COFEPOW - News - Chairman's Report

CHAIRMAN'S REPORT 2008

Presented at the COFEPOW Annual General Meeting on 4th January 2009

Happy New Year to everyone and I hope we all have a good and rewarding 2009 as we continue our work maintaining the memory of all Fepows. The addition of the Armed Forces Memorial at the NMA has seen a huge increase in visitors and many of those visited the Fepow Memorial Building. This has brought more enquiries, more letters of appreciation and 100 new members during the year. Apart from the increase in visitors and members, we continued to be active with several events being arranged for both FEPOWs and COFEPOWs. Although sadly more FEPOWs are no longer with us.

Many members send various articles/comments/enquiries for the newsletters. These letters are very welcome and provide extremely interesting information and comments for everyone. Looking back through last year's newsletters it was gratifying to see the larger number of articles came from members, so please keep them coming.

Veteran's Day in June saw members visiting East Anglia's Aviation Heritage Centre at Flixton, Suffolk. An excellent day for all who participated. The third Annual Lunch/ Dinner was held at Allen Hall, Manchester on Saturday 28th June with many members within that area attending and enjoying this first class social event. July saw another FEPOW Exhibition in Norwich, put on by local members with a good response from the public. In August about 180 members attended the National Arboretum for a Remembrance Service and a discussion on the FEPOW Database

In October, 80 FEPOWs and COFEPOWs travelled to Sherborne, Dorset to enjoy an excellent three days reunion, which included sightseeing and a Remembrance Service at Sherborne Abbey. Later in October, a Service at Earlham in Norwich marked the 10th anniversary of the planting of our first Remembrance Tree. Several people who attended the first event returned to celebrate the anniversary and to witness the transformation of a small sapling to a now beautiful tree.

In November our full allocation of tickets for the Remembrance Day Cenotaph Parade in Whitehall were all taken by those dedicated members who join this Parade every year.
On November 23rd, many local members celebrated our 11th anniversary over lunch.

This year many members ordered Remembrance Paviours to be laid near the FEPOW Memorial Building at the National Memorial Arboretum, some have already been laid, the rest will be laid before long. These red paviours look very impressive in between the grey slabs we had laid around the Building in the summer

More members are now becoming involved with the FEPOW Database. We want to get this on line as soon as possible, but we still need more members on board. Your help is essential to enable people worldwide to access the information we hold. If you are already helping COFEPOW, in some way, then Thank You from me and from all the FEPOWs who cannot speak for themselves - without you COFEPOW would not function. And lastly to our membership officers who are indispensable with 120 new members last year, and to those members who give up their time to travel with Ron and myself to work at the NMA and the local members near the NMA whose enthusiasm is inspirational - Thank You to all volunteers everywhere.

We have built a good solid association, but as we come to the end of our 10th year, with continual expansion, it is imperative to move forward and in the next couple of years bringing people together as a team and taking on the responsibility of running COFEPOW. It is hoped that as many members as possible will attend a meeting at the NMA in August to give everyone the opportunity to voice their opinions. Over the past decade I have been committed and dedicated in establishing COFEPOW and also had the honour to spearhead the project to build the FEPOW Memorial Building, but in the next few years new hands and minds must take over if this association is to continue and to continue profitably whilst maintaining our charity constitution. Soon it will be your discussions, future decisions, commitment, dedication and physical input that must shape the future of COFEPOW to ensure the FEPOW name will have a place in our history books and their fate documented on our web site.

Recently, I was asked "What would happen to COFEPOW if you and Ron were run over by a bus?" A sobering thought, so let's have some answers and people in place before that bus comes along - let COFEPOW be here, with or without me, in the next ten or twenty years.

Thank you again - see you in August at the NMA

Carol Cooper - Chairman and Secretary

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