Hello. We're working to protect Sheffield's war memorials and need your help, find out more below. This month's newsletter also includes advance notice of the 2016 Design Awards which will take place in October, a report from a recent heritage conference and - can you help us to celebrate our 10th birthday? If you have upcoming events, projects or news that we can help promote in future newsletters please get in touch.
Help us record and protect Sheffield's 350 war memorials.
4 free workshops in Sheffield in May
Sheffield Civic Trust is encouraging people to play a part in conserving and protecting our local war memorials as part of a project to commemorate the First World War. A new programme and series of free workshops in Sheffield in May aims to inspire people to survey and conserve their local war memorials to ensure that by the end of the centenary of the First World War, in 2018, as many of our city's war memorials as possible are in a good condition.
Sheffield Civic Trust, along with Civic Voice, Historic England, the Imperial War Museum, War Memorials Trust and Sheffield City Council are working together with volunteers across the city to record the condition of all known 350 war memorials in Sheffield. Funding is available for the repair and conservation of memorials, but help is needed to find them and record their condition first, using a simple survey.
In May there are four free workshops in Sheffield (details below). Come along and find out about the new programme, consider how you can identify and record the condition of your local memorials, and learn about the steps that can be taken to conserve them for the future and the funding that’s available for their repair and conservation.
Paul Bedwell is leading our work on this programme: "If people from every area of the city were to undertake a simple survey of their local war memorial the result could be that all of our memorials could be in really good condition by 2018 when the real commemoration of the end of the war takes place."
Sheffield Design Awards - 26 October
We are pleased to confirm the Sheffield Design Awards will take place on Wednesday 26th October at the new home of the Sheffield Institute of Arts, the Head Post Office Building at Sheffield Hallam University.
The call for entries will be open early next month (May) so please keep an eye out for further details of how you can enter soon.
SCT is 10! Can you help us celebrate?
This year Sheffield Civic Trust is 10 years old and we're planning a celebration event to be held in the summer - but we need a venue, can you help?
We're looking for a city centre venue to host an evening celebration event for around 100 people in either June or July. If you run a venue or know somewhere we could use please get in touch with us atinfo@sheffieldcivictrust.org.ukAnd watch this space for details of the celebration event! We'll share them with you all as soon as we can.
"The conference was the first big event organised by the Joined Up Heritage Sheffield group under the banner of the Year of Making. It was a resounding success in bringing together 300 representatives of the various heritage organisations in the city to discuss the making of a Heritage Strategy (read more in this Sheffield Telegraph article). It is clear to all of us that Heritage can bring economic benefits to Sheffield and that it should be exploited more. We want people and business to come here for what is on offer and not just swan off to the Peak Park and Chatsworth!
"There were two key speakers: Harry Bowell, who lives in Sheffield, but is also director of National Trust North. He talked about the challenges and opportunities for an area that Heritage can make and the partnerships possible with the National Trust, and Paul Seddon, Head of Planning and Regeneration at Nottingham City Council, who with Adam Partington wrote the Heritage Strategy plan for that city (you can read Nottingham's strategy here). Paul recognised that we were further forward with our thinking than Nottingham were when they first started. He said that their's was a 15 year plan to celebrate and capitalise as well as understand what we have. A Heritage Panel had been set up to move the ideas on with an independent chair ,a developer, an architect, a councillor and some heritage group reps. It is based within the council planning department and there is even a dedicated officer part funded by Historic England .
"Finally what we learnt about the importance of Heritage to this City was that it added to its wellbeing, its celebration of diversity and community pride its vitality and offer for tourists and finally that it creates a quality environment for business and citizens alike. In October we will start the next steps to making that strategy."
Heritage Open Days-September 2016
This year's Heritage Open Days take place between 8th-11th September and our planning is off to a good start. Registration opened last month and we have 16 properties on the list to date. If you would like to help our planning, or if you know a building that could be involved in this year's event, please contact Liz Godfrey at godfrey.liz@gmail.com
Would you like to join Sheffield Civic Trust? If you're passionate about Sheffield and want to help shape the debate about the buildings, places, spaces of our city then why not become a member? http://sheffieldcivictrust.org.uk/join/
