The Scottish Military Research Group - Commemorations Project

David McNay

Some of you may have seen the recent news item on our "blog":

http://scottishmilitary.blogspot.com/2011/09/scottish-military-research-group-now.html

For those of you that didn't, the Scottish Military Research Group has decided to move to a more formal footing by forming themselves into an association. Although the SMRG has been in existence for a number of years it has always been run as an informal organisation. On Saturday 3rd September 2011 at a meeting of its members in Glasgow it was agreed to form an association and appoint a committee.

Membership of the Society is free, and joining will ensure you are added to the mailing list and will be the first to hear of any news.

To join the society, please email scottishmilitaryresearch@live.co.uk and provide the following information:

1. Your name
2. Address
3. Email
4. Username on this forum or the Scottish War Graves Project (this is required to provide access to the members section of the forum)
5. Telephone number (this is optional)

Although many of you on the forum have been involved with our projects for some time, and in order to keep a clear and accurate membership list, we will only add you to the society mailing list and consider you members if you send us the above details.

Thank you.

kinnethmont · Joined: 19 Dec 2006 Posts: 1649 Location: Aberdeenshire

Now that the new association / society has been in existence for six months, can you us give an update of how it is getting on and how many members it has now?
_________________
Jim

If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

www.kinnethmont.co.uk

Adam Brown · Posted: Sat Mar 31, 2012 9:53 pm Post subject:

Jim

It is still very early days for us. There are the SWMP and SWGP of course which take up a lot of time and we are looking to expand the wartime newspaper indexing which was started on the Daily Record.

The Glasgow 1914-1918 Roll of Honour was published online under the Group's name and we will hopefully be publishing more in the future.

We are looking into applying for charitable status.

After that we are looking into working with Edinburgh University on plans to commemorate the 100th aniversary of the outbreak of the First World War. That's still at an early stage.

We also collected 1000 microfilms of former War Office papers from The National Archives in London a couple of weeks ago and we should hopfully be able to announce soon that we have a new home in Scotland for them.

There are other plans in the pipeline but they are committee matters at the moment so I don't want to mention it on an open forum.

There are currently around 20 members.

I hope that answers your questions

Thanks

Adam

kinnethmont · Joined: 19 Dec 2006 Posts: 1649 Location: Aberdeenshire

Adam

Thanks for the detail.

Good news. The microfilms sound a most interesting development.

From experience, I would think charitable status and OSCR will make life a bit difficult.
_________________
Jim

If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

www.kinnethmont.co.uk

ADP · Joined: 13 Jun 2008 Posts: 467 Location: Edinburgh

As many of the organisations you are dealing with are charities, it may help open doors for you if your organisation is a charity too. It will certainly help if you are seeking funding for projects that you are undertaking.

However, be prepared to have to jump through many hoops to obtain charitable status. It should be worth the effort in achieving charitable status.

http://www.oscr.org.uk/about-scottish-charities/becoming-a-charity/

ADP

Adam Brown · Posted: Sun Apr 01, 2012 5:10 pm Post subject:

ADP

Thanks for the link. We know we have quite a few hoops to jump through but the short term pain will be worth the long term gain if we are successful.

Kind regards

Adam

kinnethmont · Joined: 19 Dec 2006 Posts: 1649 Location: Aberdeenshire

David McNay · Posted: Sun Mar 10, 2013 12:57 am Post subject:

We were successful in our application for charitable status. It's another step along the plans we have in place for the future of the Research Group.

Kenneth Morrison · Posted: Sun Mar 10, 2013 10:24 am Post subject:

am I a member?
_________________
Ken

kinnethmont · Joined: 19 Dec 2006 Posts: 1649 Location: Aberdeenshire

Kenneth Morrison · Posted: Sun Mar 10, 2013 11:42 am Post subject:

I did and I haven't Confused

_________________
Ken

apanderson · Posted: Sun Mar 10, 2013 1:21 pm Post subject:

Jim, I'm intrigued to know why you thing charitable status and OSCR will make life a bit difficult?

I personally would have thought it would add a great deal of credibilty?

Anne

David McNay · Posted: Sun Mar 10, 2013 2:17 pm Post subject:

kinnethmont · Joined: 19 Dec 2006 Posts: 1649 Location: Aberdeenshire

apanderson · Posted: Sun Mar 10, 2013 3:06 pm Post subject:

I didn't notice the date of your message Jim.

Obviously all the hoops and hurdles have been worked through to gain charitable status and there's been a huge amount of work put into it over more than just a few months.

Anything they might throw at us now, I expect won't upset the apple cart too much. If in the event something does come up, then without doubt, 'whatever' will be handled/sorted by a very capable team!

Onwards and Upwards! Smile

Anne