The key points of the January Bristol RA Branch meeting were as follows:

• There were 25 members present.

• The branch now has 149 full members and 3 guest members.

• The branch was told of the sad news that Don Bookes the former long serving Branch secretary had passed away. Don was the Bristol Branch Secretary for some 41 years, and had been involved in football and refereeing across Bristol for most of his life. He was known to many, although in later years this was mainly within RA circles; Don was a Life Member of the RA. The standards he observed, set, and maintained are both a credit to his approach to life and refereeing; and are an example which can still serve us well today. (The arrangements for his funeral are available to download here).

• A new appointment had been made at the GFA, where Chris Lucker would be the new GFA Operations Manager.

• It had been agreed that the most senior-ranked competition under GFA jurisdiction would now be the Challenge Trophy, from 2008-09. This would regularise matters for match officials as this would now be recognized by the FA for appointments purposes.

• Reports were still being received of unregistered referees officiating in sanctioned matches/competitions.  Richard Melinn was actively chasing this with League Referees’ Secretaries, but all registered referees were also asked to be watchful and to report any occurrences to the GFA.

• It was also announced that the FAMOA training day had been moved to Sunday 31st August 2008. This was due to RA members and referees' across the county urging them to move the date to a weekend, instead of holding it on an evening, in the hope more people will now be able to attend.

• The training topic of the evening was hosted by Pete Colley, discussing and advising members on their views of ‘delaying the restart of play’. There was good participation by all the members.

• The 2nd half of the evening was our guest speaker Tony Spreadbury (International Rugby Union Referee). He gave a presentation on his experiences at the current Rugby World Cup in France in his own personal way! An interesting evening was had by all the members that were present, learning all about the experiences of a referee from a different sport.

Tony Spreadbury receiving a bottle of wine from the Bristol RA branch Chairman Tony Mills

• The next meeting is on Thursday 7th February when a fun evening is in store, with members being arranged into teams for an informal quiz on the Laws of the Game.