Legion branch ‘loses’ £3,000 in head office blunder

HENLEY Royal British Legion “lost” £3,000 after an accounting mistake by the organisation’s head office.

Kathy Bardwell-Springett, branch treasurer, revealed the error at the branch annual meeting at Henley Rugby Club on Thursday last week.

In a presentation to the branch, Ms Bardwell-Springett explained that the error came after head office mixed up the accounts in withdrawing funds for the branch’s VE day celebrations, which it staged earlier this year. She said: “So our total branch funds as of June 30 stood at £19,750. That’s a £4,000 decrease on last year, which in itself might sound slightly alarming.

“However, £3,000 of that decrease was caused by an error by head office in administering our Branch Funds Initiative Savings Account.

“We had withdrawn some funds from a legacy trust to help fund VE Day events and it was incorrectly taken from our savings account, which put it overdrawn which shouldn’t really be possible.”

Ms Bardwell-Springett said it had now been corrected and the money was back in the account.

She also reported that the branch had recorded an income of £15,203 this year, due to a combination of monthly lunches and VE 80 Day celebrations.

Ms Bardwell-Springett said that the funding for the celebrations had come from a variety of sources, including legacy funds, its own savings and from head office. She said: “For VE 80, we made a decision that we were going to invest some branch funds into the celebration. Those events raised £10,000 net of expenditure for the Henley Poppy Appeal, which was a fantastic result. We do feel that the branch’s investment in that event was very well justified.

“The branch essentially funded VE 80 to the tune of around £6,000 pounds, of which £1,000 came from head office.”

The branch also elected in a new vice-chair, Timothy Came, who has been a member of the branch for more than six years.