2015 - close to War Memorial Rededication on 22nd Feb

It's a long time since my last post but there's been a big family gathering here over Christmas and New Year so poppies have been rather neglected. It seems that most of our poppy makers have also been otherwise occupied as there weren't many poppies handed in early in January.

Today we received about 350 - wonderful! This means we probably have collected well over 12,000 poppies now and on the way to 13,000. We've really stopped counting every one as we're using poppies in different ways. Some poppies are going on to sheets to create a field of poppies on ANZAC Day and lots are going on to Velcro strips.

 This photo shows a few poppies along the new pathway.

These strips of poppies will be used to line the pathways when the Tuncurry War Memorial is rededicated on 22nd February. We're delighted that our wonderful graffiti Buster, Ted Bickford, and his helpers are going to assist in putting out and picking up the poppies on 22nd. Feb. Many thanks to Ted and your group for helping us in this way -  the Great Lakes 5000 Poppies ladies!

We've placed and ad in the local paper, The Advocate, for 11th Feb and we're appealing to the public for more poppies. We need more so we have enough to line the pathways and to cover the sheets for ANZAC Day.

 
We've also made many smaller poppies and stitched brooch pins to the back of them. The RSL sub-branch people will take as many as possible of these as they like to wear them on ordinary shirts. We gave some of these small poppies and a variety of larger poppies to 14 school children and the accompanying adults who are travelling overseas to visit war cemeteries and see battlefields in Europe in April. They will place the larger poppies on gravestones. It's unfortunate that the situation in Turkey has meant that schools are not taking pupils to Gallipoli now.

Here are some of the wonderful poppy makers at a Tuesday morning workshop.

We're all ages and are enjoying the friendship here as we work and chat.