NEATH METAL BOX PENSIONERS ASSOCIATION

Hello “Young Metalbox Pensioners” – what a turn out at our first meeting for 3 years over 40 members turned up we were surprised and delighted to the response -Thank You
Just to confirm a couple of things from that meeting-
Coach for Worcester Town / Races all booked for Wednesday 05 July departure time 0900 departure point in Neath will be advised later.
Cost of this trip coach only – Members £20, Non Members partners £25, we already have over 30 names so if your interested and not put your name down yet please let us (Carolynn, George, Linda or myself ) know ASAP.
Afternoon Tea Neath Cricket Club Wednesday 16th August – venue booked start time and entertainment to be advised later –
Cost of the Tea – Members £14.00, Non Members Partners £16.00 I’m sure it will be a great afternoon as previously.
Christmas Dinner Tuesday 5th December venue and cost to be advised later please make a note of the date so we have a good turnout.
We suggested an increase in membership from April 2024 to £12.00 – some members have suggested it should be £15.00 to make it easier to pay and that it makes us more financially viable as do a number of draws through the year – what do you think – let us know at the next meeting.
Do you know of anywhere where we could apply for some funding – if you do let us know .
NEXT MEETING NEATH ATHLETIC CLUB WEDNESDAY 28th JUNE starting 1830 (6.30pm)

Hello “Young” Metalbox Pensioners hope you are all keeping well and looking forward to this new year which I hope will be better than the last few !!
Unfortunately we have to postpone our AGM the new date is WEDNESDAY 26th APRIL 1830 at our usual venue Neath Athletic Club, please pass the information to those that might not be on Facebook, we hope everyone will re-join and we also look forward to welcoming any new members you can help us recruit. The Membership will remain at £10 for this year again which can be paid on the night or dropped into Carolynn or myself.
We are hoping to arrange a couple of events the first being a trip to Worcester Races planned for Wednesday 5th July – times and cost to be advised once we have received al the quotes from coach companies – we would need a to have as many on the trip as possible to fill the coach to keep the cost down. The trip charge would be for the coach only as some might only want to visit Worcester Town you can book the Races on line or pay on the day at the gate.
Secondly we are looking at an Afternoon Tea at the Neath Cricket Club with entertainment late August beginning of September on a Wednesday date to be confirmed as it will have to fit in with the cricket season. This has been a success in the past and the only cost is the Tea as no travel involved.
WE are looking at various venues for the Christmas Dinner in December, maybe its time for a change of venue but we will of course be looking for the best value and ease of getting there for our members.
If you have any suggestions about things you would like to do please let us know.

Good Evening Metalbox Pensioners.

This is not one of our usual message – but to let our member know if you have not already heard the sad news.

On behalf of the Neath Metalbox Pesioners we would like to offer our condolences to one of our members Mr George Russ and his Family on the passing of his Wife Pauline on Monday 03rd of October 2022. We are all thinking of you George at this difficult time and if we can help in any way please ask.

Good Evening “Young Metalbox Pensioners”, please see under a message from Carolynn regarding our first Event / Get Together for a long time we have about 33 names at present but we would like to see more if possible. Carolynn has put a lot of effort into getting things going again please support the event if you can, we need the final numbers to the caterer by 10th September. Hope to see you there.

Hello everyone. After such a long time we are having a " Get Together " at Neath Cricket Club on the afternoon of Thursday 15th September. We will start about 2-30 p.m. for a buffet, a few games of Bingo, a raffle along with entertainment. The price will be £8-00 per member and £10-00 for a guest. The price will cover all costs at the event. We really hope you will be able to attend. Please contact me on 01639767901 to place your booking or Alan Thomas at the music stall at Neath Market on Monday, Wednesday, or Friday.

Kindest Regards
Carolynn Elias

Hello “Young” Metalbox Pensioners hope you are all keeping well and Covid free and enjoyed our Summer last Wednesday !! but there is a promise of better weather next week.

And a “Ray of Light” for 3 of you as the June Draw was made yesterday and the winners are :-

1st £50 No.73 Gareth Lewis

2nd £30 No.16 R Harrison

3rd £20 No.81 M Owen

Congratulations and the cheques are already in the post.

No real news really except at present we have 20 names for the Afternoon Tea / Buffet on Thursday 15th September at Neath Cricket Club – if you would like to attend but haven’t let us know yet please do so so that we can keep track of the numbers.

