RMA Membership is spread across 95 active Branches worldwide, each of which is unique and provide lots of opportunity for camaraderie throughout the Corps Family. We hope that our new Branch Focus will help to inspire and encourage even more of our Supporters to join the Royal Marines Association.
For more information click here.
Branch Focus: Sheffield
Any Royal Marines’ veteran who lived in and around Sheffield and who felt like meeting up with a few of their fellow Bootnecks prior to December 2018 had no option but to take a round-trip of about 45 miles to reach the nearest RMA Branch to the north of England city.
42 Cdo veteran Mark Wilkinson was one. He’d left the RMs in 1984 after four and a half year’s service and went on to have a successful career in the Fire & Rescue Service before retiring in 2015. But ‘Once a Marine, Always a Marine’ and he still felt still very much part of the Corps Family.
Every year, he joined others by marching in the city’s Remembrance Day Parade proudly wearing his green ‘lid. And so it was that in November 2018 during a chat afterwards with Mark Horry who had served 11years in 40 Cdo, 45 Cdo and Cdo Logs, they discovered they both wished there was a Membership Branch that was closer to home.
The seed was sown and so – taking matters into their own hands and having spoken with the RMA Central Office team (who were only too delighted to help support the opening of a new Branch) – the new Sheffield Branch became reality – Mark W as Chair with Mark H taking on the role of Branch Secretary.
There were only five people at that first meeting – but it was a start and all had a really enjoyable time and full of enthusiasm with plans for attracting more members – but then Covid hit. They kept in touch and after a two-year enforced hiatus due to the pandemic, meetings started up again. The Branch is going from strength to strength and there are now 82 members on the books, with ages ranging from the mid 20’s to 80+ years.
Its growth and increasing popularity with younger members are partly attributed to the jointly agreed desire to keep the monthly lunchtime meetings at the local Wetherspoons as informal as possible, allowing plenty of time for camaraderie, planning activities and sharing fundraising ideas.
The Branch was delighted to have been officially recognised by Sheffield City Council last year and asked to represent the Corps Family for the first time in its own right at the HMS SHEFFIELD Memorial Parade; and with a growing membership, the Royal Marines’ will have the largest ever presence at this year’s Remembrance Day Parade.
They also plan to have a larger presence at Armed Forces Day. Their small stand last year attracted a lot of interest – one young lad who turned up and was mad keen to join the Royal Marines when he’s older was given the advice to “get as fit as you can – and learn to iron!”
At the other end of the spectrum, one member who is a fly-fishing expert is planning a day at a local reservoir for those who are interested in casting around a bit!
“We’re starting small and taking it as it comes,” says Mark W. “
We are all very much brothers-in-arms. We know that everyone who turns up to our meetings for a drink and a chat can still share anything – it doesn’t matter what it is. We’ve all been through the same thing in the Marines, experienced the same things, felt the same feelings – and we are still around to look after and support one another and do whatever we can to help each other out – and have some fun as well. That’s really what it’s all about in the end.”
If you would like to become a member of the RMA and join the Sheffield Branch, you can do so for free by signing up to the Association here or contact Central Office to find out more.
membership@rma-trmc.org
