The familiar red poppy, worn to mark Remembrance Day, may be missing from Glaswegians' lapels this year if an urgent appeal for volunteers is unsuccessful.
Poppyscotland, the charity behind the Scottish Poppy Appeal, has warned that volunteer numbers need to increase sharply if poppies are to be available in Glasgow this November.
A national appeal, backed by a TV advertising campaign, has been launched to ensure that fundraising for veterans goes ahead as planned in 2008.
Last year's efforts raised a record £1.76m to help the neediest in the ex-service community, but low volunteer numbers for this year so far are jeopardising collections in a number of Glasgow districts, including the city centre, Shawlands, Giffnock and Springburn.
Isla Campbell Lupton, Poppyscotland's volunteer co-ordinator, said: "We urgently need to find volunteers to ensure that there will be a poppy collection across Glasgow this year. Poppyscotland offers assistance to those most in need in the ex-service community so we need to sell as many poppies as possible to continue our work.
"By volunteering for Poppyscotland you will be making a difference to the lives of veterans and their dependants in Scotland, many of whom are affected by issues such as poverty, mental health problems and disability."
Poppyscotland, formerly the Earl Haig Fund Scotland, was founded in 1921 to provide practical help to veterans and their dependants living in Scotland.
Money raised from the annual Scottish Poppy Appeal is spent on direct financial assistance, an advice service - including pension claims and appeals - and employment support for disabled veterans.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article