This week has been a bit of a whirlwind for me, in the best possible way! I have found myself exceedingly busy with a new venture so I thought I’d let you know what I have been up to! On Sunday evening, along with the historian Alexandra Churchill, I became a co-founder of a new First World War organisation – the Great War Group. Our aim is to be an organisation furthering research on and preserving the memory of the First World War. We have already had an amazing response, with over 1800 people following us on twitter and over 150 on Facebook.
We have five goals that we would like to achieve, hopefully over an extended period of time:
- A wide approach considering all First World War fronts – not just the Western Front. We want to highlight all areas that were touched by the First World War.
- A communicative & diverse online presence – a wide range of contact methods, reaching out to large and diverse groups, who have a common goal to communicate and share with each other.
- A quarterly journal of substance and quality – this is our main objective, a journal that can be accessible and welcoming to all. We want articles and contributions from all types of people; from those who have academic backgrounds and are used to writing, to those who maybe have never written an article or don’t have an academic background but are passionate about what they have researched themselves.
- An annual, moving UK conference – We want to create an event for the organisation that will rotate around the United Kingdom, with the intention of being as geographically accessible as possible to all people interested.
- Lastly, a mentoring programme by which volunteers can foster a local interest in the First World War in their communities – to ensure the interest in the First World War that grew during the centenary commemorations is nurtured and continues to grow. This is a goal that is further away than our immediate priorities, but still important for our long term ambitions for the organisation.
We will eventually become an organisation that has subscriptions for the magazines, events, conferences etc. We want to welcome as many people as possible to be part of our organisation.
To help us get off the ground, we have set up a Crowdfunder site at www.crowdfunder.co.uk/thegreatwargroup – so that we can do a timely print of our first journal and get ourselves in a good place to welcome as many people as possible. We are offering rewards for those who are kindly donating to our mission. Alex and I are blown away by how generous people have been, and we really appreciate your faith in us.
If you’d like to be a part of this new organisation, but have questions, we are hosting a Q&A session on Monday evening. If you click the link below, you can register for the event – further details on the link explaining how it works:
We will also be setting up a website eventually but if you have anything you’d like to contribute, we have two email addresses
greatwargroupinfo@gmail.com – for general enquiries, admin and so on
gwgjournal@gmail.com – for those who would like to contribute to the journal in any way – be it writing an article, ideas that you think may be good content, practical design ideas and so on
Our Twitter page is @thegreatwargroup
Our Facebook Page is The Great War Group
Any support that we have is so gratefully received, we have been astounded by the response we have had so far and are hopeful that due to this support, this organisation may continue for some time to come.
‘Til next time!
Beth
historyandmoore.com 
Beth this is awesome and I’m looking forward to supporting it and being part of it @interwarintell
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