ITS official, Pershore & District Branch, Royal British Legion is the most efficient branch in Worcestershire. At this year’s Annual conference held at County Hall, Worcester, the Secretary, Mr Gareth Jenkins received the Taffy Matthews Trophy for Efficiency from the County President, Mr Ken Draper. This is the second year running that the Branch has received a trophy, last year the Branch was presented with the Runners Up Trophy in the efficiency category and this year it went one better.

The Branch President, Lt. Col. Susan Payne TD, BSc and the Branch Chairman, Mr Simon Dudfield also attended the Conference.

The conference opened with the tribute and the Kohima Epitaph and we were asked to remember the 95 members of the county who had passed away during the past year. The County President, Mr Ken Draper, presented his report to the assembled members. He emphasised the importance of recruiting new members into the Legion and pointed to the fact that overall the Legion had lost members BUT Worcestershire had bucked the trend by increasing its membership by some 15 per cent during the year. The County Chairman, Mr David Waldron presented his report and Pershore Branch was singled out for its efforts on two occasions, the Somme 100 Concert and the 2016 Poppy Concert. The Guest Speaker for the Conference was Mr Charles Byrne, Director General of the Royal British Legion. Mr Byrne now lives in Worcester and is a member of the Claines Branch. His talk was well received by the members and bodes well for the future of the Legion. After a break for refreshments there then occurred the highlight of the Conference, the awarding of two Legion d’honnuer medals by the Honorary French Consul, to a standing ovation, to two Legion members. There then followed the mundane business of voting for members of the County Committee, the delegate to National Conference, the adoption of the County 3 Year Plan and any motions that had been put forward. Presentations of Awards and Trophies followed then the Conference was closed at 16.15hrs.