She contacted RSA president Roly Ellis who thought it was a good idea and asked what he needed to do.
"I told him to write his welcome speech, get dressed up, deliver his speech as though he was at the service on the day, record it and send it to me."
Ashford said it sounded simple but the first hurdle was in carrying out the sending of the recordings.
To overcome this Ashford sent out links to a program called Box to all those involved, but two-thirds of the links didn't work so she had to send out her personal log in.
In the end this worked and Ashford received all the recordings with the last clip arriving late Tuesday afternoon.
"I managed to educate myself to put all the clips together and to insert cards introducing each person so we now have a 30-minute virtual Anzac service that contains 10 elements."
The next stumbling block was trying to upload the recording to put it out to the public. It was also decided to broadcast the service over Radio Dannevirke at 10am.
"I spoke to Jim Ryan at the radio station and worked out how to do it. It was a big file, of four and a half gigabytes so I compressed it down and uploaded it to dropbox and lo and behold Jim could only get half of the recording."
Success was achieved by stripping off the video and retaining the audio.
To get the service online Ashford had to create a YouTube account for Dannevirke RSA.
The uploading began at 7am on Wednesday and was completed by 5pm that day.
"So it all sounded like a good idea but it wasn't that straight forward. Sitting at home using my laptop I had to teach people how to send through their clip that they had recorded on their phone."
But she said the co-operation of everyone involved was outstanding.
"I don't think I have any favours left on the planet that I can call in now.
"It's been an interesting journey and I have great respect for everyone involved."
Ashford said before this experience she had never made a video and was not tech savvy.
"I'm an ideas person and I thought 'am I going to let lockdown stand in the way of an Anzac service. I don't think so'."
Nationally, RSA headquarters is inviting people to support Stand at Dawn and be at their gateways at 6am on Anzac Day and listen to the New Zealand Anzac service on National radio.
"When I first heard about this I thought that's all fine but what if we have a storm then. I thought I need a Plan B for this and that's when I thought of an actual service."
Taking part in the recorded service are Wairarapa Hawke's Bay East Coast District RSA president Paddy Driver, Tararua District mayor Tracey Collis, NZ First MP Ron Mark Ron Mark, Steve Wallace, Graeme Evans, Roly Ellis and padre Ron Ashford.
Ellis said the idea of pre-recording a Dawn Service and putting out to the public arena via Facebook was fantastic.
"The various people who have contributed have put their best foot forward.
"Technically it's been quite hard for Monique and she has gone to great lengths to get it right."
Ellis said from conversations with others Dannevirke RSA had led the way in this and other RSAs had picked up on the idea.
He fully supported people taking part in the Stand at Dawn event as well.
*To take part in the Dawn Service visit the Dannevirke and Districts RSA Facebook page and click on the YouTube link to the service which is scheduled for 5.45am tomorrow.
