THE
CHAIRMAN’S CHUNK... On behalf of the Trustees and Committee Members of the NABD, I offer a somewhat belated ‘Happy New Year’ and ‘Best wishes for 2023’ to all NABD members and supporters. It was pointed out to me recently that, as we approach the 32nd anniversary of the NABD, I have now spent half of my life as the NABD Chairman. Now there’s a sobering thought!
NABD on a daily basis takes its toll, both physically and psychologically, but there is also a great joy to be had in being part of something that really changes people’s lives for the better.
When I was asked to take on the Chairman’s post in 1992, I replied “I can give it a year, to help get everything running smoothly, but then I have other things to do…” As it transpires, many of those “other things” are still on my ‘to do’ list!
Still, it is what it is and the job is not done yet, so perhaps I still have a few years in me and I hope the same can be said of the other members of the National Committee, some of whom have been in-post for more than 20-years themselves (insanity obviously loves company) and all of whom are completely dedicated to the aims of the NABD.
I think it fair to say that the NABD well-and-truly took over my life, as it has with a number of other stalwart people that it has come to heavily rely upon. I will freely admit that had anybody suggested 30+ years ago that I would spend half of my life as an unpaid volunteer for a registered charity, I would have thought them to be completely mad but now I wonder in which of us that madness truly resided. I will not deny that being actively involved in the
Sad Losses: Since the last issue of Open House was published, we have been notified of the deaths of two ex-NABD-Committee members. Dave Silburn and Adrian ‘Lemmy’ Straughan were both staunchly dedicated to the NABD and both had served long tenures as National Committee members and Trustees of this great charity in previous years.
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