January 19: New Year’s reception 2014
The new year has started with the New Year’s reception: the traditional kickoff of a new year for RCL Branch 005. And it was more crowded than ever.
Many members of the Branch have found their way to Lochem to start the new year together, but also just to have a nice get together. Very pleasing was that many of the new members have taken the effort to participate in this meeting, just to get acquainted with other members. Many were around 13:00 already present to greet and sipping a cup of coffee and eating cakes.
As a special guest as well as Patron of RCL Branch 005 the Canadian Ambassador James Lambert was present.
There was also a visiting guest from Canada. Mary Menard’s niece of RCL member Laurens Aggelen was present. Mary is the daughter of a Canadian Veteran who fought in the Netherlands at Arnhem during Operation Market Garden. Her father married the sister of the mother of Laurens and moved to Canada in 1946. She was one of the first War Brides, who left the Netherlands with the “Queen Mary”, where she named her daughter after later.
There were also representatives of the organizing committee of Etten, from the National Committee Capitulation Wageningen, the National Committee Thank You Canada & Allied Forces and the Foundation Liberation 45. The Board of Patrons was represented not only by the Ambassador mentioned above, but also Aravind Ramanna was present.
I a traditional way, you can already tell, was the speech of the President in which he looked back on the past year but also looked forward to the year just begun.
In retrospect, he particularly recalled the presence of RCL Branch 005 at the reception of the Governor General in April 2013. In the Netherlands because of the inauguration of our King Willem Alexander, the Governor General initiated a reception to thank a few persons in the Netherlands for their commitment to honoring those Canadians who died for our freedom.
In addition, also the renewed attention to the poppy campaign in 2013 was a highlight. The result and the enlarging of the campaign were particular mentioned.
The third point was the installation of the Board of Patrons of RCL Branch 005. At the Board of Patrons people have taken place who embrace our objectives, organization and activities and are sympathetic to connect their name to RCL Branch 005 . By connecting their name to our Branch they support RCL and create a platform that allows RCL to be present itself. In this way, interested parties and other contacts are able to see the broad-based activities of RCL Branch 005 are recommended in the Netherlands .
Looking ahead to 2014, the signs tell us, it’s going to be a busy schedule. 2014 will be dedicated to commemorate 100 years of the start of the Great War (WWI) in 1914 as well as 70-year commemoration of the Normandy landings. But the most important is that parts, especially in southern and eastern Netherlands, will celebrate their 70th Liberation Day.
Also, the further development of the poppy campaign in 2014 will be continued. There will be a fixed plan, which is trying to expand the campaign to more communities in the Netherlands.
The Annual General Meeting will take place on February 22, 2014. In addition, we will host the RCL Zone Europe Meeting on 22 March in our clubhouse Mondani.
Also the negotiations with Thank You Canada & Allied Forces are in a final stage. Agreement shall be submitted in a plan to the annual member meeting.
This is a small list of what is on the program this coming year. In addition, of course, to our traditional program of commemorations and disclosures of various monuments.
After the speech of the President it remained noisy, but very cozy in Mondani.
See pictures (LINK)