The Victoria Cross Trust: Maintaining the Memories – A Positive Pathways Case Study

The Victoria Cross Trust (VCT) ‘works tirelessly to ensure the memory and graves of every Victoria Cross recipient are remembered and maintained for generations to come.’

In February 2021, the Victoria Cross Trust was awarded £35,000 over one year from the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust’s Positive Pathways programme for its Maintaining the Memories project. The project restores graves and provides a range of health, wellbeing and development opportunities for veterans, and education and engagement with the local community.

Organisation name: Victoria Cross Trust
Project name: Maintaining the Memories
Location/area: Yorkshire and the North East; UK
Grant amount: £35,000
Award date: February 2021
Grant duration: 1 year
Grant programme: Positive Pathways

The Victoria Cross is awarded for bravery in the presence of the enemy to any member of the British Armed Forces. Since it was introduced by Queen Victoria in 1856, there have been 1,358 Victoria Crosses awarded to 1,355 individuals, with only 15 medals awarded since the Second World War. It is one of the highest awards for gallantry in the British honours system.

Established in 2012, the Victoria Cross Trust (VCT) ‘works tirelessly to ensure the memory and graves of every Victoria Cross recipient are remembered and maintained for generations to come’. The VCT aims to renovate, preserve and maintain Victoria Cross graves that fall outside of the remit of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which only takes responsibility for the graves of Victoria Cross recipients killed in action in the First World War and the Second World War. It does this through fundraising and other income generating activities, including a retail premises and museum in Lakeside shopping centre, Doncaster.

In February 2021, the VCT was awarded £35,000 over one year from the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust’s Positive Pathways programme for its Maintaining the Memories project. The project was designed to complement and extend VCT’s core operations, and the grant came at a challenging time for the charity’s fundraising activities due to Covid-19 restrictions. ‘We wanted specifically to focus on expanding our retail facility and introducing a new masonry cleaning service’, said Frances Adams, trustee at the VCT. ‘This would both help to generate a sustainable income and allow us to continue to fulfil our key objectives of cleaning Victoria Cross graves while providing veterans with meaningful activities and opportunities.’ The charity also assumes wider responsibilities where graves are situated by improving the nearby surrounding area; engagement events and educating the public are also important activities for the charity and the veterans who volunteer and benefit.

Frances Adams explains more about the project, and how it addressed the aims of the Positive Pathways programme:

‘Grave cleaning is a specialism offering veterans, many of whom suffer from PTSD, the chance to be outdoors achieving a key task whilst learning new practical, specialist skills. We travel across the UK to clean graves and having mobile accommodation at our disposal provides veterans with the opportunity to spend time with their peers whilst working together as a team.

On average during 2021 we cleaned or inspected at least one grave and/or memorial per month, but we wanted to increase this to at least two or three, thereby offering more support and pathway opportunities for our veterans.

Our educational programme has two key elements. We provide veterans with the opportunity to use their skills, gained providing tours at our former museum, to present our newly designed educational programmes to schools and interested groups. We also attend specialist military events and remembrance ceremonies (when Covid-19 allowed), which encourages our veterans to work together. It builds a sense of belonging and purpose with many reporting feeling pride at representing the Victoria Cross and sharing the stories and history behind it.

We recently expanded our veteran-led retail facility and introduced the new commercial masonry cleaning service, funded by the Positive Pathways grant, which provides our veterans with the opportunity to learn new administrative and marketing skills.

These activities provide our veterans with a choice of pathways to learn valuable new skills and develop their confidence, and we support them in this in any way we can.’

Frances Adams

The VCT reports that the project has been a great success and has exceed its original targets in every area, despite the challenges they faced due to Covid-19. The project enabled the charity to engage with more veterans, increase its grave inspection and maintenance schedule and increase its income from retail activities thanks to the opportunities presented because of the Positive Pathways grant.

From March to October 2021, the team of veterans were able to inspect 51 graves across the UK and clean 27, against targets of 25 and 20 respectively. This has been achieved thanks to increased interest and engagement in the VCT’s activities from veterans much further afield, outside of the charity’s usual operating area of South Yorkshire, largely through raising their profile on social media. ‘Victoria Cross receipients are laid to rest throughout the UK and we now have a number of veterans who work remotely to promote the aims of our charity. They visit their local VC grave, they ensure that their local groups are aware of the cleaning of the grave and many support us on social media and follow our progress.’ The VCT team of veterans are also now travelling up to 100 miles or more to reach more graves.

