Sales of poppies for Remembrance Day are destined to go through the roof after a historic deal that will see these symbols available in every Woolworths store in Australia.
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The deal was struck between Woolworths and the RSL national body, with the poppies being sold in Maitland now.
And the RSL national body said fears of local RSL sub-branches that the deal would rob them of local funds raised by hard-working poppy-selling volunteers were groundless.
All the poppies and badges sold have a bar code and each sale is recorded where the item is bought, RSL national secretary John King said yesterday.
“Each Woolworths store can be matched to a suburb or an area to produce a market report, which will be given to the RSL state branch,” Mr King said.
“This enables the RSL state branch to identify the sub-branch concerned and the values of sales in that area. It will then be up to the state branch to distribute funds.”
Mr King said RSL seller volunteers were not getting any younger and in many places there were not enough volunteers to cover the territory.
“There are more Woolworths stores able to sell more poppies than there are RSL volunteers to do the same work,” he said.
“While the volunteers do a magnificent job raising funds it was felt that in accepting Woolworths offer, the RSL would benefit from increased sales.
“This clearly benefits the RSL.”
But Maitland RSL sub-branch vice-president Fred Goode and the RSL District Council president Brian Boughton said they wanted to know the proportion of money local sub-branches would receive from the Woolworths sales.
“From the poppies our volunteers sell, the money stays in the Maitland area and we are concerned money from poppies sold at Woolworths stores will not,” Mr Goode said.