EXETER FLOTILLA
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 13 APRIL 2011
CHAIRMAN’S REPORT
Last year I spoke of my intention to maintained a steady course and speed and this we have done completing another successful year. Our membership has dropped to 193 but the necessary increase in subscriptions last year to cover higher running costs has not been a significant contributory factor. Indeed our finances are sound and Angus Atherton as treasurer has carefully managed that aspect of our business. The members of your committee have once again done a sterling job. I am most grateful to each of them for all the hard work they put into organising our programme.
We again have enjoyed an excellent and varied lecture programme and this with supper in the mess beforehand is probably the mainstay of our activities and the numbers attending have been buoyant.
Our Patron, Commodore Paul Bennett gave the Patron’s lecture in January during his hand-over to Commodore John Kingwell who was in the audience. We welcome him as our Patron and note that following the Strategic Defence and Security Review he now holds the appointment of Commander United Kingdom Task Group.
We must remain grateful for the facilities and goodwill of the mess members that we continue to enjoy at CTCRM. There has been a change in senior management during the year and Brigadier Gerard Salzano, Commandant, and Lieutenant Colonel Neil Willson, Commanding Officer, have each expressed their enthusiasm for continuing our close relationship. We also appreciate and are grateful for the excellent service provided to us by Mr Moss the Mess Secretary and the Sodexo Mess Manager and her staff for their forbearance of our “invasion” on both lecture evenings and other social occasions.
Nigel Broadhurst, once more, provided us with a wide ranging and varied lecture programme both looking back in history and examining the present, with glimpses into the future. All our speakers have been excellent and several outstanding. Nigel also organised this year’s visit to the Army School of Infantry in Warminster for their ground display, which included an Apache helicopter, an appropriate follow up to our lecture on the marinisation of that formidable weapon system. However the day lacked the excitement of yesteryear with no live firing demonstrations.
At our annual members’ lunch following the AGM our guests were Brigadier Bill Dunham, the Commandant, and member Captain Mike Fawcett, who sadly died later in the year.
The Chairman was invited to represent the Flotilla at the CTCRM cocktail party. Our Summer party, an opportunity to entertain our friends both official and personal followed in July and from the patio we enjoyed the Sunset Ceremony performed by the Exmouth Sea Cadets. At that occasion we presented a cheque to the Chair Lady of the Exmouth Unit to provide a scholarship for one of their cadets to sail aboard TS Loyalist. Bob Symons has done an excellent job through the year fostering our links with the Sea Cadet Corps and Naval Sections of the Combined Cadet Force in the area.
In June at the invitation of the Lord Mayor Chris Seaton and I attended the Exeter Veterans’ Day parade and march past. This was also an opportunity to meet, for the first time, Commander Nick Boyd, the Senior Officer of HMS Defender, the new City of Exeter affiliated ship. As with HMS Exeter we trust that there will for the future be a close relationship between the Flotilla and Defender, still building on the Clyde and not due for acceptance until 2012.
Later in July the golfers met at Budleigh Salterton for their annual match organised by our Golf Secretary, Robert Harland, who after fierce competition retained the trophy. Later others joined them with the ladies for a convivial evening and excellent dinner in the well appointed club restaurant.
In October Chris Seaton was for the first time our Trafalgar Service organiser, ably supported by Martin Sowman. Thank you both. Our preacher was The Right Reverend Stephen Venner, the Bishop to the Forces. On the altar was the cross, now in the Cathedral’s care, made from the timbers of the mast of the 4th Exeter. The 5th Exeter’s bell was also passed into the keeping of the Cathedral by Commander Paul Brown, her last Commanding Officer. It is now used in the Cathedral to call attention on significant occasions including in February the funeral of our member Commander Gerald Barnett.
2010 was a year of celebration across the country for 150 years of the Cadet Forces. It was therefore appropriate that our guest of honour at our annual dinner in November was Commodore Robert Mansergh, Head of Reserve Forces and Cadets in the Ministry of Defence. This is a Tri-service appointment. What a shift from the days in 1955 when the Admiral Commanding Naval Reserves inaugurated our relationship with CTCRM!
My thanks also go to Andy Quick our Membership Secretary who does a brilliant job managing our website and email communications. To Gerald Newton, our efficient and hardworking Secretary who also edits our splendid periodic News Sheet. To Patrick Collis, a committee member without portfolio, whose wisdom has been very much appreciated and who through the year has been updating the Flotilla History, but is now standing down.
Mike Howard, our ACORAM liaison officer, attends the committee when business requires. Christmas cards from Christian Lebreton proposed a visit to them in Rennes in 2011 but as yet no details have been forthcoming.
We only exist for you our members and my thanks go to you for supporting our events through the year and making it all worthwhile. However I must reflect a plea oft made by my predecessors that if the Flotilla is to continue well into the future we must maintain our vigilance and be active in inviting new and younger blood to join us.
If it meets with your approval I will be pleased to undertake my third and final year at the helm.
I Brannam
Captain Royal Navy
Chairman
13 April 2011