If you are a paid-up member of the RNPA you can create your PERSONAL PROFILE for other members to see. Please note that only paid up members of the Association can see any detailed information about yourself that you choose to include. Anyone viewing the site as a 'visitor' can only see your name and photograph (if you've uploaded one). Information you share in your personal profile is not visible to either visitors or non-members of the Association.
Once you've registered your account with the Association follow the link below if you need help with the completion of your personal profile:
Help With How To Complete Your Profile.
The information set out below will give you answers to questions about our Personal Profiles pages.
We suggest that you read this through first.
How Much Information Should I put Into My Profile?
The amount of information you wish to put into your profile is up to you. It can contain a simple summary of your career, or it can be as detailed as you want to make it. Ideally it would be good for other members to know of your own Service History, so the more you feel you want to add to this part of your profile makes it more interesting for other RNPA members to read.
What's The Best Way To Put In Information In My Profile?
We suggest that you write your profile chronologically, i.e. in date order. This is especially so for your 'Service History'. If you can give some background information from the date you joined the navy to when you finished your time, other members who care to read your profile can see where you went and perhaps who you served with. When you read what your shipmates got up to it might jog your personal memories too if you were in the same place and the same time.
Personal Details
This part of your profile allows you to tell other members about you. It's included the text box named 'Life Before RN' (more on this below…)
- Full name
- Nick name (if you had one?)
- Service Number
- Date of Birth
- Place of Birth
We hope this bit of the profile is self-explanatory. We stress; you can choose to share as much detail as you want to, or as little as you want. Some people might be uncomfortable with giving too much information. That's fine, please don't do anything you're uncomfortable with. All we would remind you of is that this information is not seen by anyone other than paid-up members of the Association.
Life Before RN
In this part of your profile you can put any interesting snippets about what you did prior to joining the navy. Again, put in as much or as little information as you want. If you can make it chronological it helps to give readers an insight into what you got up to all those years ago!
Service History
This is the part of the profile that's potentially the longest for you to complete, especially if you joined when Nelson was a lad, and didn't leave the navy for a very long time!
Again, you can enter as little or as much as you want. It can simply be a synopsis/precis of establishments/ships/squadrons you might have served on, with the dates you joined and left them. Or it can be more colourful with anecdotes (and gossip!), if you feel you want to share them. It can even contain information on people who shared a darkroom with you. This is one part of your profile that might take the longest to fill out, so you may want to do it in bite sized chunks.
Life After RN
All good things come to an end! Some of you will have served in the branch for a short period of time; others will have spent most of your time in the navy and ended your working life at that point. Many of you will have had 'second' careers, so it would be nice to know what you did when you left the service. Once again, how much you put into this section is for you to decide. It can be a simple synopsis or more wordy, with information about the businesses you worked in. For readers it would be helpful, if you want to share it, to know the dates, and what job you did.
Family Details
Use this part of you profile to share information about you and your family. Spouse/children, year you married (if you married!) and names and dates of birth of children would be nice for your collegues to read about. You can even tell us all about your pets/brothers/mum/dad/cousins and your sisters and your aunts! (With apologies to Gilbert & Sullivan!). How much you share, just like the rest of your profile, is up to you.
Finally…
We look forward to reading about you and your life and times! We do hope you will share your life's experiences with fellow members of the Association!
If you have anything to say about this page then please leave a message below. Any constructive comments and suggestions are always welcome.
If you're a Paid-Up member of the Association and need help with how to complete your Personal Profile please follow this link:
Help With How To Complete Your Profile.