Appeal for leaders at Seaham Royal British Legion

The Seaham group has around 60 members, but the chairman, secretary and treasurer has had to stand down because of work commitments.

Now a crunch meeting has been lined up to try and find new people who will taken on the responsibilities.

The branch organises the town’s Remembrance Day celebrations, Poppy Appeal efforts, supports its Armed Forces Day event and carries out welfare visits and decides on beneficiaries of its fundraising within the community. Others, such as Murton, have already been merged with Peterlee’s group, and a further expansion of that group could be an option, but the Royal British Legion hopes it will continue as a stand alone group.

If no solution is found, the charity has said it could close the branch.

David Bell, its membership support officer for the county, said: “It’s not an issue of members, it’s the fact we have not got enough officers for the branch.

“Now we are having this general meeting to see if anyone will come forward and put themselves in these positions of chairman, treasurer and secretary.

“The people in these roles already have done these jobs for a long time and some of them are getting old and there’s no one who has said they will take them on.

“We will ask if anyone will step forward to take on these roles.

“If they don’t, we’ll have no alternative but to shut it down.”

The members meeting will be held at the Farn Centre, Parkside Crescent, Seaham, on Wednesday at 7pm.