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Miss Louise Hobson [21] granddaughter of Peter
Hobson, Vice-Chairman Stafford Branch follows in
the footsteps of the National Standard Bearer
Julie Poulter by winning the Women’s Section
Standard Bearing competition last Sunday 13th
January. Louise is the
County's youngest ever winner of the Women's
Section competition. Is she a potential national standard
bearer in the making? We will have too wait and
see! Rumour has it that Louise will be entering
the Regional Standard Bearing competition.
 Former
1st Battalion The Staffordshire Regiment soldier Andy Fletcher
(pictured above with Standard Bearing
Competition Winners Cup)
deputy Standard Bearer Stafford Branch pulls off
the double whammy by winning the County
Standard Bearing competition to become the
County Standard Bearer 2008-09. Mrs Kath Burton
and Mr Wilf Overton Shropshire County Royal
British Legion were the judges. Kath's commented
after the competition was over that she had
noticed how much the standards had risen over
the previous years. It just goes to show how
worthwhile standard bearing (well done Derrick!) training is.
The Mayor of Leek Town Cllr Robert & Mrs Joan
Plant where amongst the guests, Ken
Compton County Chairman gave the civic address
Robert Plant gave the civic reply. Acting
President Geoff Davis read HM Queen's reply to
the loyal message.
Bob Rankin the County Web Manager in his annual
report to conference that the county web site
had a 320% increase of visitors from 24,279 to
77748 of which 67.81% came from the top five
Search Engines, 19.51% Referring Sites, 12.68%
Direct Traffic. Of those visitors 80.33% are New
Visitors and 19.67 % were Returning Visitors .
These increases can be attributed directly to
the web marketing strategy deployed as the site
benefits from 99.69% visibility (search engine
ranking) on the Top 5 search engines. 50.95%
comes from Google, 11.35 % from Yahoo and 4.45%
MSN respectively.
Bob was also presented
with the
Regional Certificate of Appreciation
for his
work on the Honour The Covenant Campaign, by
Alistair Maxwell the Regional Manager at the
County Conference held at the Staffordshire
Moorlands District Council Chamber.
John Cotton the retiring County Secretary
received a County Certificate of Appreciation
for his work as the County Secretary over the
last 7 years having step into the breach after
the removal of the then County Secretary. Ken
Compton the County Chairman in presenting the
certificate stated that he and John had come to
know each other well in the previous two and one
half years, and his services would be missed.
The keynote speaker at the Leek conference was
Charlie Bagot-Jewitt the Chief Executive Officer
of the National Memorial Arboretum. Charlie’s
talk covered what he considered his strategic
priorities for the future of the NMA. Namely
maintaining and improving the site as the most
significant place for Remembrance apart from the
Cenotaph in the National consciousness.
Sustaining recent high visitors numbers and the
integration of the Armed Forces Memorial Trust
with the National Memorial Arboretum Trust
 Proving
that it is not just the big branches can win
trophies one of the county’s smallest branches
Rudyard & Horton Branch Group 4 won the Poppy
Shield with an increase of
240% over the last 4 years, and Ball Green
another small branch won the Runners-up Cup.
Both awards where presented by Geoff Davis
Acting President.
Delegates and members present at the conference
said at the buffet afterwards that they had
noted the vast improvement in conference venues
that had taken place over the last five years
over the previous years.
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