Fund Raising & Public Awareness
Throughout the short history of the charity it has been our policy that everything we do to raise funds should combine with promoting public awareness of the aims of the charity, should seek to involve young people and, where possible, should seek to commemorate the youth we have lost by celebrating the talents of youth in our community today.
Many local businesses have engaged with our vision, whether by means of cash donations (including large amounts from Waitrose, CPM, and McCormicks), donation of raffle prizes (including £ 1000 from Sainsburys), giving time and resources to assist our events, down to hosting our collection tins on shop counters. Brothers Community Spirit and Thame Round Table have been particularly energetic supporters in our fund raising efforts. Individuals and smaller groups have happily donated in many different ways, including the purchase of charity wrist bands, and a number of donations have been received from the families of some of the youngsters who have died.
Local schools have been major contributors through mufti days, hosting our Quiz Night, and a collection at Barley Hill’s Concert Night, and individual year groups at Lord Williams’s have arranged their own events on our behalf. Over £ 800 was raised by a Disco Party at the James Figg (to be repeated in December) and local youngsters performed for us at a Youth Variety Night at the Player’s Theatre (see sampler at http://vimeo.com/10857638), which was also the culmination of our Grand Draw Raffle which raised £ 3500.
Forthcoming events include a Rock Night planned for the autumn, a Corporate Golf Day at Magnolia Park in September, another Quiz Night, and a Gala Dinner next spring, plus numerous smaller activities and a number of externally organised events from which we will be beneficiaries.
Public awareness of the charity, and its aims and objectives, is high and we are continually surprised by the breadth of support from all sectors of the local community.
Memorial Design
The primary focus from the outset has been the design and installation of a memorial as a centrepiece to the Youth Memorial Garden, and this has endeavoured to involve the community by means of a design competition. The design brief was discussed in Council and with Thame Conservation Committee and the design competition ran through 3/4 months at the beginning of 2010 and attracted a number of interesting and imaginative ideas. The next phase of the process, currently under way, is to discuss and develop these ideas with professional input from a local architect in order to weed out the designs which are impractical or inappropriate, to reduce the options to a short list, and to identify likely costs for manufacture and installation.
The resulting designs will then go back out for public comment and consultation – by means of displays in the Museum and (hopefully) in the Town Hall, at local events, on the Thame Youth Memorial web site, and with publicity through the charity’s Facebook Group. This will not take the form of a public vote as there are many other factors to take into consideration, but will seek to identify preferences and to further reduce the options. Those remaining will then be worked up into detailed designs and specifications, fully costed, and presented to the Trustees for final selection or ranking. It had been hoped to complete this process by early July 2010 but, realistically, this phase will probably last into the autumn.
The third phase is then to return to official channels by presenting the options and preferences to the Town Council to seek approval for a final design and to request the necessary permission to install a memorial in the Youth Memorial Gardens which are, of course, on Council land. We would also seek to discuss the proposals with Thame Conservation Committee and to consult with other interested parties at District and County, for example Conservation Officers and Planning Officers, as appropriate. Timing of this phase will be largely out of our hands but, ultimately, it is hoped that the project can be completed with a memorial in place by the summer of 2011 and the other main factor, fund raising, is well on target to achieve this date.
Legacy – What then ?
Whilst the original vision and the primary focus of the charity are to establish a memorial to the lost youth of Thame and the surrounding villages, that is only the beginning and the objectives of the charity have much wider and longer term challenges.
Our public awareness efforts to date have already had an impact in the community and, by involving youngsters in so many of our events and fund raising activities, we are finding that the ‘generation gap’ is largely a fiction and that people of all ages and backgrounds are working together in support of our cause.
Particularly encouraging has been the way that we have been approached by the families and friends of youngsters who have died, in many cases offering practical support and making donations, and we have representatives from five of the families actively and closely involved in our supporter’s group, planning and facilitating our many fund raising events.
We recognise that a lump of stone (or steel, or bronze, or whatever it turns out to be), no matter how attractive the design or how it complements its surroundings, is ultimately just an edifice What really matters in the long term is how it fits into the consciousness of the community or, as a couple of Councillors said at the outset, it should be for the living, not for the dead. It is not intended to commemorate the dead so much as to provide solace and inspiration to the youth of today by acting as a place of reflection and remembrance.
There is also a need for support and understanding for those affected by the death of a young family member or friend, and we are already seeking input from health professionals to enable the charity to become a natural point of reference in the event of future tragedies, offering a local level of care and counselling and acting as a signpost to more professional services where required. Unique in this objective is the readiness of bereaved families within our community to be a part of this process, helping others to cope and come to terms with something that they have themselves been through. The potency of this has already been demonstrated by those families currently involved with the charity, none of whom had previously met but who have now established their own mutual support network.
Of course, even better than coping with bereavement would be to help prevent such tragedies ever occurring. The very fact of a dedicated Youth Memorial and Garden acknowledging that too many are taken too young may in itself help to promote awareness that these things happen and if, as a result, fewer young lives are lost then it will have served a useful purpose. Being more proactive it is also within our future plans to work with local schools and health providers to help fund and facilitate such things as cycle proficiency training, road safety courses, drug awareness programmes, and anything else that can help to reduce youth mortality.
In summary, whilst our initial objective is to provide a memorial to the lost youth of Thame and the surrounding villages, the real function of the memorial is to provide a focus on unnecessary tragedy, to support those directly affected by it, and to engage the community in helping to prevent, or at least reduce, the incidence of such tragedies in the future. The premature loss of a youngster, before they have ever had the opportunity to realise their potential in life, is a loss to our whole community.
