World War One Centenary
At the time of writing (December 2014) the Centenary of the Outbreak of World War One has passed and has resulted in many poignant moments of national memory not least November 11th and the moving display of ceramic poppies at the Tower of London. The Society in its way has already made a contribution to the Centenary and plans much more over the forthcoming years.
Back in 2012 the Society Trustees decided that our Centenary Project would be about education. The Society’s Education Project is designed to involve a wider and younger audience in the Badges Story. The purpose being to secure the long term future of these locally funded National War Memorials. With the help of the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Society has already:
- Held a one day seminar on the subject of “War, Landscape and Memory in the Twentieth Century” jointly with The University of Southampton History Department. This involved some of the leading academics in the field and was attended by over 80 members of the public.
- Hosted and supported history undergraduates to research the badges and the WW1 camp the output from the project being an interactive presentation to a local primary school.
- Southampton Solent University Media Studies Department undergraduates are working on a long term project to produce multimedia content for inclusion in the Society’s website.
- Employed a graduate student to develop WW1 educational sources for 12-16 year olds.
- Produced a digital re-creation of Fovant WW1 Camp
The Trustees of The Fovant Badges Society would like to express their appreciation to the students and staff of The History Department of Southampton University, particularly Professor Neil Gregor. We are equally appreciative of the students and staff of The Media Studies Department of Southampton Solent University, in particular Paul Marchbank Head of Department. We thank them all for their contribution of time and skill.
The Society intends to continue and enhance the education project over the next four years. Part 2 of our Centenary Project involves widening the scope of the project to include:
- The employment of an Education Outreach Officer to visit local schools and other organisations to arrange and lead visits to the badges site at Fovant.
- Improvements to the visit experience by (jointly with our colleagues of Sutton Mandeville) introducing updated information plaques in the visitors lay by to include all the badges that were carved in WW1 and to mutually direct visitors to The Fovant/Sutton Badges respectively.
- The principal project will be the construction of a new badge in 2016 that will mark the centenary of the badges.
