The Honourable Artillery Company has recently published this handsome photographic book commemorating the service of HAC units in the First World War: Reflections of a Regiment: the Honourable Artillery Company and the Great War in Pictures. Price £35 plus p&p. You can order direct from the HAC via Cristina Kennedy on 020 7382 1537, emailing her onhac@hac.org.uk , or order online here >>>.  (The book is also available via Amazon).

Please see urgent support needed for the above petition. Link below. We suggest members sign this and pass on to others and their local clubs. There is a petition to support shooting in the Commonwealth Games on: https://www.change.org/p/david-grevemberg-include-shooting-in-the-commonwealth-games-birmingham-2022?recruiter=31780033&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_initial.undefined&utm_term=autopublish&utm_content=ex43%3Av1 Thank you Derek Stimpson

Members should support the following petition regarding saving the Brussels Army Museum display and technical departments. Here is a link, and following that, details from FESAC’s email about the event at the Museum on the 19th January at which we expect to be represented. https://www.change.org/p/au-gouvernement-f%C3%A9d%C3%A9ral-hold-up-op-het-legermuseum-sur-le-mus%C3%A9e-de-l-arm%C3%A9e-on-the-museum-of-the-armed-forces Please contact me if you have any questions. Derek Stimpson chairman@hbsa-uk.org Message from FESAC Chairman, Stephen Petroni:- I have just received some disturbing news from our friend Paul Dubrunfaut, who has been curating the arms at the Brussels Military museum for several years. Paul gave us his full support when we were under attack by the EU Commission, having agreed to my proposal to host a number of IMCO MEPs to the museum and visit the reserve collection to make the understand the importance of conserving firearms in their original working condition. It is Paul who now needs our support. Let me quote what he has told me after I responded to his first email.

“Since the 1st of May 2017 the Belgian Government has decided to create a new parastatal organisation called the “War Heritage Institute” to absorb our Royal Military Museum and other federal institutions as the Fort of Breendonck (a WW II Memorial), The Institution for War Invalids etc. This to limit the cost to only one organisation and at the same time to diminish the importance of the scientific job done by the curators of the former Military Museum (they want to control everything we’ll do in the future i.e. research, publications, acquisitions, conservation etc.).

I have started an action towards the Constitutional Court of Belgium to contest the law creating this new WHI. My solicitor is Marc Verdussen, a very well-known teacher at the Louvain-la-Neuve University and we have good reasons to believe in a positive result but it will take time!

Actually the most important thing to do is to preserve the two oldest galleries in our Museum. Therefore we need international support. We hope that the more signatures we have for our petition the more the politicians will understand that we are ready to fight until the end! We keep in touch and I will inform the organisers of the conference that we can count on your support.”

Members may be aware of the sad death of Colin Greenwood.