On Friday Maurice Hope sent the committee this report re progress, and he asked me to place it on the website ..... so:
Gentlemen,
The following is an update of activities so far in respect of the above project.
At our last reunion,the idea of an Army Apprentice Memorial was raised during our AGM,, and since then the project has moved along at quite a brisk pace.
During August and September,dialogue with the other three main schools Old Boys Associations took place (Chepstow,Harrogate and Carlisle),which resulted in a meeting of nominated persons from each, coming together and agreeing on a joint project to achieve the task of planning,designing,costing and erecting a joint memorial to all persons who took part in the Army Apprentice Scheme (Irrespective of the eventual Corps in which they served).
That first meeting was held at the National Memorial Arboretum at Alrewas on the 28th of October,at which Mr Paul Kennedy who is the British Legion curater of the site was present,and who outlined the process needed to erect a memorial ,which gave us some guidence on size,materials allowed and the basic rules that we must follow to conform to health & safety regulations,etc.
A national steering committee was elected and the following appointments were made,as can be seen Arborfield is very well represented so that our views and input is quite considerable.
Chairmen : David C Chapman (Chepstow)
Vice Chairman : Keith Thrower (Arborfield)
Honorary Secretary : Gordon G Bonner (Arborfield)
Honorary Treasurer : Mike J Davis (Arborfield)
Committee Webmaster : Max Warwick (Arborfield)
Members : Colin Weir (Chepstow)
Maurice E Hope (Arborfield)
Johnny McGahan (Harrogate)
David Cooper (Carlisle)
The following were given responsibilities as Association Representatives.
Arborfield - Maurice E Hope.
Chepstow - David C Chapman.
Harrogate - Johnny McGahan.
Carlisle - David Cooper.
The committees next meeting is to be held at the REME Museum on the 9th of December,following which I will further update you on any developments.
The task will have the project name of The Army Apprentice Memorial Project (AAMP).
Max Warwick outlined his ideas for a web site,with particular interest to providing a pen picture of all four Army Apprentices Schools,with web links to each of the Association websites. This will be shortly up and running with the domain name to be http://www.armyapprenticememorial.org.uk.
Following discussions on several ideas put forward for a memorial design, the attached provisional design was agreed upon by the committee,to be circulated to three different Stone/Memorial masons for comments and costing evaluations, any slight alterations or modifications to our design following their input I will relay to you in the next bulletin on progress. At that update hopefully I can give you some basic idea on costing for a memorial,which will not take into account costs of dedication,insurance etc, which are still some way down the line.
I have been asked by David Chapman to seek out your views and comments on our activities to date, the same is being asked of the other association committes, so be it good or bad please let me know.
It would be a good idea, I think, if Dave can do a brief for our AOBA website showing our provisional design suggestion,then at least members have an idea of what we are asking them to donate to,and may give us a wider feedback from our membership
Please let me have any feedback before the 9th of December,so that I can convey your comments to the steering committee
Regards Maurice (Mo) Hope 59b.
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Below please see some more sketches Mo attached.
Arborfield Old Boys' Association
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