LEAGUE SECRETARY'S NOTES.
The Ypres Times.
Ill
THIRD ANNUAL REUNION DINNER.
The annual dinner of the Branch has been
arranged to take place on Ypres Day, 31st of
October, at Stephenson's Exchange Restaurant,
Castle Street, Sheffield, at 6.45 p.m. Colonel D. S.
Branson, D.S.O., M.C., will preside, and Lieut.-
Colonel F. H. Fernie, D.S.O., a member of the
executive committee of the League, has promised
to be present. All members of the League, to
gether with their friends, are cordially invited to
attend this function, while Branch members are
expected to turn up in their entirety. The com
mittee of the Branch are doing all in their power
to make the affair a success, but the support of
members is needed to ensure it. Ladies are cor
dially invited, as in previous years. Tickets will be
supplied on application to meprice 5s. for mem
bers, and 5s. 6d. for friends. The speech list is not,
as yet, completed, but will be circulated in due
course. Orchestral entertainment throughout the
evening will be provided. Dress will be ordinary
lounge suits, together with decorations.
Applications for tickets should be sent to me as
soon as possible, so that our catering requirements
can be known in good time. Stamp for reply
should be enclosed.
Roll up in your thousands, folks, and let us have
a real bumper evening!
J. WILKINSON,
40, Fieldhead Road.
TO OUR NEW MEMBERS.
Through a regrettable error the open letter to
new members was omitted from our last issue,
therefore the present lines are addressed to all who
have joined the League during the past six months,
to whom I extend a very cordial and sincere wel
come
The ideal aims of our association are so well
known that their iteration and re-iteration expose
me to the charge of monotony and superfluity.
But had it not been for the systematic repetition,
in season and out of season, of a phrase, long since
become a classic, the history of the world would
have been written differently. In a similar manner
if the aims of the League are not frequently re
stated they will fade from memory and that
achievement for which we hope and strivethe
continuance in a crystallised form of the comrade
ship and good-fellowship, of the spirit of indomit
able courage, which dared all things, endured all
things, through weary years of misery and pain
will elude our grasp.
Our ideal is to ensure the remembrance far
down the ages of the noble sacrifices of the sons
of the Empire in the cause of right and truth
to draw into bonds of closer brotherhood not only
the men and women of our own time, but of
generations yet unborn. If we believe in an ideal
aim we must harness to it mobilised effort. We
deceive ourselves when we say we wish for the
success of the League, and take no active steps to
achieve it. The following anecdote illustrates
my pointA somewhat gushing lady whom an
old professor, an authority on languages, had taken
in to dinner, exclaimed, Oh! Professor, I do
wish I knew French." No, Madam, you do
not," was the blunt retort. If you had really
wished to know French you would have learnt
it years ago." We need to generate fresh energy
to affirm our wishes in acts to disperse the all too
prevalent indifference to a subject which so nearly
concerns each one of us.
Look at the end of work, contrast
The petty done, the undone vast."
Shall we leave it at this Most assuredly, no.
We must attract recruits to the League by every
means in our power, and, animated by a single
purpose, backed by the weight of numbers, we
can then rear such a memorial to the glorious dead
as shall far transcend in beauty, in utility, in
devotion, any monument of marble or stone
one which shall be indeed
A fair remembrance and a tender pride."
CENOTAPH CEREMONY, OCTOBER 31st-
We hope to lay a wreath at the foot of the
Cenotaph, Whitehall, on Ypres Day, the 31st of
October, but it is impossible to give details at
present. Will anyone who is desirous of attending
this ceremony look at the Comrades-in-Arms
column in the News of the World on October the
19th (Sunday), where will be found a description
of procedure. A notice will also appear in the
Daily Telegraph on the 20th and 21st of October.
THE BRITISH LEGION AND OURSELVES.
There seems to be an erroneous idea abroad, that
the Ypres League is in some way a rival or com
petitor of the British Legion. There could be no
greater mistake. Every ex-Service man ought to
belong to the Legion, for it is the only body
powerful enough to protect his interests and make
the Government listen to his demands. It also
makes a great appeal for all needy ex-Service men
on Poppy Day, and raises a fund that is open to
every soldier who needs its help. The Ypres
League does not therefore keep a fund for charit
able assistance. To do so would only be to overlap
the work of the Legion. It appeals to those who
would keep green a memory and an ideala
memory of past heroism displayed in Flanders
mud, and an ideal of still displaying a similar
heroism amid the dullness and disappointments of
our woeful peace.
PILQRIMAQES TO YPRES.
One of the most important activities of the
League is its travel bureau. We have had a fairly"
