A little overdue for another update. Lost Medals has hit a milestone recently with the return of over 400 medals. The latest count is 406 medals. We are very proud to achieve this milestone and have our site set on 500 in the very near future.

We have also updated the medals to be returned list which reflect some recent additions and a lot of subtractions. This list is constantly being updated so don't forget to refresh the page.

Lost Medals was also highlighted in the latest edition of the Defence Honours & Awards Newsletter. You can read the article here (1.5 Mb). The article can also be viewed at www.defence.gov.au/medals. We receive a lot of support from Defence Honours & Awards and we wish to thank them publicly here.

Well another update was needed as we have had many successes in returning medals to the respective families since our last update. We have returned over 30+ medal groups in the last 3 months...that is 2 groups per week!!! Considering this is a part time hobby, our site and blog is having a huge success combined with the efforts of the research team. Just wanted to acknowledge Bill who has had a number of successes down in Victoria. The current count is 376.

We have made a few minor change around the site - generally house keeping. However we have removed section. This section was a 12 month trial which involved keeping a list of medals that other people were looking for. Unfortunately it was a very labour intensive exercise and we had not achieved one success during the 12 month trial. Therefore we have decided to remove this section and focus on returning the medals we have in our possession to the veteran or veteran's next of kin.

Have also added another article to In the news. It is a success story of a medal returned in the Coffs Harbour Area. Hope you enjoy the article.

Lastly we wish to pass our condolences onto the Marks family for the loss of Lance-Corporal Jason Marks who was killed in Afghanistan in the previous few weeks. As serving soldiers ourselves we acknowledge the sacrifice they have made for our country and pray no more harm comes to our troops serving overseas. "Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine" (Lord give him eternal rest).

13 February 2008

Happy New Year to all! Already we are one and half months into the year and we have been able to hand back a further 20 medal groups to families. The total number of medals returned now is 343 and going strong.

One of the medals returned in the past 2 months was the 1914-15 star that belonged to LT Kenneth MacLeod. He was one of the first graduates (#55) of the Royal Military College (RMC) Duntroon and the library at the college has been the custodian of the medal until it was returned to the family. Here is a photo of the display at RMC Duntroon.

Updated 'In the News' where there is a recent article of returning a set of stolen medals to a family in Townsville.

I have also updated the list of medals we wish to return. Quite a few new additions but mostly names have disappeared off the list as we have found the families they belong to.

Lastly I am happy to announce that I have a Blog. This is updated a little more frequently than the website and has some interesting articles on the circumstances surrounding the returning of medals to the relatives. The address of the blog is http://lostmedalsaustralia.blogspot.com and is well worth visiting.

Just a small update before the New Year. I have added a little page to explain the purpose of our site. I receive many emails each week from people asking is to help them find their relatives medals. Unfortunately our site is about returning medals in our possession back to the respective families. This alone consumes the majority of our time and regretfully cannot assist people looking for their relatives medals apart from adding their names to our research list. Further information on this plus other tips that may help can be found at the Help Wanted section.

Lastly I am very happy how the site how progressed in its inaugural year. We have only been online 8 months and we have had a lot of success in returning medals to their respective families. The power of the internet has only expanded our audience and made our job a little easier.

Also wanted to thank all those who have supported and helped us throughout the year. This has included researchers, historians, the RSL, support sites, the general public and last but not least, the research team - Scott and Bill.

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Look forward to returning more medals in 2008!

Well in the words of the master, we have had a real purple patch. We have returned over 318 medal sets back to veteran's families demonstrating a real success this site is having. Thank you to all who have helped in our quest to return medals.

Next we would like to welcome the newest member of our research team - Bill Wyndham. For quite a while he has been helping behind the scenes and it is only fitting he becomes an official member of our crew. Welcome aboard Bill.

We have also updated the medals to be returned list which reflect some recent additions and a lot of subtractions. This list is constantly being updated. The medals we are looking for page will be updated in the near future.

Lastly we wish to pass our condolences onto both the Locke and Worsley families for the loss of Sergeant Matthew Locke and Private Luke Worsley who were killed in Afghanistan in the previous few weeks. As serving soldiers ourselves we acknowledge the sacrifice they have made for our country and pray no more harm comes to our troops serving overseas. "Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine" (Lord give him eternal rest).

Another update to the site. A total of 17 medals sets have been returned to families in the last 5 weeks making the count now 290 sets returned. It will not be long until we reach the 300 milestone.

I have updated the front page and made a few corrections around the place. Also added Glyn's wife, Anna's site to the links page. Fantastic little site about card making and stamping which can be seen here.

Also added the 'In the News' page which has been missing behind the newspaper on the front page for a few months. Clicking on the newspaper will reveal the stories about Lost Medals Australia.

Lastly we wish to pass our condolences onto the Pearce family for the loss of David Pearce in Afghanistan this week. As serving soldiers ourselves we acknowledge the sacrifice David has made for our country and pray no more harm comes to our troops serving overseas. "Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine" (Lord give him eternal rest).

Updated the list again with a number of additions to both the Medals to be Returned list and Medals we are looking for list.

Since the last update I have been able to return another 17 medals sets. The power of the internet is working well for Lost Medals Australia.

Part 2 of a 2 part update.

Updated the list of medals in our possession with an additional 32 names being added to the list here. The Generosity of the public has been fantastic since the segment on 'A Current Affair' with a number of people providing medals that were in their possession but did not belong to their family. Thank you for handing these over. The search has begun to return these medals back to the relatives of the veterans.

We have also had a number of email requests for families searching for the relatives' medals. We have added these names to the Medals we are looking for list. Please let us know if your relatives' name is missing by contacting us here.

Also have updated the images section with a few new images of some of the medals and people we have dealt with along the way.

Part 1 of a 2 part update. A number of additional links have been added to the Links Page. This includes links to the RSL National Branch as well as all the RSL State Branch sites which is located on the main page.

Part 2 update to follow in the next week.

Made a few more cosmetic changes to the website and updated a number of pages. Medals to be returned has been updated with another medal group being successfully reunited to the family this month (see images).

We have also added an images section to highlight some of the behind the scenes work of the Lost Medals' Team as well as adding a few more useful websites under the links section.

The section 'Medals we are looking for' has also been added to the website. This is a collection of names of Service personal whose medals are in the community but the families are still looking for their relatives' medals to be returned to them hopefully in the near future. Perhaps you can help.