Project Update: what’s happening four months into the project?

At this stage of our project the majority of activity is taking place behind the scenes.  The project team are planning and working with website developers and communication teams to start building and promoting our website.

An initial task is to digitise the Poole and Dorset Herald for the war years- this is possible thanks to funding from the Poole Historical Trust.  We are working with a scanning company to create digital images and searchable files from the microfilms.  This will be an exciting outcome of the project as the newspaper for our selected time period 1914- 1924 (to also cover the immediate years after the war) will be searchable and accessible to a much wider audience- including local school children.

We have moved three of our existing Poole History Centre volunteers onto the project.  They are involved with creating a definitive Roll of Honour for Poole, plotting the geographical locations of where Poole people died onto a world map and researching First World War medical and hospital sites in the Borough.  Eventually we will need a larger team of volunteers so watch this space if you are interested in getting involved.

Finally, we are working on promoting the project.  We want people to learn about this important part of their history and their connection to it.  We want to commemorate those brave Poole people who made the ultimate sacrifice.  Currently we are doing most of our promotion through this blog and our twitter profile, so please do share our project news and we’re always available for a chat if you want to find out more.