Poppy Scotland and the Royal British Legion branch for three towns would like to say thank you to all the towns, that being Saltcoats, Ardrossan, Stevenston and West Kilbride for their generosity in achieving another first for our community.

The grand total of £18,435.77 was raised by the sale of poppies and donations from the general public. There was also a further £2,199 from the sale of the special 100 centenary pin badges. A big thank you to K & C flowers, Avanti Café and the Wavelength Hairdresser for helping to sell the pin badges.

Thank you for the Salvation Army for the use of their hall, to all the superstores for allowing the area organiser and helpers to collect during the poppy period the use and have the comfort of their stores. A big thank you to the Kandy Bar and Sainsbury for feeding all the street collectors on Saturday, November 10. It was nice to see all the cadets out on the street in their uniforms so a massive thanks you to you all. The Cadets who worked so hard in collect as much as they did this year contributed over £1400 to the final total.

All the towns’ schools should also be given recognition and thanks for their work in making over 250 single strands of poppy strings. They attached over 25,000 poppies to these strings by their own fair hands to create the poppy fountains at all the town’s war memorials. Recognition should also be given to the gentlemen from North Ayrshire Council for them helping the Area Poppy organizer the installation all of the strings to each war memorials.

The Legion was proud to be asked and accepted the honour to open this year’s Stevenston Christmas lights on Friday, November 30. It was a great display and our towns very own 90-year-old veteran Mr Edward Armstrong pressed the button to illuminate the beautiful display of lights after the Lord Provost introduction.

On a sadder note the Legion is sorry that the RBLS Tote under our charity number has been stopped this has happened beyond our control.