(Chinese) poppy day soon!

[jonesy]

www.stuff.co.nz/national/6753362/Seeing-red-at-Chinese-poppies-on-Anzac-Day

Yep its that time again....however slightly soured by this story about where our poppies are now made. Pretty tough decision by the RSA, but does benefit their welfare recipients.
Me? I'll be buying one and wearing it with pride. I dont give a damn where its been made, its a symbol of rememberance and thanks for the folks that went away to fight for our freedom, and for those that made the ultimate sacrifice.

[dakdriver]

I will still give my donation to the RSA
But don’t agree with the country where these poppies are made. China’s record of human rights is dismal
I believe Human rights are fundamentally what most wars we have been involved in were about.
So I don’t think I will accept the poppy thanks.

[Dave Homewood]

They have been made in China for years Nelson. So what? Everything else is too. Most of the clothes we will pin the poppies to will also be from a Chinese sweat shop.

It's only the southerners who were well behind the times who've finally switched to the cheaper version last year, thus allowing the ability to raise more money for our veterans.

[Dave Homewood]

And if you feel like having a read there's a long mass debate on this issue from last year too on an old thread.

[phil82]

I'll be in the Mall for two hours on Friday, doing my bit as I did last year, and I frankly don't give a stuff about where the poppies are made because it's irrelevant! The poppy is symbolic, and who made it and where changes nothing.

[Dave Homewood]

Hear hear.

I am curious though to know what happens to all the money collected. The money is meant to be for the welfare needs of ex-servicemen and servicewomen. The RSA was set up during WWI simply because men were coming home wounded and had no work to go to, and no welfare or other hand outs from the Government. The Poppy Appeal was started to raise money for these men.

In later years the Welfare State was set up and also far better conditions for veterans of wars, such as ongoing medical treatment, hearing aids, state housing, special government loans for buying a home or farm, etc. But money was still raised for other welfare causes.

By the 1980's virtually every RSA in the country must have raised money for communal welfare needs like a van for transporting members to hospital or the shops, etc.

Now in the 2010's there are very few veterans of WWII, Korea and Vietnam left and RSA's must be fully equipped with the equipment they need for welfare, so the need for the money must surely be less, but logic tells me they must still collect a huge amount of money on Poppy Day. So what happens to that?

Does it all go into the central RSA fund in Wellington or does each branch keep its takings on Poppy Day? And what does it get spent on these days? Does the money actually get drawn on for those hearing aids etc that I thought the Govt provided?

I'm simply curious. I'm sure there will be some RSA members here who can answer this. I gave up my membership years ago when they closed our club down. Although I have sold the poppies since then when I have been available.

[phil82]

Hmmm...well...right...I've waded through last year's debate on the Chinese poppies[actually they're not Chinese are they, just made there!] and , as I've already stated, where they are made is irrelevant as it is the symbol that matters.

When I retired, I worked in an RSA for six years, and having come with a degree of resource management experience behind me, I was frankly appalled at what passed for management in the National Office, and it's ignorance of why RSA Clubs all over the country were closing. In the case of my own club I predicted in writing that the failure to address a number of issues would result in the club going to the wall, which it did three years later. The management practices at both National and club committee level were so far out of date they were laughable. Local club committees were elected largely on cronyism, and it was very rare to find anyone who had any relevant experience. I recall on one occasion a President sacked an office worker without any consideration of her rights under the Employment Contracts legislation. I pointed out that what he had done was illegal and got the response "not in an RSA it isn't". Well, he was wrong and it cost the club megabucks for unfair dismissal.

On another occasion a club committee overruled a brewery price increase and again I pointed out that beer couldn't be sold for less than we paid for it. "We're an RSA" came the reply, "and we can do what we like".

Prior to gaining the top RSA job, the current incumbent did an investigation ostensibly to bring the RSA kicking and screaming in to the 21st century, a feat which he has largely achieved. I was one of the people he had discussions [we were in Defence at the same time though at very different levels of seniority!] with and I told him exactly how bad National Office management practice was! Resistance to change was deeply entrenched!

Some RSA's, a few, Mt Maunganui being one, Taradale being another grasped the nettle and moved forward, but many who didn't closed.

Like Dave , I never joined an RSA during my 25 years in the Air Force because I didn't look good wearing a tin hat while drinking a pint. I'm not a member now, but I'll still do my two hours in Queensgate Mall on Friday selling poppies because I find it an uplifting experience and the money is used for the purpose for which it is collected.

That is, for Welfare use by the RSA that collected it, though what happens in areas where there is no RSA I don't know!

[phil82]

Just a thought on poppies, and in Flander's Fields in particular.

My wife's father's two older brothers, her uncles, were both killed in France within six months of joining up in New Zealand. They are buried there. A third relative, a cousin, has his name on a memorial as one of those whose body was never found.

In 2006 we hired a car at Charles de Gaulle Airport, and drove north with full directions to two cemeteries and one memorial, courtesy of the War Graves Commision site. I had a bag full of poppies 'borrowed' from an RSA!

All War Graves sights are well signposted, and relatively easy to find. In both case we found the graves and laid our poppies, and marveled at how beautifully kept they all are. They look as though they were installed the day before. What rattles you a bit is the sheer number of cemeteries in Northern France. There are literally hundreds of them, some small, some containing thousands of graves. In both case our two were lying with some Australians and British graves.

After visiting the last cemetery, we found the nearest town was Armentiere, which is not your average tourist attraction, with no major hotels, and I suspect were it to be twinned with a town in New Zealand that town might be Huntly! However, we eventually found a little B and B, run by a middle-aged French couple, who were very kind and also very curious as to why we were there. I got the War Graves material out and showed him, and he stood there shuffling the paper through his hands , but saying nothing, and then I realised he had tears rolling down his cheeks. Finally, he looked at me and said" Ahhh, Mort pour la France", which is roughly, "They died for France".

So let's not forget! The French certainly haven't!

[ZacYates]

I put my $5 into the bucket at the local shop yesterday and pinned my poppy to my shirt (had to take it off today as the label got torn at work).

For those of sufficient tech savviness, you can send a txt to 4463 of the word ANZAC for a $3 donation to the RSA appeal. Two of those will appear on my next cellphone bill :-)

[Dave Homewood]

The RNZRSA will turn 100 years old in 2016. Back in 1966 for their 50th Anniversary BCNZ did a documentary that interviewed a lot of the veterans of the First World War who then ran the RSA's. The overwhelming hope for them was that the RSA would not be around in the future and that it would die out with them. They meant in terms of there not being another big influx of veterans from future wars (this was made just as NZ was getting into Vietnam I guess). So with that sort of attitude it is amazing that it has survived so well and gone through many changes, most recently the modernisation that is desperately trying to keep it relevant to younger people. Turning the clubs into family bars and restaurants is a good move, our Cambridge RSA club was headed down that track and spent big money on a restaurant kitchen but then a new board put a stop to it, and being old stick in the muds, saw the club lose more and more money and patronage till it was decided by memebrs to close down and sell the building. Incidentally the building was the birthplace and childhood home of RNZAF ace Bill 'Hawkeye' Wells. We still have an active RSA office for arranging welfare, etc, just not a club, so I as a younger member who enjoyed using the club both with my younger mates and mixing with the old boys there lost out, but veterans who need the welfare services didn't. I guess most towns that have shut their clubrooms probably also still have a local welfare office and an active committee like we do.