Notice Board
 
If you wish to post an entry on the Notice Board, E-mail it to the Webmaster at: Webmaster@birgelenvets.org
 
BVA Charity Walk 12 - 21 June 2010 (All members are kindly requested to support this venture in the manner outlined below. Please help the organisers. Help us, by helping them.

From: Jennie Milford

Following a request from Tom McMahon, Gail Baldwin and I have agreed to co chair an appeal to BVA members for support in a charity venture which Tom and other BVA friends are planning for June 2010. Tom and his friends are attempting to walk from Liverpool to Leeds along the 127 miles of the ship canal towpath, to raise money for the BVA Charity Fund and Macmillan Cancer Care. The walk will start in Liverpool at 10.00 am on Saturday 12 June 2010 and finish in Leeds on the afternoon of Sunday 20 June 2010.

There will be a celebratory end of walk supper in Leeds on Sunday evening.

All money raised will be split equally between the two charities. There will be no deductions for any costs.

My reason for posting this notice is to ask if anyone is prepared to either:

a. Walk all or part of the route (the legs have been split into 9 consecutive daily stages of about 12 miles per day with overnight accommodation in adjacent B and Bs/pubs)
or
b. Join our fundraising group to support this venture

If you are able to help, please email me as soon as possible:
jennie.milford@googlemail.com].

Tom and Jim Malone and Michael Jackson will issue an email in early February, on this website through the Webmaster, seeking individual sponsorship via the JustGiving website. There will also be a special charity lunch in support of the walk at the Rifles Club at 56 Davies Street, London W1 at 12.30 pm on Tuesday 20 April 2010. Please contact Tom for further details (contact details below)

Please consider supporting this worthwhile effort and feel free to contact Gail or me with any suggestions on how you feel we may take this forward. Tom is available on 07794 100613 or at jpmcmahon@live.co.uk.

Jim Malone and Michael Jackson's email addresses are on the BVA members’ website.

Please help.

Thank you.
Jennie Milford

Further Charity Walk News (Posted 16 February 2010)
TO LAUNCH INDIVIDUAL BVA MEMBERS’ CHARITY WALK 2010 A LUNCHEON IS TO BE HELD AT THE RIFLES LONDON CLUB ON 20 APRIL 2010 AT 12.30 PM

To officially launch the charity walk from Liverpool to Leeds between 12 and 20 June 2010 (see notice above) a luncheon is to be held at The Rifles London Club, 56 Davies Street, London W1K 5HR on Tuesday 20 April 2010 at 12.30 pm. A cash bar will be open for one hour before lunch. The cost of the three course lunch, including wine and coffee, will be £32 per ticket and tickets are available from the lunch organiser Tom McMahon. All profits from the lunch will go to the nominated charity fund which is the official BVA charity and Macmillan Cancer Care.

For more information, please email Tom at jpmcmahon@live.co.uk or telephone him on 07794100613 or 01603 880664. Requests for tickets should be sent to JP McMahon, Whitehouse Cottage, The Street, Hockering, Norfolk NR20 3AJ, together with a cheque for £32 for each ticket requested. Please make cheques payable to "Birgelen Veterans Charity walk 2010".

Tickets will go on sale to non BVA members 14 days after the publication of this notice. Therefore, early reservation is recommended as there are only 48 places, in total, available for the lunch.

The London Rifles Club is right in the centre of London just south of Oxford Street. For those who would like to support the walk but cannot attend the lunch, sponsorship details will be available on this website from the end of February 2010.

Message from Dave and Cheri Hopkins to all members
Fellow members, Cheri and I would like to enlist your help. We'e planning to move from central Mexico to the Yucatan Peninsula. Rather than sell our house in the conventional way, we thought we'd try something different. It's not unique, but is novel. We're running an essay contest with our house as the main prize. If you would be willing to place a flyer (with permission) on notice boards in RBL clubs, pubs, gyms and supermarkets, please email me at n2laa@hughes.net and I will forward a flyer via email. While we are not seeking members to participate , we would like to use the membership base for networking purposes. If you are curious as to how we are doing this, please visit our site at: http://www.chapaladream.com
Best wishes,
Dave

Permanent exclusive holiday home offer to BVA members(Tom McMahon)
I have a holiday home in Italy in the Le Marche region about 30 km inland from Ancona Airport.
The terraced house is in a 400 year old walled village near the Adriatic coast about 250 metres above sea level.
It has three double bedrooms (sleeps 4 comfortably) a kitchen, loo, shower, central heating and an open fire for the winter in the lounge.
The village is in Serra de Conti has shops, doctor, chemist, bank and local bus service but one does need a car to get the best out of the region.
Le Marche is staggeringly beautiful but happily under populated when compared with Tuscanny and Umbria.
The beach at Senegallia is 14 km long and has held a European blue flag for the last 17 years.
I am about to start advertising for 2010. I charge £350/week in the summer for rentals and £300/week at other times.

I would happily let the house to BVA members or their families for £200/week (to cover gas/electricity/rates/local taxes/insurances etc and donate £50 of that to the BVA charity for any members booking received before 1 March 2010 for the period 1 April 2009 to 31 December 2010.

