Fellow Anglers

For those of you who don't know me, I'm Chris Anderson; the membership secretary of the RN&RM Angling Association.

Over the last four years the Association has had a website at www.rnandrmaa.org.uk, which has had the effect of improving communications across the various disciplines and raised awareness of what is going on locally for those who's interest in fishing doesn't extend to involvement in national competition. The Association has broadened its outlook to embrace new and younger members who's primary interest may just be pleasure angling and contact with like minded individuals for a bit of friendly interaction.

Competition angling is still alive and well in the RN & RM and the open communication provided by the web site and forum has enabled wider participation of those wishing to get started in competition or mixing all disciplines of angling. Additionally, the ability of other anglers to be aware of what we get up to in RN & RM angling has resulted in ongoing friendly matches with other bodies such as the Police and Emergency services.

Membership fees have been raised to £20 for reasons explained in the attached letter from the National Secretary and for this, there are a number of sponsorship deals available in all the disciplines, various events both locally and nationally and many of the competition events are supported by funding from the Association. In general, you will still only have to attend one event in the year to recover membership outlay.

The wide membership of the Association includes many ex servicemen and provides an opportunity to meet up with old friends and find out what is going on across the broad spectrum of the RN & RM. The Association may only be a means for you to access the knowledge of others or to meet up for a bit of local fishing and maybe access some sort of discount by virtue of numbers but the Association is able to do more than this and does organise overseas events and engagement with national bodies.

If you haven't visited the website yet, or recently, you may be surprised to find out how much information and interaction is available. The website receives about 13 000 visits a year from over 15 countries at present and the forum averages 24 000 visits a year so there is a lot of interest, so much in fact that we have been picked up and indexed by Google. Whether you join or not, the website is worth a visit to find out what we are about, you can even join the forum and engage in conversation with our members as a Guest. The forum is free to join but some areas are only available to RN&RMAA members for security reasons and it is protected from spam members and unwanted mail links.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Tight Lines

Chris Anderson