Tamworth RSL: Remembrance Day tradition of Armistice poppy falls victim to vaccine mandate in 100th year

Tamworth Returned and Services League (RSL) President Jayne McCarthy said the local sub-branch is preparing for an outside event on November 11 this year.

But she said red tape will be so intense volunteers won't be able to sell red poppies for the RSL's traditional Remembrance Day Appeal - again.

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The tradition of the Remembrance Day poppy turns 100 in 2021.

"You can't sell to someone that's not double-vaxxed," she said.

"So it's an extra layer of scrutiny that I don't want to put the volunteers through."

"We could go to Shopping World. But Shopping World have said to us if we want to have a table set up with some gear to sell, everyone that comes to buy something, we have to check that they're double-vaxxed. And if we're not double-vaxxed we're not allowed to sell it to them. And we have to have a QR code to check in. It's just too much to ask volunteers to do."

It will mean the second year in a row without the traditional poppy stalls.

It's the same story even on Peel Street, she said.

"That's the guidance we've been told. So that's what we have to run with. We don't make the rules," she said.

Taken from the poem 'In Flanders Fields' by Canadian military doctor Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, the poppies represent the death of 60,000 Australians and hundreds of thousands of men from other nations on the western front of the First World War.

The Australian Returned Soldiers and Sailors Imperial League, which later became the RSL, first sold poppies for the 1921 Armistice Day, imported from France.

A century later they're sold on both ANZAC day and Remembrance Day and at other times of the year.

The sales still help finance the RSL's veterans welfare and advocacy support services.

After two years of coronavirus restrictions, the all-volunteer team behind the commemorative events are frustrated with intensifying regulations, despite the lower risk from the virus.

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The current plan for Remembrance Day is to hold an outdoor event in Bicentennial Park in order to allow more numbers.

Even then it's possible they will not even be allowed enough seats for the entire veteran community of Tamworth.

"We can't have all the schools come and all that sort of stuff because we just can't manage it," Mrs McCarthy said.

"I think we're planning on 100 [veterans] maybe."

"It's absolutely a big ask when you don't have a department that can run it for you. We don't have HR or a marketing department. It falls on the same people to do the same stuff."

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Remembrance Day marks the minute the last shots of the First World War were fired. An armistice between Germany and the allied powers went into effect, at 11.00am on November 11.

The sub-branch hopes to be able to set up displays of poppies inside essential businesses like supermarkets, but they won't be staffed by volunteers.

With the backing of the West Leagues' Club grants program and the Commonwealth government, the RSL sub-branch isn't going to go broke tomorrow.

"We're not struggling, but it's getting harder," Mrs McCarthy said.

The RSL president vowed that no matter what, they would mark Remembrance Day somehow.

"After last year anything's a bonus."

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