unanimously for her sixth term in office.

The Officers for 2012 are He was the one that the Committee selected from the five applicants who answered the advertisement in the local papers. He is ex RAF and has done some accountancy work.

We also elected a, who was the Chairman of the Branch before me Names of the main Committee are: Grahame Ward – Vice Chairman; Douglas Sidwell – Secretary; Pauline Grindly – Membership Secretary; Dianne Budd – Entertainment Organiser; Allan Budd – Entertainment and P.R.O.; Judi Wilkinson – Merchandiser – Vice-President; Ted Marsh – Treasurer; Gerry Lynch along with the three standard bearers, John de Carteret, Ken Archer and David Laverick.

Torrevieja were the first official branch to open in Spain and now have about 100 active members with potential members invited to attend any of their meetings, at Casa Ventura in Torrevieja.

The Branch is also having a new website built which have information about their history, social aspects, fundraising activities, bowling and golf and background about the valuable work that the Royal British Legion perform for former services personnel.

More information can be found at www.RBLTorrevieja.com

By Keith Nicol