On Monday 1 st February, 28 cadets and five members of staff from 487 Kingstanding and Perry Barr Sqn, travelled the short distance to the British Legion Club in Kingstanding. The Sqn had been invited to attend the clubs annual Poppy appeal presentation evening

The Sqn had cancelled their normal parade on Tuesday night and moved it to Monday so that they could take the maximum number of cadets to the evening. The Sqn again won the youth challenge trophy and the cadet who has collected the most during the appeal normally gets the honour of being presented with the shield by the club’s chairman. However, FS Anthony Rigby, who had collected over £246 was not available on the evening, so CWO Adam Wilkes had the honour of being presented with the shield on the night.

During the collection in 2008, the Sqn and D/F had raised a record amount of £2200, however during the 2009 appeal they collected over £3500, the final amount is still to be finalised. The cadets who took part in the appeal were each handed a small certificate which showed their own total amount collected. The Sqn had collected in Birmingham City Centre over one weekend in November, along with a day spent around the Kingstanding area. The D/F had collected monies in and around the Erdington High Street area.

The Sqn then gave the members of the club a short drill display which was led by CWO Wilkes and 12 members of the Sqn drill team.

To cap off a great night, the Sqn was officially recognised as being affiliated to the Kingstanding British Legion Club, a certificate was collected by Fg Off Simon Jennings.

Fg Off Simon Jennings commented “We are all staggered at the amount the Sqn and D/F have raised this year. The generosity of the public has been great and with the hard work put in by both the cadets and staff, we have managed to raise a record amount. We are also pleased to be now officially affiliated to the club and we look forward to working with them in the future”.