Completition of Funding

The Chairman and Trustee's of the AANM Charity express their sincere thanks to all our donors whose generosity has made possible the creation of this Memorial at the National Memorial Arboretum and enabled a Legacy Agreement to be made with the NMA for the maintainence and insurance covering it's lifetime. We are therefore closing off any further donations as the remaining monies are just sufficient to complete our administrative duties.

 I can now report that my duties as fundraiser are complete. Apart from some final housekeeping the memorial is complete and paid for.

What an interesting and enlightening experience the project has proved to be.

It began on the 29 October 2009, when a disparate group of ten ex-apprentices from the four Old Boys’ Associations of Arborfield, Carlisle, Chepstow, and Harrogate, held a meeting at the National Memorial Arboretum (NMA), Alrewas, Staffordshire, and decided that indeed they could design, raise funds and construct a memorial that would be a fitting tribute to all army apprentices who trained as soldier-tradesmen during the twentieth century.

The design was focused on the idea of a base platform that represents the circle of life-the four benches mark the apogee of the army apprentice scheme in it’s final form- the centre circle poem articulates the ethos that controlled and directed the activities of a system that turned boys into men-the whole design being crowned by the commanding presence of the monolith. The final act was to install a lectern that informs the public the purpose of our project. We Trustees believe that we have built a very elegant memorial that others will wish to emulate, which just goes to show the we ex-boys can do anything!

Those of us involved in the project have been touched by the extraordinary generosity of a number of Regimental Associations and many ex-boys worldwide who, in two short years, have helped us raise just under £106,000. The all up costs of the memorial was £63,000. The Trustees invested £40,000 into a maintenance fund at the NMA that will provide an income stream to care and maintain the memorial for the life of the monument. The remaining money will be used to maintain the memorial website for a minimum of five years, as well as funding future Trustee meetings and other minor administrative costs.

Major (Retired) Gordon G Bonner. (Arborfield 49B)
Honorary Secretary & Fundraiser.