MINUTES OF THE 30th
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
of the
LANGELEBEN REUNION
ASSOCIATION
held on
FRIDAY 30 JUNE 2023
at
QUORN GRANGE HOTEL,
LOUGHBOROUGH
President:
Tim Inshaw, CB
Stand-in Chairman: Steven ‘Farmer’ Vaughan in
place of Chris Jones
Membership Secretary: Charlie Charlesworth
Treasurer: Steven ‘Farmer’ Vaughan
UK Meeting Secretary: Dick Pickup
Secretary: Jud Charlesworth
The meeting opened at 1100 hrs with 28 members in
attendance.
1 CHAIRMAN’S INTRODUCTION AND REPORT
The Stand-in Chairman welcomed the members to the
meeting He then read an address from the Chairman, Chris
Jones, from which details of his medical struggle
and the reason for his absence from the meeting were
given. Chris mentioned his disappointment that the
numbers attending were on the low side and looked
forward hearing of ideas, from the membership, as to how
this matter may be addressed. He stressed that, despite
his illness, he was always available to discuss
suggestions, or any other matter, and would welcome
people popping in to see him should they be in his
neighbourhood. He reiterated that he was constantly
looking for stories and photographs for the Listening
Post and encouraged members to continue to submit these
to him.
Farmer Vaughan then showed the membership the
gavel and stand, made and donated to the Association, by
Chris Jones.
2 LAST POST
The membership were asked to stand and the names of
those members who had passed away since the last AGM
were read out:
JOHN BAMFORD – Royal Signals – 1959-1960
DES KERSHAW – Royal Signals – 1960-1962
The exhortation was recited and a minute’s silence
observed.
GEORGE
BERG, a non-member who had lived in Konigslutter,
had attended some reunions and was a great friend of a
number of members was also remembered.
Gerry Kane then reported that he had just been
informed that GEOFF HOWELL, Int Corps, had
passed away.
3 APOLOGIES
Apologies had been received from: Chris Jones; Rod
(and Eileen) Goddard; Horst Funke; Tom Perkins; Roy
Sparrow; Roger London; Keith Middleton; Ted Roberts;
Dave Garner; Dave ‘Strasse’ Street; Robbie McCallum;
Ian (and Kathleen) Trowhill; and Ken Vipond.
A message from Ken Vipond to the membership was
read out.
4
MINUTES OF THE LAST MEETING
The minutes of the last meeting, held on 19 November
2022, had been circulated to the membership and posted
on the Association website. Gerry Kane proposed,
and Steve Hickman seconded, that the minutes
were a true reflection of the proceedings of that
meeting.
5 MATTERS ARISING
There were no matters arising.
6 MEMBERSHIP SECRETARY’S REPORT
It was reported that:
two members had passed away since the last meeting
five new members had signed up:
Kevin
Hickman
Ben Husband
John Berry
John Webster
Sam Husband
giving a total membership of 296.
The Membership Secretary thanked Ken Vipond and
Keith Middleton for their generous donations to
Association funds, and Horst Funke and Roy
Sparrow for their kind donations of money towards
the purchase of raffle prizes.
The Membership Secretary proffered his thanks to Lawrence
Sterland for standing in as Standard Bearer.
7 TREASURER’S REPORT
Details of the accounts had been circulated for scrutiny
and the balances were as follows:
Business Account £1527.52
Reserve Account £808.59
TOTAL £2336.11
A refund for £38.00 was still awaited as a result of an
overpayment by that amount to Grade 1 Solutions.
8 SECRETARY’S REPORT
Tribute was paid to Dick Pickup for his work liaising
with Quorn Grange Hotel and working on behalf of the
Association to secure preferential rates.
9 PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS
The President thanked Farmer Vaughan for
standing in as Chairman and Jud Charlesworth for
taking on the role as Secretary
He then went on to say that, having watched a repeat of
the TV programme MASH, he had finally ‘got it’ about
Langeleben. In both the TV series and at Langeleben –
particularly in the 50s and 60s - the officers and
soldiers were mainly conscripts, based miles from
anywhere, scruffy, ill-disciplined and full of real
characters with nicknames rather than ranks – in essence
a complete shower. However, when the real work needed to
be done they were both transformed into a highly
effective teams, producing high quality outputs.
