March 2025

Spring is in the air!

We celebrated International Women’s Day on 8th March – did you make the most of it?

Membership
Have you renewed for 2025/2026? If not don’t delay, last year’s annual memberships will expire on 31st March 2025.

Events

Out of Town Meeting – Portsmouth 10th May – Royal Maritime Hotel
Church Service – 10am St Anns Church – 11th May – HMS Naval Base Portsmouth
Don’t forget to let us know if you are attending! Email [email protected]

VE DAY 80TH Anniversary
With VE Day 80 fast approaching, we have been approached by a number of areas of the media asking for personal accounts of the VE Day celebrations including the Best magazine who will be producing a special VE Day edition. Our very own WW2 members will be supplying them with plenty of content which is just marvellous! Did you know that we have 92 members who were serving during this time! 😮 Amazing!
VE Day 80: The Party – Thursday 8 May 2025 ROYAL ALBERT HALL
SSAFA, the Armed Forces charity, leads the nation’s VE Day 80 celebrations, saluting ‘Our Greatest Generation’ with music, dance and first-hand stories of the wartime generation. Tickets for this wonderful event can be purchased now direct with The Royal Albert Hall www.veday80.org

WIN TWO TICKETS FOR THIS EVENT

How to Win:- We are in the process of updating the Association’s flyers and publicity material, and are on the hunt for a photograph which really represents us and our organisation for the future – and who better to provide us with such a picture than you, our members? Please send your photographic entries to us via email to [email protected] and we will pick the most fun, vibrant and fitting for us to use (please ensure all within the photo give their consent to use) Entries in by 12th April.
Thank you to The Makers of and SSAFA for very kindly donating these tickets (Please note that these tickets are for Standard Seating)

AOW vs RN Womens Dev XV – Inaugural Walking Rugby Match – 9th April 2025

Don’t forget, HMS Temeraire hosts our first AOW Members vs RN Women’s Dev XV Walking Touch Rugby match on Wednesday 9th April at 13:00, kick off 13:30 after some stretching and warm up – Let us know at [email protected] if you are interested in playing or spectating.

Royal Horticultural Society Discount

We received an enquiry asking if we were able to get discounted Chelsea Flower Show tickets – sadly the short answer was no! Due to this event being so popular, no discounts are offered for this event by the organisers. However, what we do have a possibility of, is discounted tickets to RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival, RHS Flower Show Wentworth Woodhouse and RHS Malvern Spring Festival. In order to receive these discounts, we would be required to purchase 15+ tickets or more per event. Please can we have an expression of interest for any of the following Events/Dates and how many tickets you would be interested in (this would be tickets only – no travel or AOW representation will be provided by the AOW at these events)
RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival – Discounted Price £35.05 – (£29.35 if 50+ tickets) 3 July
RHS Flower Show Wentworth Woodhouse – Discounted Price £32.35 – (£27.10 if 50+ tickets) 17 July
RHS Malvern Spring Festival – Discounted Price £26.85 – 9 May
Expression of interest emails before 7th April to: [email protected]

Chairman Nominations

The Trustees of the Association hereby call for nominations for the office of Chairman – AGM 2025 to AGM 2028. Applications should be submitted to the office by 31st March 2025. Please contact the office for further details and application forms.

In Memory

The 12th February saw the 81st anniversary of the sinking of the Khedive Ishmail. The sinking caused a great loss of life, of the 1,511 people on board only 208 men and 6 women survived, resulting in the largest loss of servicewomen in a single incident in Commonwealth military history. Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service – 44 casualties Women’s Royal Naval Service – 15 casualties Women’s Territorial Service (East Africa) – 8 casualties East African Military Nursing Service – 7 casualties A brief memorial service was held at the WRNS church for which the Khedive memorial candle stick was moved to a prominent position next to the altar, which was draped in the Green altar cloth dedicated to Dame Jocelyn Woollcombe DBE. During the service wreath was laid in memory of the 15 wrens.

The Wren Magazine

The deadline has now passed for the Spring Edition, but please keep your articles coming in for our Summer Edition. Email [email protected] Deadline for articles for the Summer Edition is the 19th June. Do let us know if you would prefer your magazine digitally rather than by post.

Don’t forget, you can let us know anytime if you would like your names added to the Wimbledon, or Cenotaph ballots. The Garden Party ballot is now closed We again hope to be lucky enough to receive tickets for all of these events again this year.