LegionLive

Former England football manager Graham Taylor OBE has saddled up in London’s Greenwich Park to join 300 riders for the RBL’s Pedal to Paris event.

Pedal to Paris is now in its 15th year, and sees riders take on nearly 300 miles of road as they cycle to the Arc de Triomphe in France. Graham will be arriving at the final destination on Sunday afternoon, and earlier today he shared his excitement: ‘I’m really looking forward to testing myself, I hear it can be pretty gruelling. I’m confident that I will finish the ride - I’m already looking forward to the champagne at the Arc de Triomphe!’

The Legion is hoping to raise £500,000 from the ride for the Battle Back Challenge Centre, which will provide injured Service personnel with adaptive sports and adventure training when it opens in 2012.

Graham is a long-time supporter of the Legion, and has said that the bike ride ‘promises to be both challenging and rewarding - and knowing that it will raise funds for the Battle Back Centre is reward enough for me. The Legion is such a worthy cause, and the work they do is so important at the moment, what with events in Afghanistan.’

To show Graham your support, head over to his Just Giving donation page or text ‘Graham’ to 70222. Texts will cost £3.00, plus your standard network charge.

Sergeant Major Gary Chilton, Sergeant Richie Maddocks and Lance Corporal Ryan Idzi - otherwise known as ‘The Soldiers’ - have raised a whopping £270,000 from album sales to split between three Armed Forces charities.

Their debut album, ‘Coming Home,’ was released in October last year, and you may recall they performed at the Festival of Remembrance in November in front of  the Queen and members of the Royal family.

Last Friday, Russell Thompson (pictured far left), the Legion’s Director of National Events and Fundraising was presented with The Soldiers’ generous donation to the Legion - a cheque for £90,300.

Take a look at the British Forces News piece below to see the cheque presentation, an interview with Russell Thompson, and see The Soldiers talk about why they asked Camp Bastion troops to sing on their next single.

Does strutting your stuff whilst raising money for the Royal British Legion sound like an opportunity too good to be missed? If so, make sure you take part in this year’s ‘Dance Day UK’, which officially launched this month.

The organisers have decided to donate a large chunk of their proceeds to the Legion, showing their support of charities which look after and support our Serving and Ex-Service men, women and their families.

Organiser Gill Taylor has asked the public to get behind ‘Dance Day UK’ to raise important funds for charities which support our Servicemen, adding that, ‘our Armed Forces serve our country without question and, for many, the real battles only  begin when they return home, often injured both physically and psychologically.’

The event is being supported by an increasing list of celebrities. The Swingtime Sweethearts, Annie Riley and Le’arna Ashleigh, (pictured above with the Forces original all time sweetheart Vera Lynn ) have joined forces with the Strictly Come Dancing star Erin Boag to help launch the event.

Dance Day UK is inviting anyone and everyone to support this event by organising dance events across the country , on or around the 25th September

So why not get involved? You can email the team at  info@dancedayuk.org for further info.

I will hopefully be posting more about this in the coming weeks, so if you plan to take part, I’d love to see some photos! Just send them to me at: poppy@legionlive.org.uk

If you follow me on Twitter you’ll know that I had a great day out at Doncaster Races on Saturday!

It was the Legion’s last big fundraising event before the Poppy Appeal, and the Poppy People were out in force doing what they do best, charming the public and educating them about how the Legion supports our Armed Forces.

There was a fantastic parade of standards, with the bearers ‘bearing’ up against the blustery wind!

The Legion race also went down well, but unfortunately my chosen horse didn’t win!!

Here’s a photo of the horse that did, Blue Bunting, having a well deserved drink after the race.

Plus…there was an amazing concert after the races by Scouting For Girls. All in all it was a grand day out!

The fantastic news is that the Legion has already raised an estimated £10k from the day and is still counting…stay tuned for an update.

The Royal British Legion is pleased to announce Tony Blair will be donating all of the proceeds from his forthcoming memoirs, A Journey, to the Battle Back Challenge Centre, a Legion funded project that will provide state-of-the-art rehabilitation services for seriously injured Service personnel.

The Legion has now committed £25m over 10 years to support the MoD’s Personnel Recovery Centre (PRC) programme which was announced earlier this year.  The charity’s funding support covers the running of the 4 PRCs and all the capital and civilian running costs of the Battle Back Challenge Centre - a major part of the programme which aims to help seriously injured personnel using sport and outdoor activities to help physical rehabilitation and confidence building. The innovative project will help injured service personnel fulfil their potential and get back to active duty or civilian life.

The Royal British Legion’s Battle Back Challenge Centre is due to open in summer 2012. The Legion expects that most injured personnel who are able to return to active duty will go through the Battle Back Centre as part of their recovery. The Centre, which will be open to personnel across the Armed Forces, will provide accommodation and a state-of-the-art gym and training facility.

