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The Cotswold Branch of the RSA was formed in 1986 by three retired ladies from the Printing & Publications Services Division, Greville House, Cheltenham.    They were, by name, Gladys Lines, Rose Barnfield and Doreen McKenzie. All three have passed on now, the last being Rose Barnfield in March 2011. We are very pleased however to have welcomed Rose’s two daughters to several meetings since. It is a measure of how close knit Cotswold people are.

The founder ladies received strong support from the Central Committee, especially the late Pat Paterson and Hugh Wilson-Chalon. From small acorns grow large oak trees, thus the Branch now has some 305 members, of which sadly only around 20 could be classed as regular attendees at our meetings and social activities.

The Branch is, we believe, unique in that since P&PS closed in 1991 we have no parent unit in the area to rely on for clerical or technical support services as enjoyed by some other branches, hence our main income has been from the Central Committee fund. We do regularly cry poverty, as we have expenses which have to be met head on whilst most other RSA branches may still enjoy cushioning from a parent unit. In these days of belt tightening and financial stringency the Branch has been hit even harder than others by the latest drastic cuts in central funding. The introduction of a nominal membership fee for RSA members has eased things slightly, but our small grant from Central Funds remains a real life line for this Branch.

We do what we can to help ourselves in that we hold a raffle at every meeting and periodically have a "bring and buy" sale, all to try and keep our heads above water financially. The meetings also usually include a social feature such as a speaker or slide show.

Our major social functions now are limited to a meal in the summer months and Christmas lunch, both at local venues. These are supplemented by wine and nibbles at our normal meeting venue (Albion House, North Street, Cheltenham) at the AGM in March and in November.

In earlier years we have enjoyed summer garden parties at the homes of three different members and have organised outings to ride the canals at Newbury and Llangollen. We have had a day out in Weston Super Mare. Highlights of our visiting calendar have included Highgrove House Gardens in Wiltshire and Filton Airport at Bristol to have a "climb" over Concorde GBOAF. We also enjoyed an extra lunch sponsored by the Home Front Recall organisation to honour those of our members who saw action in the second world war. This was part of the 60th anniversary celebrations of peace.

These visits are remembered with affection, but now low active membership and financial constraints mean that we could only "get on the road again" if we had an influx of new members and some more financial help.

Many of our members live a fair distance from Cheltenham, but a number live local to our meeting venue. It would, of course, be very nice to see some new faces. Our "local" members are mostly ex-service staff from Greville House, Aston Down or Birdlip/Winstone Radio Station. However, CAA staff who have retired from other units to the lovely rural area in which we live now form the majority of the Cotswold Branch. To those members and any prospective new ones we extend a very warm welcome. We were delighted to welcome recently new members John Ross and his wife Myra who have come to live in Cirencester. John has now happily taken over as Secretary from Dereck Wallage who served diligently in the post for a remarkable 17 years. That is well over half of the time the Branch has existed. We celebrate 25 years in 2011.

Cotswold Branch Committee 2011

L to R Jean Plumridge, John Ross, Jessie Strawson, Dereck Wallage, Keith Plumridge and Ron Russ

	Committee
Jessie Strawson		(Chairman)
John Ross		(Secretary)
Keith Plumridge		(Treasurer)
Jean Plumridge		(Committee Member)
Dereck Wallage		(Committee Member)
Ron Russ		(Co-opted Member)

Ron Russ, sees to the web link and reports Branch activities to the Contrail Editor, to make life easier for the secretary. The committee publish twice a year a list of activities pertaining to the Branch activities for the coming months.

Our activities for 2011 are as follows:-

	Date	Event
	6 December	Christmas Lunch (Details nearer the time).

Please note, As usual, there will not be a meeting in January 2012

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