**UPDATE**
We are now OVERFUNDING! If we reach a new target of £1000 extra, we might be able to put some money towards two very special aspects of the project.
- We are currently in talks, trying to raise some money to send a couple of people, possibly young people form the village to lay crosses in one of the French or Belgian cemeteries. Extra money from over funding our crowdfunder would help towards this and of course towards filming this trip. LEts see if we can make this happen.
- Extra money from the over funding would go toward the core project which as yet has no funding at all.
So please there are 18 days left and there is plenty more to fund and to shout about.
Dig deep, or if you already have, then get get sharing this page.
A big thank you to all who have already pledged and those that intend to in the coming days.
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Arlesey, a small village in Bedfordshire is launching an ambitious project to commemorate the centenary of WW1 by laying a poppy cross on the grave of every serviceman listed on the village war memorial. The location of graves is varied, the church yard, Belgium, France, Turkey, Iraq and Israel. As I said its ambitious.
I will make a documentary following the journey of villagers as they carry out this project. The local schools are involved with preparing the crosses and researching the history of the War Memorial. Surviving relatives are being invited to lay a poppy cross. And the community is being encouraged to become involved. It’s a community project and a real first for the village.
The film will capture this and serve as a legacy for the community. We intend to have a screening event and invite all those who've been invovled. We might even provide some tea and biscuits. It will also be available to view on a dedicated website and even more exciting I hope to get it broadcast on television perhaps on the Community Channel. Again we're ambitious in Arlesey.
This film is important, some children I 've spoken to know nothing about WW1 and the attendance at rememberance services amoungst young people is dropping. I really hope this film and the production of this film will encourage the community to take a minute or two to look into their history and perhaps find some remarkable stories from those that died for us.
On a lighter note, the film will be an opportunity for some villagers to be invovled in the film making process, gain some new skills and feel positive about the place they live. I'm keen to recruit local helpers as my crew!
The big problem of course is we have no funding. I need some initial funds to hire some essential kit, sound equipment, back up drives to store the footage and ultimately some equipment to edit the film on. I have a camera, but this alone is not enough. There are also some basic admisitritive costs, which are boring but important - travel costs, insurances, permissions paperwork and possibly clearance issues and performance rights to use music and archive material.
If we are really lucky and raise more that our target, once the film costs are covered, any extra funds will be put into the main Arlesey Remembers You project.