affordable as possible to members. The spring weekend centred on Saturday 14th March and saw members and friends assemble from the Thursday night onwards at the Hotel Celebrity in Bournemouth. Friday night was the usual ‘meet n greet’ night where the lamps were swung and family news updated and exchanged with 54 souls gathered and enjoyed dinner and a later disco. Come the next day, and 60 members and friends gathered for the Spring Dinner and an informal dinner was much enjoyed with good food and the most excellent of company. Our sincere thanks to our Gentlemen Trumpeter Steve Hyett for the most hair on the neck raising perfect Mess Call and for looking the part - immaculate as always! Many members posted photographs on Facebook to demonstrate their enjoyment of the event. The Winter Warmer Draw drew some anticipation, as the three prizes of short hotel breaks and inner tickets were most attractive. The winners of the Draw were: Third prize, Mr B Dorling, who was not a member and accepted £50 in lieu of dinner tickets, Second prize Member Mr Terry Lyons and First prize by Mr Harry Rawlings, who was not a member and was unable to use the weekend two night B&B Break, but agreed to swap with Terry and take his weekday two night break. Again, very special thanks to Tony Prynne who, yet again, produced £120 of ticket sales many thanks Tony! On Sunday 10th May, Committee Member Barry Woodley again laid our wreath at the Memorial to the 1982 Fallen in Hyde Park after the CCOCA Annual Parade, many members assembled on the day to join the muster and the service of remembrance followed by refreshments in HCMR and many thanks for the privilege. So the scene was set for the Waterloo Dinner and this year was the first time since Savoy Hotel days when we were able to run the complete weekend at one hotel - the Hotel Celebrity. This was a leap of faith by the Committee to commit to the hotel an event of this importance to the Association, as they had not hosted a dinner in such numbers. We completely filled all the accommodation in the hotel for the weekend and we set the ceiling number at 120. Within two months the numbers had surpassed that and stabilised at 142! Come the weekend, we sat down in tidy order 133 and photos many and various appeared on Facebook as proof. Friday night dinner proved most popular, with 95 giving the kitchen an
The Battle of Waterloo Bicentennial Dinner Top Table Rear row, left to right: Lt Col (Retd) Trevor Morris LVO, Mr Ray Peck, The Earl of Normanton, Maj (Retd) Nigel Hadden-Paton Front row, left to right: Mrs Caroline Scott, Mrs Paula Peck, Mrs Diana de Uphaugh, Mrs Bumble Hadden-Paton
exercise in à la carte menu dining! Due to the overall weekend numbers we moved to disco into the Birdcage Bar and although a good idea, it prove on both nights to be too far away form the restaurant, the only down side of the weekend. Come the Saturday, diners gathered in their finery well suited to mark the event and post AGM, photographs were taken along with pre-dinner drinks. At 6:40 pm our Gentlemen Trumpeter of the night, Steve Hyett, gave a resounding call to dinner and diners were invited by tables into the restaurant to reduce congestion. The hotel did us proud in being able to seat everyone on both round and square tables, there were many good comments about the layout and good table displays. The Rules of Engagement were explained and then the top table was paraded into dinner to tremendous applause and vigour. Grace was uttered and, once seated, a grand dinner with of course Beef Wellington was enjoyed and completed with cheeseboard to round the meal off - oh - and with five bottles of wine per table, that helped the meal go down and the mood mellow. Diners were also given a token to remember the dinner by which was an engraved shot glass - this was well appreciated. Come the moment and the President read the Salutation to Her Majesty and Her kind Reply, he then proposed the Loyal Toast which was well joined by all. The Chairman introduced Lt Col (Retd) Trevor Morris LVO, RHG/D and former Commanding Officer of HCMR. who gave us as ever a most amusing and illuminating slant on Waterloo and the Household Cavalry, rounding off with a toast to the Household Cavalry.
The Chairman finished off the ‘talk-talk’ element of the dinner with a toast to The Ladies. It was then time for a welfare break and diners were asked to take their seats again for the Charity Auction element thereafter. The Secretary then warbled on in rapid order asking the diners to thank Steve Hyett for his ‘blowing’ and that was well appreciated. Diners were advised there were two birthday girls in the room so a full bodied Happy Birthday was sung to them! And so to the auction, members had again been extremely generous of their time, art, skill and donated some excellent items of specific to The Battle of Waterloo for fund raising. A total of 16 items went under the hammer, and with donations from members and the 2016 diaries donations we happily raised £850.00 for each of the regimental associations - a total of £1700.00 in all. As said earlier, the disco was not as successful as it could have been and lesson learnt, but overall an excellent night with superb food and wonderful company was enjoyed. The faith the Committee put into the Hotel Celebrity was very well repaid and has now set a new standard for our Annual Dinners to come. Remembrance Sunday and Armistice Day saw members commemorate this special year’s occasion in their own way around the world. Finally, on December 13th we celebrated the annual Christmas Lunch with 45 members, family and friends enjoying the tradition seasonal meal in excellent company; we were nobly entertained at the Hotel Celebrity again. After the raffle we held the 34th Annual Draw
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