He then went on to give an update on the Royal Signals
and Intelligence Corps, apologising to other cap-badges
for not being able to give an update on their particular
corps.
Elements
of 10, 16, 22 Signal Regiments and various individual
augmentees from the across the Royal Signals had been
deployed since the beginning of the Ukranian crisis as
part of a Joint Force CIS (Communications and
Information Services) (Eastern Europe). The HQ of this
Joint CIS Force was in Poland. The CEMA: (Cyber and
Electronic Magnetic Activities) Group was now well
established and consists of 13 Signal Regiment, 14
Signal Regiment (Electronic Warfare) and 21 Signal
Regiment (Electronic Warfare), all under a full colonel.
These signal regiments include a great deal of
Intelligence Corps personnel. 14 and 21 Signal Regiments
(Electronic Warfare) play a pivotal role in EW and 13
Signal Regiment is mainly focused on supporting the
Army’s Cyber Threat Intelligence Organisation and on
providing defensive Cyber operations.
Royal
Signals had also been busy providing humanitarian
support to Turkey following its earthquake and
conducting a huge amount of exercises concerned with
improving inter-operability with our Allies: A Signals
Regiment had been deployed to the States for 3 months
testing and trialing the ability to work together. Other
enduring operations continue to be supported in Somalia,
Nigeria, Kenya, Iraq and Kuwait. It was worth noting that
the Royal Signals is now only 6,200 strong. Regiments used
to be between 600 and 1000 strong, but nowadays they are
more like 400 strong with two communications squadrons and a support squadron. He thought
that it may be of interest to note that around 10% of
Royal Signals regular strength now comes from the Queens
Gurkha Signals because recruitment and retention of
soldiers from the UK and Commonwealth is poor.
As with the Royal Signals, the Intelligence Corps now
had a higher profile than was the case when most of the
membership were serving, and both Corps need people with
specialist skills. Apparently the Intelligence Corps had
introduced an OPTI trade to enable operators to practice
their specialism by staying at a given rank, but still
accruing pay rises and pension rights. In this way
personnel did not have to worry about having to move out
of role to realise an increase in salary. The
Intelligence Corps had therefore created a pool of ‘Deep
Specialists’, especially in Cyber Threat Intelligence
and Data Analytics. Intelligence Corps linguists were
currently using over eight different languages
supporting operations in Asia, Africa, Middle East, Latin
America and Eastern Europe. He again mentioned that
General Jim Hockenhull, commander of the UK’s Strategic
Command, was an Intelligence Corps officer – although he
clearly only managed to achieve such fame given the
experience and mentoring that he had received as a troop
commander in 9 Signal Regiment (which the President had
commanded)!!
Referring back to the last AGM he sought confirmation from
the membership that it was still their wish that the
Reunion and AGM be held annually in the UK in either May
or June, with a presence every other year in Langeleben
but no official meeting. This was accepted by the
membership and the following comments from the floor,
relating to the biennial meeting in Germany, were
registered:
- It
was important to note that Langeleben was where it
all started and sight of this should not be lost
- Need
to ensure that those who wished to go can get there
- The
Association’s presence should be maintained by
continuing to March, with the standard, in the
parades.
Discussion then followed about how to encourage the
current membership to get more involved in events, and
how to attract younger members.
Finally, the President again emphasised that, as well as
being Chairman, Chris Jones was also the
website manager and the Editor of the Listening
Post. He appealed to the membership for a person/s to
take on the role of Editor of the Listening Post
otherwise it would have to cease to exist in its current
form. He suggested that it might be possible for an
honorary member to take on the production of the
Listening Post (layout etc), with a full member calling
for articles and selecting those that should be printed
in each edition.
10 ANY OTHER BUSINESS
As the appointed Standard Bearer, Robbie McCallum,
now resides in Germany, and the AGMs going forward would
be held in the UK, it was felt that a Standard Bearer
for the UK should be appointed. Lawrence Sterland
agreed to think about this position.
Dick Pickup communicated arrangements for the
group photograph and the evening dinner.
There being no further business the meeting closed at
1150 hrs.
11 DATE OF NEXT MEETING to be advised.
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