Please note that this very kind offer is exclusive to BVA members and their families and is permanent. It is also an excellent way of raising money for our charity. Tom’s email address can be found in the members section of the website.

An important announcement from David Sutton
I read with interest the AOB area of the Reunion minutes. I may have said in the past of my role in SSAFA/Forces Help. Should any member of the BVA require, or know of an ex-colleague requiring help, or their families I would be most willing to send their details to the nearest branch of SSAFA/Forces Help in their area. Unfortunately as with many organisations these days and Data Protection we normally require the person to contact us and not us them, however we can accept referrals in most cases from the member passing on the information. I would prefer any contact by email. Best wishes to all members
David Sutton Asst. Branch/Divisional Secretary SSAFA/FH (East Yorkshire)

Regimental/Personal Photographs
Have you any photographs of your time spent with the Regiment or any of its sub-units, (224/225/226/10 WTS/12 Wrls Sqn/H Tp/Hogling/Herzo/Comms & Sy Group etc ) that we can publish on the BVA website, I would be pleased to have them. It would also help if you cold send them in their original format (un-compressed and .Jpeg format).We do not have a surfeit of good photographs so anything that you can do to help would be appreciated.

Fraud reduction advice
Keep your PINs and passwords secure – never write them down or reveal them to anyone.
• Avoid using obvious passwords like your date of birth, home phone number or mother’s maiden name.
• Always check your statements thoroughly.
• Destroy bills, receipts and other financial papers, preferably by using a shredder.
• If you move house, have your mail redirected and give your new address to your bank, building society or other financial provider.
• Immediately notify your financial providers if you have been subjected to identity fraud and ask them to confirm that no similar attempt has been made on your investment with that company.
• Ask your financial providers to enhance security on your investments, if you have been subjected to identity fraud.
• If you lose or have your passport or driving licence stolen, immediately contact the organisation that issued it.
• Check your personal credit file from a credit reference agency such as Equifax or Experian and see if it includes any entries that you do not recognise.

In addition to the above watch out for the following:

• Post from financial institutions that does not arrive or you stop receiving post.
• You receive bills or receipts for goods and services you haven’t asked for.
• You receive letters from solicitors or debt collectors about debts that are not yours.
• You apply for state benefit but are told that you are already claiming.

As your personal details have been targeted, you may wish to consider applying for protective registration with CIFAS – the UK’s Fraud prevention Service. For more information, visit
www.CIFAS.org.uk and click on Protective Registration or phone them on 0870 0102091 0870 0102091 .

BVA Membership
Do you know of anyone who served with the Regiment but is not yet a member of the BVA, if so, why not encourage them to join.
There will come a time when our membership will start to drop away, so the more we get now the better. I cannot offer any incentive for doing this other than the satisfaction of knowing that we have renewed contact with another member of the family.

BVA Online shop
We now have good quality BVA mouse-mats, base ball Caps, Association Tie and an excellent Gwen Sangster CD titled, 'We will Remember them'(monies for which, she has kindly donated to the BVA charity) on sale. Entry is via the Members page. Additionally - if you have anything that you wish to sell, why not do it through the shop?

Links Page
Wish to advertise your business? As a member, we will advertise it free on our website Links Page.

Birgelen Veterans Sponsored Charity Appeal (Raphael Geiser)
At the third Annual General Meeting of the Association, Minute 10 unanimously agreed that the Association would sponsor (as our one on going charity) a disadvantaged child from the Wassenberg/Effeld area in Germany. The Burghermeister of Wassenberg's Office, have identified a suitable male child named Raphael Geiser.
Raphael suffers from Cystic Fibrosis (CF) a genetic disease. A defective gene causes the body to produce an abnormally thick, sticky mucus that clogs the lungs and leads to life-threatening lung infections. These thick secretions also obstruct the pancreas, preventing digestive enzymes from reaching the intestines to help break down and absorb food.
Raphael has been fed artificially since the age of 9 months. He requires 24 hr supervision and his mother also has two other children to support.
Additionally if any member visits the Birgelen area, perhaps you could call in on Raphael. If you would also like to buy him a present, keep the receipt and the cost will be reimbursed by the BVA. His address can be obtained from the Webmaster/Secretary.
Please do all you can to support this worthy cause that you have so generously voted for.
Further details can be found on the BVA Charity page (Bottom left hand side menu)

Did you Know?
Have you ever wondered what that senior officer said about you in that Confidential
Report or when you actually took up a posting, was it June or was it July? Well now you can find out. Write to the:
Administrative Officer, Army Personnel Centre, Disclosure Section 2-Data Protection Cell, Mail Point 515, Kentigern House, 65 Brown Street, Glasgow G2 8EX.
Make sure that you enclose a photo-copy of your passport and that you include your regimental number.
After a few weeks you will receive a huge envelope (at no cost to yourself) containing all of the information pertaining to your army career.

Did you Know?
That by applying to the BSTU Berlin that you can find out if Stasi (East German Secret Police) hold any information on you. The website is:
http://www.bstu.de (Site can be accessed in English)
e-mail:post@bstu.de
Address is: Der Bundesbeauftragte fur die Unterlager
des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen
Deutschon Demokratischen Rebublik
Postfach 218, 10106 Berlin.