Royal Naval Engineers

The Objects of the Society:

The provision of Death or Invaliding Benefits for its Members.

The promotion of the social, intellectual and general welfare of its members conformably with the MOD (Navy) Regulations.

Holidays 4 Heroes is an informal group of people, including serving and retired personnel from all the UK Armed Forces and civilian supporters. We try to assist serving and former military personnel and their families, in a variety of ways that might otherwise fall outside the remit of the better-known Forces Charities. We work together through an Internet web-site used, mainly but certainly not exclusively, by Army personnel (The ARmy Rumour SErvice or "Arrse" for short - the military have a highly sophisticated sense of humour!).

It all started in December 2007, when users of the "Arrse" website and chat-room were made aware of a former serviceman in some financial difficulty and in imminent risk of being evicted from his home. In the simplest of terms, the folks had a whip-round and sorted the problem - within 48 hours the guy and his family were saved from eviction, Christmas groceries and presents for the children were provided, and everyone felt really good.

You might ask at this point why the well-established Service Charities were unable to help. Well, of course they could. However, any assistance would probably have to come at the end of an assessment, by when it could be too late. The informal arrangement, and the speed of the internet, solved the problem faster than a First Class stamp!

Whilst basking in the warm glow of "Good Deed for Christmas", it became clear that the case just resolved must have been just one of dozens. And so the network started networking, as various users of the website explored where other deserving cases might benefit from the rapid response of an internet community. At the same time, various anonymous members of the website community turned out to have some extremely useful talents, and contacts.

And things started happening very quickly!

In addition to helping those who have fallen on hard times, one of our colleagues who owns an apartment in Spain had the idea of providing a free holiday for the family of a severely wounded serviceman. The underlying thought was that this could provide a much-needed break from their usual routines of hospital appointments, whilst at the same time allowing the family some time together to come to terms with the injuries that had been suffered. Funds for the flights were collected via the web-site.

This aspect has constantly expanded ever since, with a growing network of apartment and villa owners donating free accommodation. In addition, some Regimental and Corps Welfare Associations have been able to provide financial assistance towards flight costs, and the team works closely with Unit Welfare Officers to identify suitable cases.

By August 2008, nearly 50 families have been booked for free holidays. In addition, nearly a dozen "rapid intervention" welfare cases have been resolved.The holiday element of our work has taken the lions share of recent effort and we have decided to brand our group       

AFF are often pivotal in achieving improvements for Army families such as changes to Government and military policy and changes to the delivery of how things are provided for families. The AFF does not do this by itself; our role is to highlight problems to the chain of command or service providers, and to work with them and other agencies to improve the support they provide to Service families.

AFF also provides a signposting service to help you find the right person to speak to, as well as providing useful information for Army families through its website and magazine, the AFF Families Journal

The Army Cadet Force is one of the UK’s oldest, largest and most successful youth organisations. We have a long and proud history of preparing youngsters for all walks of life and encouraging an active involvement in local communities. We have 44,000 cadets and 8000 adult instructors in over 1700 Cadet Centres spread across the UK.

uk4u Thanks! is a registered charity which provides Christmas boxes full of presents (affectionately known as the 'square stocking') as a gift from the nation to all those serving in the forces overseas away from their families on Christmas Day.

We ensure that all Servicemen and women who are serving away at Christmas receive a box, whether they are in the Army, Royal Navy or the Royal Air Force, and wherever they are in the world.

The initiative was inspired by the 1914 Christmas Gift Fund, established by Princess Mary, the daughter of King George V. You can find out more about the first Christmas box here. The Duke of Westminster is Patron of our charity.

In 2008, thanks entirely to generous donations from members of the public and our sponsors, uk4u was able to send 24,500 Christmas gift boxes to UK Armed Forces personnel on duty overseas or in hospital over the Christmas period because they have been injured on operations. The charity does not receive any public funds, but the Ministry of Defence (MoD) supports the charity with advice and guidance on the number of boxes required and the contents. It also assists with the massive logistic operation it takes to deliver the boxes in time for Christmas Day.

The MoD help us by sending the boxes in any transport going out to operational theatres which has spare capacity. It is important that the boxes are not sent through the British Forces Post Office system, so there is no chance that they will 'clog up' the supply chain and delay parcels from families and friends getting to their loved ones.