WFA member Michale Doyle writes:
I am forwarding this email to make you all aware that on Wednesday 22 June at the Leicestershire County Council Headquarters in Glenfield, at 6.00pm there is to be an event that will see the culmination of a very long, and still continuing project to bring an awareness to everyone in Leicestershire and Rutland of the importance of the war memorials within their midst.
The project has been fully supported throughout by David Parsons the leader of Leicestershire County Council, who has a dedicated team of staff who have been working to create an inventory that will ultimately record every known memorial in Leicestershire and Rutland; this inventory will also become available for everyone when it is launched as part of the War Memorial website on 22 June 2011.
My involvement with the project resulted from an approach made to me by Graham Walley and Elizabeth Blood of the project team some two years ago, and at a time when my five volume work of research relating to all the casualties from the Great War who had a connection with the two counties of Leicestershire and Rutland had been published
The book entitled "Their Name Liveth for Evermore" and was embarked upon some twenty or so years previously by my late father Peter, and myself, sadly my father passed away in 1993 and so was never to see his dream become a reality, and it was to his memory that I continued the work, and also adhering to his wish for the books proceeds to be donated to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
Upon publication David Henderson, the WFA website editor most kindly wrote one of my book reviews, and this link will take you to his review, scrolling to the base of the text, the small icons at the bottom may be opened, and I am sure they will explain more fully the content and purpose of the work contained within the five volumes.
Soon after launch my books came to the attention of Leicestershire County Council who purchased twenty sets to place within the reference sections of all their main libraries, and very soon after this event, I received an approach from the newly formed War Memorial Project Team, who during very meaningful, and positive negotiation convinced me of the benefits of reaching a far wider audience with the material that I had gathered over so many years and I therefore agreed to allow my database to form part of the future website.
In closely following the build processes of the website, and after a number of interesting encounters with some very talented systems analysts during the transition from my database format to the final website view, I began at last to see the transfer of the enormous wealth of accumualted material into a simple and easily operated search process that would allow visitors to the website to access any of the 13,707 names I had to date researched.
Additionally we were able to include on my database page a direct link to the WFA page this shows my book review, but essentially also directs all visitors to the WFA pages and therefore will be an opportunity for people to gain an insight into our Association activities, and I would hope generate new members.
Finally I would like to bring the whole purpose of this open email to its conclusion by inviting the Western Front Association on behalf of the Project Team along to the launch evening.
The CWGC will be in attendance, as will the War Memorials Trust, the War Memorial Project Team will obviously be there, with a number of dignitaries, and of course David Parsons the leader of Leicestershire County Council will open the proceedings, there will be a considerable audience made up of volunteers from throughout the two counties, and after the opening talk and demonstration of the newly launched website the evening will be divided into short talks, and breaks for refreshments and time to allow people to browse the exhibits and network with interested parties, the closing time is projected to be at 10.00pm, but ample time will be available for both putting up exhibits and stands and obviously taking them down.