We are still hoping to arrange a Christmas Dinner venue and cost to be confirmed but the date we are aiming for is Tuesday 5th December so please keep this date free and we will let you have more information as soon as we have booked.

I think this is all for now, Be Safe Keep well.

Good Afternoon “Young” Metalbox Pensioners regrettably that name has now gone but WE are still here !

Apologies for the delay in announcing the winners of the Jubilee Draw – the Winners are :-

First No. 38 Phil Thomas £50

Second No.19 A Kyte £30

Third No. 50 W Lewis £20

Congratulations to the winners and to the rest of us fingers crossed for the next Draw !!. I understand cheques are already in the post.
Please Keep in mind our planned Afternoon Tea at Neath Cricket Club on Thursday 15th September please let us have your names so we can see the numbers – we have not met for a long time this would be a great time to have a looooong catch up with a buffet.

You may have heard the Central Pensioners Committee of the Metalbox Pension of which Mr Brian Curtis was a member and looked after our interests has now been disbanded as they would not be able to have any input into our pensions which is now a contract between the new company and the individual but Brian Curtis has offered to try to assist if he can should we have any problems.

The Metalbox Benevolent fund is still ongoing so if you know or hear of any ex Metalbox employee who has hit hard times please let us know and we will see if we can get them some help.

The Committee also now looking to try to resurrect the Christmas Dinner once we have more information I will let you know.

Next month I intend sending our annual email to Crown at Wantage to see if they would still consider supporting us again with prizes for our Christmas Draw, I’m keeping my fingers crossed .

I think that is all for now.

Hello “Young” Metalbox Pensioners hope we find you well and free of any Covid and Bugs that are still going about !, just a short note to let you know some information about our first proposed event for over 2 years.

We are planning to hold an Afternoon Tea at the Neath Cricket Club on Thursday 15th September with a planned starting time of 1430 (2.30pm), there will be a buffet Tea, a few games of Bingo and hopefully some entertainment yet to be arranged, we are looking at the cost per head but it will not be more than £10 which I think will be good value. As soon as we have the final cost I will let you know
Please let Carolynn of myself know as soon as possible if you are interested so that we can have an idea of numbers, this is open to members and their partners or a friend.

We will be holding our Jubilee Draw on Thursday 2ndJune only members that re-joined this year will be included in the draw, if you know of anyone who is not on Facebook or may have forgotten to re-join can you please give them a reminder we don’t want anyone to loose out and as long as their subscription is received by June 1st they will also be included in the Draw.

We are hoping for a good turn out – there must be a lot to catch up on !

Hello “Young” Metalbox Pensioners I hope you are all keeping well and totally Covid free ?. As I said in the last message we would hold our last draw of the membership year on Thursday 31st March
which we did and the lucky winners are :-

1st Prize £50 Terry Walsh
2nd Prize £30 Ken Hunt
3rd Prize Eileen Nolan

Congratulations to the winners condolences to the rest of us !! Cheques will be in the post soon.

Ok so to remain in the Draw in the new membership year which began 01 April please renew your membership if you haven’t already done so – membership held at £10 for yet another year. Our next normal draw is on Thursday 30th June BUT as this is a Special Year we plan to have an additional Draw to mark the Queens Platinum Jubilee this will be on Monday 6th June so make sure your in it to win it !

NOW the future – we are going to try and arrange an afternoon tea on Thursday 25th August venue would be in Neath but awaiting confirmation the venue would be free BUT I would like people to let us know if this is of interest as to make it viable, we would need 30 – 40 people, our last Afternoon Tea a couple of years ago pre Covid I believe was a success. Please give us some feed back !

Hello “Young” Metalbox Pensioners I hope you are all keeping Covid free and managed to be damage free during the storms we had in the last few weeks. As I’m sure you know in previous years we normally hold an AGM at the end of the month of March but we feel that we will not be able to hold one in 2022 because of our age range as there are still risks regarding Covid. Carolynn will as in previous years produce a balance sheet, I will forward a copy to Mr Brian Curtis so that our finances are open.

We are lucky to have so many loyal members who kept our association alive during the difficult last couple of years and we as a committee have tried to keep the interest going with our Christmas Draw and continuing with our monetary draws every few months.

We hope that our members will renew their membership for another year and we hope to have an event / trip later in the year once things settle down to near normal.

We suggest that the membership fee should remain at £10 which will become due at the end of this month (March) this will ensure your number remains in the draws, you can either drop the money into Carolynn, to me at my home or into The Music Shop Stall 46 in Neath Market – PLEASE ensure you put the £10 (Cheque or Cash) into an envelope and put your name on the envelope.

