Repton Royal British Legion was founded in 1935 on the same site as it stands today. The original building was destroyed by fire in the 1940’s and was replaced with the building we see today. Both buildings were donated by the army. Edward Ward was the first Standard Bearer for Repton RBL. His grandson Roy, also served as Standard Bearer for many years and is still a member of the Branch committee.

During the war Mr and Mrs Warner set up the whist drive to raise money to send food parcels to prison camps. A postcard was sent in return thanking Repton RBL for the parcels, and the whist drive continues to take place every Wednesday at the club. ( In normal circumstances)

There was a fantastic women’s section for many years that helped with providing refreshments for various events, helping with The Poppy Appeal and raising funds for the Repton Branch at the Derbyshire Festival at Alton Manor.

The club was refurbished to how it is now around 20 years ago. And in the past few years we have, with the help yet again of committee members, been able to add the disabled toilet facilities and refurbished the Gents toilets, the Ladies are in progress

 How Repton Royal British Legion works

Repton Royal British Legion is actually two completely separate organisations, both of which are run by volunteer committee members. We have the Branch Committee and the Trading club committee.

The Repton and District Branch committee volunteers give up their free time to raise money for the Royal British Legion and help ex-serving and current members of the armed forces at a local level.

We organise the Poppy Appeal for the local area and distribute over 300 boxes of poppies to businesses and schools in Repton, Willington, Findern, Bretby, Newton Solney, Milton, Egginton, Etwall and Hilton as well as providing and manning a stall at Aldi.

We organise the annual parade for Remembrance Sunday, which includes all the local youth groups. We attend local events to raise awareness of what The British Legion does and who it helps and hold fundraising events throughout the year.

The Repton And District Club Limited committee are responsible for the operation of the social club. Again the committee members give up their spare to time to look after the general day to day running of the club, and organising social events and evenings when the funds are available. The club is totally separate from the branch and must be self- sufficient in funding through sales over the bar and internal events.The branch or national legion cannot help or support the club at all, which means that the local community who use the facilities are so important to the club and we are always welcoming to new members. Without this support the club would struggle to survive so thank you to all those who come in and use the facilities. The club has weekly bingo nights, a snooker and pool table, darts, sky sports for all live football/rugby/tennis and more.  

Annual membership is £25.00 – £17.50 of this is a national membership fee and goes a long way to helping the armed forces, current and retired. It also allows access to any Royal British Legion club around the country and even the world where clubs have been set up abroad. £7.50 of the fee is a club fee, which gives full access to the club and all its facilities and a members’ price behind the bar.

Members of both committees are volunteers, most of whom have full time jobs. They give up their spare time to attend monthly meetings, organise the bar, stock, staff, events, the poppy appeal and parade, and the general upkeep of the club, and making sure the retired and current serving members of the forces are well and looked after. We also attend regular meetings, seminars and training events organised by the Derbyshire County branch of The Royal British Legion.

We may not always get things right, but we do our best and if anybody would like to offer support in the way of helping with the poppy appeal or the running of either committee we are always looking for new members.

If you would like more information on any on the above please contact Zandra (Branch Chair) at zandrajworton@gmail.com or 07834517380