Chris Simpkins, Director General of the Royal British Legion, said:

“The Legion is delighted to accept this very generous donation which gives an excellent start to our fundraising target of £12m for the Battle Back Challenge Centre and a total of £25m as our contribution to the provision of the world class service for injured personnel for the next 10 years. The culture of the Centre will very much be about what users of the service can do rather than what they can’t but some of the servicemen and women are likely to need the Legion’s support for the rest of their lives. Mr. Blair’s generosity is much appreciated and will help us to make a real and lasting difference to the lives of hundreds of injured personnel.”

A spokesman for Tony Blair said:

“Tony Blair decided on leaving office that he would donate the proceeds of his memoirs to a charity for the Armed Forces as a way of marking the enormous sacrifice they make for the security of our people and the world. The Royal British Legion is just such a cause.

“In making this decision, Tony Blair recognises the courage and sacrifice the armed forces demonstrate day in, day out. As Prime Minister he witnessed that for himself in Iraq, Afghanistan, Northern Ireland, Sierra Leone and Kosovo. This is his way of honouring their courage and sacrifice.

“We have been consulting with a number of people and organisations to decide the best support he can give. There is one project consistently highlighted: The Royal British Legion’s Battle Back Challenge Centre.

“As Tony Blair said to the House of Commons on his last day in office:

“‘I believe that they [the Armed Forces] are fighting for the security of this country and the wider world against people who would destroy our way of life. But whatever view people take of my decisions, I think that there is only one view to take of them: they are the bravest and the best.’”

Hollywood stars Sylvester Stallone and Jason Statham met with members of the 2nd Battalion Princess of Wales Royal Regiment at Wellington Barracks this week before the premiere of their new film, The Expendables.

Sly also took the opportunity to meet up with real life hero L/Cpl Beharry who received the Victoria Cross for bravery in Iraq in 2005, and is the youngest of only seven living recipients of the medal.

The Expendables film plot surrounds a group of ex-SAS soldiers who take on an evil drugs baron, and Sly Stallone’s most famous role, Rambo, was a war veteran, so it was great to see him showing his respect to our Forces.

Just look who the London branch made friends with the other day - none other than the lovely Jason Donovan!

The branch currently has some new and exciting volunteer oppportunties in the Sydenham area, so if this takes your fancy, check out their Facebook page for more details.

I came across an interesting story in the news today about how the secret of the British D-Day success was down to some ingenius home cooking! Never-before-seen documents detailing dishes for the men on the front line were discovered during a house clearance in Wiltshire.

Apparently, what gave our boys their strength when they landed in Normandy in 1944 was a set of recipes which had been created with military precision. On the menu was essential fats, proteins and carbohydrates. Breakfast consisted of bacon and fried bread, dinner included hotpot or a braised steak and sweet treats introduced desserts such as jam flan and baked fruit pudding.

Celebrity chef Anthony Worrall Thompson has commented that the amount of hot food offered would have been good for morale. He said, ‘Coming back to a cooked meal would have been great psychologically…whoever put these recipes together would have worked out the nutritional content and made sure the men got what was necessary.’

The recipes, which give such a unique insight into the day to day diet of serving World War II soldiers, are now going up for auction, and are expected to fetch up to £1,000.

Congratulations to former Soldier Ed Stafford, who today completed a 4,000 mile trek along the length of the Amazon.

The trek took him 859 days (that’s over two years!); he endured over 50,000 mosquito bites (itchy!!) and lived off pirahna broth most days. In fact, here’s a clip of him catching some fish for dinner:

Ed is the first person in the world to have walked the whole length of the river. It just goes to show how much we can achieve if we just put our mind to it. I’m sure Ed’s military training helped of course!

Did you know that the Doncaster Race Day is swiftly approaching? The 14th August event is being attended by The Royal British Legion in their last big fundraising event before the Poppy Appeal later this year. The Racecourse is donating £2.50 to the Legion for every ticket sold, and RBL members will also receive a special discount off the price. On the day the Legion will be trooping the colour with a parade of standards before the first race and an army of volunteers will be roaming the grounds with collection buckets throughout the day.

But that’s not all…not only does the ticket include entry to the racecourse but also an evening concert by Scouting for Girls!

In addition, if you were hoping to make the day even more special, at a cost of £75.00 you’ll gain entry to the course, have the opportunity of seeing Scouting for Girls in action and be provided with a three-course lunch and wine in the Lazarus suite.

Hope you’ll agree that the event promises to be a great day out, so do please help us spread the word about it and come along if you can. Details on the RBL discount and how to attend can be found here.