Bedfordshire Archives Service Catalogue
  • Reference
    AU34/19/5/5
  • Title
    Draft Speech for BEN Dinner
  • Date free text
    1957
  • Production date
    From: 1957 To: 1957
  • Scope and Content
    The draft of a speech to be given by Albert Grimmer at a formal dinner given by the BEN organisation (the Motor & Allied Trades Benevolent Fund) in 1957: "Mr Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, I have great pleasure in proposing a toast of the Bedfordshire Centre of BEN. The amount of work your committee do, seems to me, as a mere onlooker, collossal. In January 1954, it appears that Mr T Bosworth, the Chairman of the Northamptonshire Centre of the Fund, at a Divisional Meeting of the M.A.A. raised the question of the establishment of a seperate centre for Bedfordshire. As a result, the Bedfordshire section of the M.A.A. invited Mr Bosworth and Mr C W Cudlipp (Gen. Sec. of the Fund) to address their March meeting. Owing to the poor attendance at that meeting, a final decision was left over to the April meeting when it was unanimously agreed that the M.A.A. section should sponsor the formation of a Bedfordshire and North Hertfordshire Centre of the Fund. So, a sterring committee under the chairmanship of Mr Simmons was set up. This committee had its first meeting in May 1954, and decided that it would be necessary to extend the field so as to bring in the cycle and allied trades, and invitations were sent out to representatives of these various trades co-opting them to the Committee. And finally, on June 29th 1954 at a meeting held in the Dujon Restaurant in Bedford, the Centre was formally established, with Mr K W Simmons as its first Chairman and Mr R F Roberts as Honorary Treasurer. Last but not least Mrs E M Bonnett as Honorary Secretary, with a representative Committee drawn as far as possible from all sections of the industry. At the time the Centre was established, the membership was well under 100 but it is now 207. Mr Simmons continued to serve as Chairman until the Annual Meeting in June 1956 when he was succeeded by Mr R A Wells. And Mr R Cribb was elected Vice Chairman."
  • Level of description
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