To all Shipmates,

Our January Mess Night will take place on next Tuesday, 14 January, at 7.30pm for 8.00pm start.

On 24 January 1945, the Fleet Air Arm launched an air raid to attack the Japanese oil refineries at Palembang in Sumatra. Five days later they repeated the feat. Despite it being the biggest ever air raid launched by Royal Navy Aircraft Carriers either before or after Operation Meridian, as it was known, it has been largely forgotten.

Our January Mess Night will celebrate the 80th anniversary of this attack. Our Vice Chairman, S/M Ralph Dodds, will give an illustrated talk about the actions of all those years ago and describe the impact that it had on the War on the Far East.

The raffle will close the evening.

Do come along and join in.

To All Shipmates,

Our Xmas Party will be held on Tuesday 10 December 2024, at 1930 onwards for 2000 hours.

We will be having a Christmas Sing Along with Fiona and Emma, song sheets will be provided.

There will be a buffet provided for you by the RNA, followed by the raffle.

So put on your Xmas jumpers and come along and join in the fun.

To All Shipmates,

Do come along to our Mess Night on Tuesday 12 November.

We have a speaker, Mr Rob Gray, from the Museum of East Dorset. The title of his talk is ‘Caring for Historic Collections’. It promises to be an interesting evening.

The evening will conclude with the raffle.

Hope to see you there.

To All Shipmates,

Our October Mess Night is happening on Tuesday 8 October, 7.30pm for 8pm at the St Leonards and St Ives Ex Services Club.  Do come along.

This month S/m Ralph Dodds will be talking about the Battle of Trafalgar.

The raffle will conclude the evening.

Look forward to seeing you there.

Hello Shipmates,

Our next Mess Night is this coming Tuesday, 10 September 2024.

Unfortunately our planned speaker is indisposed, so we are holding a Quiz Night, followed by the raffle.

Do come along and join in the fun.

To All Shipmates,

Come and join in the Summer Social next Tuesday 13 August, at St Ives Club, 7.30 for 8pm start.

Please bring along three 50p pieces for each person. All will be revealed . . .

There will, of course, also be a raffle.

The rig is smart casual for this fun night.

To all Shipmates

Sadly our planned guest speaker, Test Pilot Chris Taylor, has had to pull out.  He’s recently had a knee operation and was hoping to be back flying by now, yet he’s still unable to drive a car. Hopefully he will be available for our September Mess Night.   

For July we now have a presentation by the Chairman and Vice Chairman on the RNA’s visit to Normandy for D-day80.  This will include Shipmate Ralph’s presentation on the  capture of Pointe-de-Hoc by US Rangers early on 6th June 1944, which he gave at that location during our visit.

We look forward to seeing you.

To All Shipmates,

Our June Mess Night will take place next Tuesday 11 June 2024.

Due to unforeseen circumstances the planned 40’s evening has been cancelled. It’s been replaced by a quiz, followed by the raffle.

This is a change from the planned entertainment, when 40’s dress was suggested, so please feel free to wear casual rig – RNA T Shirt or smart casual.

We look forward to seeing you.

To all Shipmates

This month we are delighted to welcome as our guest speaker for the Mess Night, Cdr Dr Mark (Dicky) Barton RNR. 

Dicky is a recently retired RN Marine Engineering Officer who has joined the reserves but who also has a PhD in Naval History.  His particular speciality is naval swords, cutlasses and duelling and he will be speaking to us on the subject of ‘naval duelling’. 

Gareth and Ralph have already seen this presentation as Dicky delivered it (and other presentations) to the national online RNA Fireside Chat towards the back end of 2023, and can vouch for the fact that it is both entertaining, and an extremely interesting insight into an otherwise little known element of the Naval Service’s history.

Dicky is coming from Portsmouth especially for this talk so it would be good to see as many as possible of you there. We’ve already had to cancel him earlier this year when we knew we were going to be low on numbers, so it would be really good to ensure that we don’t have to do it again.

There will, of course, be the raffle towards the end of the evening.

As a reminder, the Mess Night is on Tuesday 14^th May, 1930 for 2000.