With our new Poppy Appeal Organiser (POA), Mike Nelson, together with the help of ex-POA Jim Rimmington and the Poppy Appeal committee, the Branch has been on full form this year.

It is still early days but the Stamford Poppy Appeal 2013 has already passed £35,000 and is close to last year’s whole-year total of £35288.35. Our supermarket squads, with their military helpers, collected (Sainsburys) £4521.56, (Waitrose) £5716.06, and (Morrisons) £10767.71.

The MDU collected over £1700 in just the final Friday and Saturday of the Appeal, helped by the magnificent efforts of two doggies from the MWD Unit at St George’s Barracks, the Cadets of the ATC and ACF, and Darren Rawnsley and his colleagues humping bags of sand up and down Ironmonger Street – they covered 17 miles!!

Other notable contributors were the Peterborough 5x5 Challenge team who raised £1700 on their Remembrance Sunday 11 miles off-road race at Top Lodge. Lots of Poppy Certificates were presented to our star collectors at the Poppy Appeal Party on 27 November.

Many of our backroom workers went as ever unheralded but we know who they are – those who stuff and distribute and collect in the Poppy trays and coin boxes, count the cash and bank it, erect and take down the MDU, organise the rosters, keep the shops topped up with supplies and empty coin boxes, stand on draughty street corners and in supermarket foyers, and many others, especially Mike Nelson who performed brilliantly in his first year as PAO.

But the real star performers were, as they are every year, the good people of Stamford. Without them and their incredible generosity, we could achieve nothing.