The LGBT Armed Forces Community Memorial is a very important part of the non-financial reparations recommended by Lord Etherton’s report from the LGBT Veterans Independent Review.
The government has agreed £350k to fund a lasting memorial at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire. While Fighting With Pride is commissioned to deliver the memorial, it is important to remember that the memorial is to honour the service, past, present and future, of all of the LGBT Armed Forces community, veterans, regular service, reservists and cadet forces and their families. An important part of the delivery is engaging with as many and as wide an audience as possible from that community to gather their inputs about what sort of memorial the community wants. The community survey will open soon for people to record their opinions; more details to follow, but associated with that are 4 regional workshops where community members can join in person to help discuss and record those thoughts.
We invite you to apply to attend one of those events near you if you can, to have your say. Attendance in person is ideal, however, we will also be trying to stream the workshops to allow people to participate remotely, with the usual caveats about technology risks and limited visibility for those not there in person. The four workshops and their details and signup links are listed below.
Portsmouth on Monday 9 September from 1300 to 1600 at Agamemnon Housing, Sirius Court, Sackville Street, Portsmouth PO5 4HA. To register, please fill out the form here.
Edinburgh on Friday 13 September from 1200 to 1500, City Chambers (Lord Provost rooms), High Street, EH1 1YJ. To register, please fill out the form here.
Blackpool on Saturday 21 September from 1515 to 1615, Blackpool Football Club Stadium, FY1 6JJ. To register, please fill out the form here.
Cardiff on Thursday 3 October, from 1230 to 1430, The Royal British Legion, 18-19 High St, CF10 1PT. To register, please fill out the form here.
