studlyone

That is amazing news (can't believe I missed this thread earlier). Its good to have such a well known and dedicated ambassador for the country and of course the sport of geocaching - I wonder if it will be an Olympic event this time LOL. I look forward to tracking your progress with this Wendy and wish both of you all the best. Ian

What about SSAFA? They cover all the Services and their families. I know from personal experience that they do really good work. http://www.ssafa.org.uk/ I know that SSAFA do great work and are a very well respected organisation. If it turns out that the RBL are not interested in the coin I will simply remove all reference to them from the coin and still go ahead and split the proceedings from the sale of them between several forces support chairites so that it just doens't go to one area.

Thanks Matrix, I am still waiting on the ruling from the Southern Fund Raisers about the coin fingers crossed. Good idea Wolfshead57, I am sure that there will be an ex-servicemen/womens charity somewhere out there that would appreciate the funds raised.

It would be good to get his opinion on the matter, the more people that we can get onside within the organistaion the better in my book. I have my fingers crossed that the southern fund raisers will approve of the project. I spoke at length to the southern fund raising co-ordinator this afternoon and she loves the idea and after explaining what geocaching was she wants to have a go for herself. I hope to hear back from them in the near future and will post the outcome here.

I must be missing something here... But what support would be required from RBL other than a thank-you letter for the donation and an ok to use the Poppy logo and wording? J My sentiments exactly, having spoken to head office on the phone once they asked me if it was likely to raise over £10,000 and I said probably not they did not seem interested I know that they are producing a commerorative coin next year - perhaps they were worried about this coin impacting on sales of that. Seems very weird that they turned the project down. At least the southern co-ordinator sounded much more interested - we shall have to wait and see. I have just sent another e-mail to her stressing that this is just a way of raising funds and that no financial input is required from the RBL as I will be paying upfront for the minting of the coins. Its just a way of rasing funds - no different to holding a raffle or the like. Very strange....

Well its a Nay Well thats the opinion of head office, they did give me another contact (the southern fundraising co-ordinator) who does seem very interested but once again its wait and see if they will say yes. To be honest I am extremely surprised by the first rebuttal as they are simply turning down another source of funding. Hopefully the southern co-ordinator will be more interested.

Firstly yes taking a TB from a cache if you can help it on its mission is the right thing to do. Just remember to grab it from the cache by entering its tracking number on the trackables pages. If you fail to find the next cache then its up to you if you want to drop it back into its last location but to be honest you'd be best keeping hold of it until you can try again for another cache. You can always drop an e-mail to its owner saying that you will try again to drop him off when you can. As for how long to keep hold of it well again if you know that it will be a while before you can drop it off simply let the owner know so that they don't get too worried. Some of my TBs go for weeks between being picked up and dropped off and that doesn't bother me. Just rememebr if things do go wrong then don't be afraid to get in touch with a cache owner or a TB owner, most things are easy to put right. Happy Caching.

That's one of the things that I need to sort out with the deisgn before sending it to a mint. You are right there will have to be a raised border area for the text so that it can be filled in with the enamel, it won't be black on the coin but it will be the coins base colour - Antique Silver. Thanks for pointing it out.

Well having been passed around a grand total of 8 different desks at RBL HQ yesterday, I hopefully got hold of the right person in the end and have submitted the artwork for approval together with information about the coins specifications so I'm just waiting for the "Yay or Nay" from them now. Watch this space.....

The poppy Appeal coin won't have a hole in it but the Brittannia coin is only available with a hole in it.

LOL your comments caused us to hijack this thread, I did think of mentioning the Falklands conflict on the coin but as they won't be ready until probably January it would no longer be the 25th Anniversary year I thought it best to just use the image. Its funny that you should mention the gas victim pics, that was one of the pics I initially tried but I thought that the design looked very grim indeed which is why I settled for the trench scene. I think the coin will look stunning with the 3D sculpting (anyone who has seen my other coins will know what a good job the mint can do). The metal would probably be Antique Silver as the process used really highlights detail and gives deep shadows to sculpted areas. The epoxy coating will give the coin a very high quality feel and it should look great (fingers crossed) I still need to do some tidying up of the design but its almost there. It will be trackable on geocaching.com and will have its own icon - a poppy design. If these ones go down well, I'd be happy to do other poppy appeal coins to hopefully drive even more funds into the RBL coffers.

