Page 22 - The Gazette Autumn 2024

22 The Gazette QARANC Association
Birmingham
hotel is place
for royalty, rock
stars and the
famous QA
Reunion Lunch!
The QARANC Association Reunion Lunch in April was a perfect occasion to celebrate 75 years of the Corps and renew our bonds of friendship
As venues go, the landmark Grand Hotel in Birmingham with its luxury rooms and breath- taking ballroom is up there with the best! Opened in 1879, the hotel boasts of hosting “royalty and rock stars” over the years, and to that exclusive list can be added the QARANC Association!
Our annual Reunion Lunch was held there on Saturday 27 April 2024. Always a special event on the calendar, this year was cause for a double celebration as members would also be toasting the QARANC’s 75th anniversary. A venue with suitable wow factor was required, and most agreed that the Grand Hotel ballroom provided just that, congratulations to Tracey Buckingham and the team at HQ, and trustees, for pulling out the stops.
It was pleasing to see all parts of the Association represented, from our retired QAs to those still in service and the next generation. Older heads were eager to quiz students about life in the Army today and swap stories. The food was most excellent and special thanks were given to the chefs and teams who waited on us. A raffle in between courses, hosted by student nurses, ensured that several attendees left
HRH said she hopes we all have a really good day today and asked me
to pass on her thanks for all you do for the Association.
with a souvenir of the day, and sales of raffle tickets and QARANC pin badges provided a welcome top up for Association funds.
There were speeches from the senior leaders. Chairman John Quinn welcomed the guests including a lively group of ladies “in the naughty corner” who were marking 40 years since they met at nurse training, with one member having flown in from Saudi Arabia especially.
President and Chief Nursing Officer (Army), Col Paul Jackson, had also caught a flight – from Scotland early that morning, having attended the officers’ mess dinner at Edinburgh Castle with the Colonel-in-Chief, HRH the Duchess of Edinburgh. He told the guests in Birmingham: “HRH said she hopes we all have a really good day today and asked me to pass on her thanks for all you do for the Association.”
Col Paul touched on Project Victoria, the continuing conversation within the Army about whether to amalgamate the three human medical corps, admitting: “Last year, I stood here about this time and said, ‘we will know something in June’ well here we are a year later and again, we might know