Royal British Legion Training

Contributed

The Royal British Legion Portugal Branch recently held a three-day Caseworkers’ Training Course at the Hotel Garbe in Armação de Pêra. It was the first ever Training Course to be held in Portugal and will be repeated annually in keeping with RBL policy.

21 volunteer delegates attended the course, which had been arranged by Mark Hanmer, the Training Officer for Portugal and Des Briggs, the Welfare Officer. They came from all over the country including Madeira, Coimbra, Lisbon, Central and Eastern Portugal as well as all parts of the Algarve. The course trainer was Brian Simpson, who trains Caseworkers all over Europe and who did an excellent job. Paul Rodwell, the British Consul to the Algarve, was the Guest Speaker and was highly enlightening on what the Consular Service can and cannot do.

Before this course, Portugal had had only a handful of trained Caseworkers, who were becoming a little stretched with the rise in the number of Cases over recent years. Now the Legion in Portugal will be able to respond more effectively and the workload of the volunteers will be spread more evenly. Backed up by an ongoing policy of training in all areas of work the Legion does, the Portugal Branch has succeeded in becoming professionally run when all its Committee are volunteers. Membership at the moment stands at around 260; an all-time high in its 54-year history.

For more information, visit our website at: http://www.portugal.legionbranches.net/