Our next Draw will take place on Thursday 31 March so keep an eye out you might the next winner.

Suggestions for our next Event / Trip would be gratefully received.
Keep Well Keep Safe.

Hello Young Metalbox Pensioners its that time of year again and sadly again this year we were unable to hold our Christmas Dinner due to the dreaded Covid virus, I think all of us looked forward to meeting old friends and colleagues and telling and listening to all the old stories about the fun and pleasure we all had working at Metalbox / Crown. Yes I too remember having the odd grumble about the place and work but having worked outside and run my own business before joining Metalbox I know what a good place it was to work at, and we also had quite a few perks up the takeovers.

Anyway enough of the reminiscing – I hope you are all keeping well and have been able to avoid the dreaded Covid. Those of you that have been or are at present unwell we hope you will be fully recovered soon and I think we should also take a moment to think about those friends and colleagues we have lost during the last year.

Earlier today we held the 2 Draws – the Christmas Prize Draw and the usual Cash Prize Draw, thank you to Crown for again supporting us with the Amazon Vouchers and to all the individual members that donated prizes to make it a very worthwhile Draw. The draw was done at Carolynn’s house where all the prizes are, if you have Carolynn’s number and you would like to collect the prize you won please give her a call first to make sure she is in, we understand that not everyone will be able to collect the prizes so those that are not collected we will try to make sure we deliver before Christmas if possible.

First the Cash Draw – Congratulations to the Winners and as they say Cheques will be in the Post ASAP !

1st Prize No. 10 £50 Lloyd Branch
2nd Prize No. 65 £30 Hayden Davies
3rd Prize No. 74 £20 Mike Ryan

Metalbox Pensioners Christmas Draw.

This is a bit embarrassing !!
1st Prize No.14 £100 Amazon Voucher, Alan Thomas ( I never win anything normally )
2nd Prize No.29 £50 Amazon Voucher, Alan Brock
3rd Prize No. 8 Christmas Cake, John Rue
4th Prize No.62 £10 cash, Bobby Williams
5th Prize No.12 Garden Set, Wayne Thomas
6th Prize No.23 £25 Amazon Voucher, Michael Roules,
7th Prize No.34 Bottle of Chardonnay, Peter Roche
8th Prize No.41 Travel Bag, Colin Watkins
9th Prize No.28 Bottle Wine, Marilyn Jones
!0th Prize No.7 set of Mugs, Lynsey Rees
11th Prize No.13 Picture, Lynn Gammon
12th Prize No.84 Box of Chocolates, John Richards
13th Prize No. 90 Toiletries, Brian Tamplin
14th Prize No.74 Box of Biscuits, Mike Ryan
15th Prize No.5 £10 M&S Voucher, George Russ
16th Prize No.92 Bottle of Wine, Alan Symonds
17th Prize No.69 £25 Amazon Voucher, Graham Harvey
18th Prize No.33 “A Surprise”, Christine Wathen
19th Prize No.24 A Clock, Joey O’brien
20th Prize No.106 Box of Biscuits, Sandra Partin
21st Prize No.86 Bottle of Wine, Howard Partin
22nd Prize No.81 £25 Amazon Voucher, Martyn Owen
23rd Prize No.94 Box of Shortbread biscuits, David Pascoe
24th Prize No.27 Cottle of Cava, Terry Walsh
25th Prize No.31 Bottle of Prosecco, Eileen Nolan
26th Prize No.10 Beauty Box, Lloyd Branch
27th Prize No.16 Bottle of Port, Raymond Harrison
28th Prize No.91 Bottle of Wine, Robert Harwood
29th Prize No.11 “Lucky Dip”, Brian Kriescher
30th Prize No.64 £20 M&S Voucher, Ken Hunt
31st Prize No.79 £25 Amazon Voucher, Brian Thompson.

Phew and that’s all the prizes.

If I have made any spelling errors in listing the names I apologise.

Now Just a few thank yous

Crown for supporting us again, we will be sending a small thank you gift to Nicola soon, Carolynn for her hard work and allowing us to use her home as a storage container for the prizes, and to the main people - you the members for your continued support in making our little organisation a success. Hopefully 2022 will be better year for us all and we will be able to meet again and have few days out together.

Just remains for me to wish you on behalf of our small committee A Very Merry Safe Christmas and hopefully a Great 2022