Commonwealth War Grave Commission at the Museum 

On the 13^th February we have some representatives from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission at RNSM who are collecting information to create a digital archive.  Below are the details for any of the Friends who would like to come along with any stories/objects or maybe interested in helping on the day.

Visiting with stories/objects–

“Do you have any items related to the First World War?  Would you like to share and preserve these objects and stories for future generations? Bring your diaries, letters, photographs, memoirs, objects or stories about your family’s experience in the war to our Gosport Lest We Forget Roadshow, to be recorded and added to our freely-available, online archive.

“The Commonwealth War Graves Foundation is working in collaboration with Oxford University to create a digital archive of the First World War artefacts stored in bedrooms and attics across the UK. More information can be found here: www.cwgc.org/lest-we-forget “

Volunteering opportunity –

“The Commonwealth War Graves Foundation is working in collaboration with Oxford University to create a digital archive of First World War artefacts stored in bedrooms and attics across the UK. Funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund we will be staging events across the UK, encouraging people to bring along their family heirlooms to be included in the project. We will be holding a Roadshow event with the NMRN at the Submarine Museum in Gosport on the 13th of February.

Volunteering at the Gosport Roadshow is a great opportunity to hear local First World War stories and to see the objects that are associated with them first hand and to be involved in preserving them for future generations. There are a variety of volunteering roles to suit everybody.

Welcome team: you’ll welcome members of the public, explain the process, help them sign in and make sure they are comfortable if they have to wait. There will be roles on the front welcome desk as well as floor managers who will keep an eye on how busy things are and make sure that visitors are shown to interview desks when they become free.

Interview team: you’ll be interviewing visitors about the objects they bring in and their associated stories. There’ll be both interviewers and scribes, making sure that we record all the relevant details about the stories and objects. Like the welcome team, you’ll need a friendly manner to put visitors at their ease, and the ability to write quickly and clearly.

Digitisation team: you’ll be taking photos of the objects or scanning documents. You’ll need good attention to detail while handling fragile objects and making sure we capture everything of interest. You’ll also need some technical skills to operate the camera equipment, but these are easy to learn.

Uploading team: you’ll gather after the event to upload the stories to the Lest We Forget archive and attach the relevant images. You’ll need simple IT skills, but you’ll also have the opportunity to be the first to read through and see these unique stories and objects before they go public!

Training for all of the roles will be provided beforehand by our experienced team who will support and supervise the event. If you want to do more than one role, you will have the opportunity to swap around during the day so that everyone gets a chance to do everything they are interested in! If you are interested in volunteering, please write to volunteers@cwgc.org, and let us know your preferred role(s). You can also use that email address if you have any questions about this project.

More information can be found here: https://www.cwgc.org/lest-we-forget