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AEA Shop Report - October 2025

This year’s Association shop report for 2025 to date is as follows:

In line with this pie chart taken from the shop accounts records

Total income as at 6th Oct 2025 £1,100.49
Total expenses from income £183.23
Payments to bank £917.26
Stock costs from sales £413.69
Leaving available funds to association £503.57
Stock cost held by the shop for sales £4,511.58

Further matters relating to shop(s)

  1. New stock intake has been suspended for the last few months due to the merger of AEA and REA Airborne branch. The shop structure and future stock will need to be analysed, and ideas passed to members via various means of communication. An update on this matter will be broadcast in the new year 2026
  2. Further to that point, the shop manager Jon Nichols (apologies for absence / daughter’s wedding took priority) and the webmaster Dave Pace have now achieved the establishment of a Regt online PRI shop. This shop can be accessed alongside the AEA shop link on the Association website.
  3. Finally, Jon Nichols, shop manager, who has put in a stint of some three years, is now appealing for a replacement to take over the running of the AEA shop in the new year 2026. He is looking to plan for retirement and feels the time he dedicates to the shop needs to be used for that exercise.  Please submit any interests to the Chairman in the first instance.
Jon thanks the committee and in particular Dave Pace for their/his massive support to achieve his shop goals.
There ends the shop report…

Thank you all …… Jon Nichols, Shop Manager.

Shop Manager's Update as at 9th June 2025

Hello All
My shop report will highlight the following points:

  • Shop Stock update
  • Item Order dispatch update
  • 23 PRI online shop update
  • AEA shop moving forward in 2026

SHOP STOCK UPDATE: With the merger of the AEA and the REA (Airborne) association groups, any shop restock has been on hold for the past few months. What we don’t wish to do is spend funds from the AEA bank account on new stock whilst negotiations are ongoing between the new association group committee and the REA group committee in relation to finance management. Once this has been finalised & the new AEA national branch is in an official existence, I will reach out to you all for your thoughts on what you may wish to see on your shop shelves.

ORDER DISPATCH UPDATE: Royal Mail do increase parcel costs every year and adding a few pennies to the P&P cost to oversee the cost of packaging, I think we can all agree, it is not cheap these days to pack and post a parcel. We must also consider the availability of a volunteer member of shop staff to interrupt their working & personal life to get these items into the postage system. To this we have undertaken the following changes. Firstly, all parcels will be sent 2nd Class to save on everyone’s costs. Secondly, delivery time is now notified to customers as being, 3 to 5 days. This takes into consideration the 2nd Class postage but also gives the store staff a bit of leeway to undertake the dispatch process in a more reasonable time based on their other personal commitments.
NOTE*… if you need something asap, just get in comms on the website contact page. https://www.airbornesappers.org.uk/contactus.html
23 PRI SHOP: The 23 PRI online shop is almost complete and will be live soon. The link to shop online will be from the AEA website shop page. We apologise for any delay in this going live, but several factors to include,

  • Software build time
  • information gathering
  • Agreements to AEA / Regt MoU
  • MOD accounts requirements
  • A full stock check requirement for stock levels

All of these issues have delayed this facility going live to all serving and veteran Airborne Engineers. Just a few more weeks please and we will endeavour to advise you all on various communications platforms with a Charlie Charlie Call to state PRI ONLINE SHOP LIVE!!!!!!

AEA SHOP MOVING FORWARD: On a personal note, I look with envy at some of our dear friends now retired and gallivanting around the globe, up to no good, you're lucky!!! Lol. To this end, as a civil servant (too early to retire yet) I am thinking of taking an extended period of unpaid leave next year. This is so I may do a bit of gallivanting myself. Adventure before Dementia in my bus around Europe. To that, I am starting a conversation to all callsigns seeking a new shop manager. A little knowledge of Excel, ecommerce software would be useful, but a full handover with teachings will be undertaken for a smooth transfer of the shop infrastructure, stock and its functions.

So, if you would like to put in a shift to one of the AEA national branch positions and fancy this, please feel free to contact me.

Well, that’s all from me, thank you all for your support and patience with my methods of madness and look forward to seeing you all for a cold one in the future at some stage.

My very best regards to you all and your families

Jon Nichols
AEA Shop Manager

aeashopmanager@outlook.com