Also between March and October 2021, 18 new regular veteran volunteers were recruited to carry out grave cleaning and maintenance, which also enable the charity to engage in more education and presentation opportunities than planned – some 29 events during this period.

The charity planned to increase its income during this period too, with a target of £1,000 per month – the actual amount achieved was £3,000 per month. This was because the Positive Pathways grant helped the charity to develop its brand and a range of products to sell online and at events.

The charity’s 2020/21 annual report outlines the positive impact the grant had on its finances, income generation and veteran-led activities in the first quarter of the funding period, and the important contribution it had to the overall success of reaching its strategic objectives:

‘The outcomes for Maintaining the Memories in the period March to July 2021 saw a significant increase in income generated from events through retail and donations that indicated to us that we could replenish reserves through our work in this area of the business plan, but not to the point of self-sustainability.

We therefore explored an opportunity to create a memorial event with retail stalls at a popular retail outlet at Lakeside Doncaster. Such was the success at this event that we were invited in July 2021 to repeat it and were offered a rent-free presence in our own shop that we could take up from October to December 2021. The end of the 2020/21 financial year therefore saw the VCT business plan bearing fruit and moving us in the right direction in terms of maximising our objectives and charitable aims.

The year 2021/22 was clearly laid out with opportunities for us to maximise our financial strategy enabling us to continue at least in the medium term to clean and restore VC graves and educate the public whilst providing welfare support to veterans.’

From October 2021 to present day the charity has focused on developing its retail operations and educational activities. This involves significantly increasing the charity’s visibility and income-generating potential, helped in particular by being offered the unit at Lakeside Doncaster, which has been further extended for a period of 12 months due to the positive impact that the VCT’s presence has had in the centre, which includes attracting many new veterans. This has also created potential employment opportunities for veterans.

The Positive Pathways grant provided direct support to VCT to reach more veterans and continue their programme of cleaning and renovating Victoria Cross graves. It has also been a catalyst for the charity to expand, grow and have the opportunity to become self-sustaining.

Upon conclusion of the funding period, the charity had carried out 35 major cleans and restorations to Victoria Cross receipients’ graves, 60 inspections and 20 maintenance visits, all of which exceeded expectations. Donations increased from £100 per month to £900 per month; total income increased from £1,000 per month to £8,000 per month.

The project has had a positive impact on the lives of the veterans that volunteer with the charity, and on the local community. Frances Adams summarises the achievements of VCT and the Maintaining the Memories project:

‘The Victoria Cross is synonymous with all military veterans. It is the highest decoration for valour and as such being associated with the charity provides a sense of belonging and pride for our veterans. The involvement in our highly publicised grave cleaning activities and involvement in our public displays and our shop, have engendered feelings of pride and belonging in our veterans. This has attracted new veterans and supporters to the VCT with the shop now being a public facing and accessible location for all to visit and engage with.

We have also helped our veterans gain new skills and experience in the areas of event management and retail development. Exposure to members of the public at the Lakeside outlet has given some of our team greater confidence to engage and improved communication and IT skills simultaneously. Our offering has attracted the local Sea and Army cadets to our venue to promote future careers as well as providing support to the charity when organising events. This was essential to us during the summer season when we were asked to host several events, including for the Queen’s Jubilee in June 2022.

In conclusion, the Positive Pathways-funded Maintaining the Memories project has exceeded its expected deliverables, and the expectations of the trustees in achieving future sustainability. We are able to continue to offer support to our increasing numbers of veterans directly as well as now offering a truly public facing facility for veterans to drop into. Visitors from the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust regional teams have commented on and publicly posted on how impressed they are that the VCT has achieved its restoration targets and moved from mobile events and galas to an upscaled professional retail and educational offering.’

Frances Adams

The charity was very engaged on social media during the project and continues to raise its profile and increase its activities after the funding period has ended. Visit the charity’s website at https://victoriacrosstrust.org/ or social media accounts for more on the Positive Pathways project, and the latest news and information on current and future plans.