Ok then here is a more upbeat back to the coin, it was suggested by Alice Band (great idea). It focusses on a positive aspect rather than the negative, it shows how our armed forces overcome all odds to do their duty. As this year is also the 25th Anniversary of the Falklands Conflict it is also apt that it's used. Plus its got a Union Flag on it - bonus LOL. The text is from the remembrance parade services and basically sums it all up - we will remember them. So anyone got any better ideas or shall I take this to the Royal British Legion for their approval. Ian

Thats a very good point, it is a bit hard hitting and depressing. Alice Band has come up with a great idea for the rear of the coin so watch this space. I will get working on it now.

Agreed but that was the actual text from their website.

Yes you may have a very good point there. Out of all of the designs this is the one that I am happiest with, wr'll see what the general concensus of opinion is on the design. I have just dropped the RBL an e-mail stating my intentions and I'll follow it up with a phone call tomorrow. I should know whether or not we can take the project forward after a few phone calls I think. Thanks to everyone for all the constructive comments so far.

I didn't think of it as a political statement just as a statement of fact. I see what you mean about how it could be interpreted though. What about this design. It would mean having a 3D back as well but it would make it more colourfull on the back, and it certainly gets the message across. Ian

OK then here is a draft idea for a back. the front is pretty much firm at this stage its the back we are focussing on now. Let me know your ideas please. Ian

Thanks for all the positive feedback about the coin, I think that the general concensus of opinion is for design 2 because the dates do make it look lop sided. I will put the dates onto the reverse of the coin and will start designing a first stab at it today. There is no need for pre-orders, I will basically order 250 from my suppliers once we have the design finished but as has been pointed out by Dorsetgal they won't be available until the new year. The Royal British Legion need money year round as their operation is a 365 day a year thing. They do marvellous work for ex-servcemen/women and their families and their work is needed now more than ever. With current operations ongoing in Afghanistan and Iraq, injured servicemen/women are coming home on an almost daily basis. HM Forces have been in action in almost every year since WWII and from my experience even units at peacetime locations have accidents where servicemen are forced to retire and the RBL is one of the organisations there to help them. The RBL need all the support that they can get as they are funded solely by donations from the public. More information about their work and their new campaign of respecting the covenant can be found on their website - http://www.britishlegion.org.uk/ Anyway check out the website, donate what you can to them and watch this space for more info on the coin. Ian

I like the 11 poppy 11 etc idea, not sure if a union flag would be best as remembrance day is open to other countries (commonwealth etc). Whilst I do have a penchant for using the union flag in coin designs I am not sure it would be right on this one.

Thanks for the comments so far, its always hard trying to keep everyone happy, we now have three different versions to comment on, I'm quite happy to mix and match between them all to come up with the nicest design. I personally think a ring of small poppies clutters up the image a bit but like the idea about the dates.

No need for it but it does add a splash of colour to the front of the coin. Getting rid of it does free up more space for the 3D image though as shown below:

Here is an idea for a coin, I'm looking for constructive criticism of it. Not started on a back for it yet though. I was thinking of describing how the RBL helps ex-servicemen and women on the back, anyone got any other ideas. The coin would be made in Antique Silver finish with the WW1 scene sculpted in 3D so that it will look like a B&W photo, the poppy, RBL logo and border will be filled in with enamel colours and the whole coin will be epoxy coated. The epoxy coating gives it a really high quality feel as anyone with one of my other coins should be able to attest. The finished design would have to be run past the Royal British Legion for copyright reasons but I can't say them saying no. The coin would be priced so I make no profits on it but the RBL would get £1 a coin. So open to the floor, any comments or ideas to improve/change it. Ian

pm sent. As a serving member of HM Forces and a member of the British Legion I'd be more than happy to assist. Ian

Oh right, well I hope that you don't have to wait much longer and get the coins soon or at least hear back from Daryl. Got my fingers crossed for you..

You can find some more info about it here: http://www.k9-sar.com/shop/geocoin.html Ian