This year has past as quickly as ever. The AGM and Reunion Dinner seems a distant memory. The Branches have been as busy as ever. We have sadly lost some of our friends and colleagues, but they will be remembered. We now look forward to the New Year, which will be a busy one for the Trustees.

Changes in the law require that we administer the Association in a more tightly controlled way. You will learn more of this in the Year Book mailing (which we hope to post mid-February) and the enclosures with it.....but for now, and on behalf of all the Trustees, I wish you a very merry Christmas, and a happy and peaceful New Year!'

Thanks,

Ray

Ray Bennett

Captain RFA (retd)

Chairman

Royal Fleet Auxiliary Association

Our Chairman has asked me to inform our membership that due to unforseen circumstances there is a delay in publishing last year's accounts. Nothing sinister here but family concerns and duties do take priority. The accounts once audited will, as usual, be published on this website and of course, on the Charities Commission for England and Wales http://apps.charitycommission.gov.uk/Showcharity/RegisterOfCharities/registerhomepage.aspx and the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator http://www.oscr.org.uk/

The “Spring 2017, Tidespring Special” edition of e-Force4 was published yesterday to all paid up members of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary Association who have declared an up to date email address. If you haven’t received a copy, and are a member please let me know.

The statistics back from our email distribution have shown that we had 29 bounced emails. 3 Soft Bounces the possible causes for which are

• Mailbox is full (over quota).
• Recipient email server is down or offline.
• Email message is too large.

And 26 Hard Bounces, the possible causes for which are

• Recipient email address does not exist.
• Domain name does not exist.
• Recipient email server has completely blocked delivery.

I know whose email addresses have suffered this problem but clearly I cannot publish any data on the web for fear of being in breach of data protection rules.

I am however, pretty sure I can publish the associated membership numbers without giving anything away other than to the people in question so here goes.

Soft Bounces:- 0193 and 0802

Hard Bounces:- 0675, 0642, 0830, 0183, 0468, 0473, 0255, 0735, 0592, 0520, 0489, 0524, 0132, 0467, 0417, 0672, 0126, 0571, 0771, 0493, 0623, 0686, 0772, 0476, 0465, and 0372.

If your membership number is there email me force4@rfa-association.org.uk and I will update our records accordingly.

PLEASE DO NOTE that e-Force4 is only available to paid up Association members and only by email.

At 02:00 BST on Sunday 30th October 2016 clocks will be retarded 1 hour to 01:00 GMT, time zone Zulu. (We don't do UTC on this site.)

Clocks will remain on GMT until 01:00 26th March 2017 when they will be advanced 1 hour to BST time zone Alpha

If you need to check your timepiece have a look HERE for a GMT clock