Who we are and History

Royal Air Forces Association Armourers Branch 1366 

The Armourers Branch 1366 was founded 28 June 2014 (Inaugural meeting) 

Established as a Royal Air Forces Association Branch at the inaugural AGM  

28 March 2015 at Marriot Hotel in Leicester 

Core Aims 

The Armourers Branch follows the RAF Associations core aims and values.  We are committed to supporting the RAF Family, whether currently serving or veterans, in a wide range of ways, delivering help and support when and where it is needed. 

Why did we form the Branch?  

Specifically to be a direct route of communication for veteran and serving members of the Armament trade and their dependants, into the RAF Association if they require support and welfare in times of need. 

During the initial formation of the group on a social media website, we discussed what our aims were. The original idea was only to either send a wreath to funerals, or possibly make a donation to a named charity and nothing more than that. As this looked like it would be an easy target to achieve without too much help, we rather naïvely thought that we would be able to run this venture through the social media website.  

Why didn’t we form an Association? 

Due to the rules and regulations now required to be adhered to when forming an Unincorporated Association or Charitable Incorporated Organisation we decided that it would be more prudent to belong to a larger well established organisation rather than form a new Association.  

Why didn’t we join an already existing Association? 

Initial discussions during the infancy of our group. Although we knew of other Associations already offered support in very similar situations and to similar groups of people, we felt that they would not be able to offer the specific help we would require with the potential high number of members we may have.  We were also worried that the influx of such a high number of new members into an already existing small to medium sized association could be problematic. The issue of our identity being lost was not an issue, however, with the high number of younger members of our group and the comments and feedback we were receiving we decided we should stay with the idea of a new group. 

Why did we choose the RAF Association? 

As we went through the process of choosing the best organisation to be affiliated with, it was felt that the RAF Association could offer us the best guidance through the initial stages of making our group an official entity and also the support after that had been achieved. I am pleased to tell you, that the RAF Association have indeed been keen to help the Branch as a whole, but also individual members of the Committee as they try to understand the requirements of both the Association Regulations and also the rules of such governing bodies such as the Charities Commission.