Bicentenary Presentations

Well, what a few weeks it has been.  We have travelled around the UK, holding three events to celebrate our Bicentenary in Portsmouth, Helensburgh and Plymouth.  If you joined us at one of those, thank you so much. 

Our thanks to our wonderful sponsors, Sirius Analysis Ltd.  We are so grateful for their support for the NCC over the past few years and additional support sponsoring the Bicentennial Presentations. Thank you too, to our hosts in each of the three venues and the fantastic way we were looked after. 

The highlight for us was the involvement of our wonderful Youth Council.  They worked really hard on their part of the presentation, telling everyone about the outstanding work they have done with us to help develop our Life Chances Programme, as well as participating in National research to help everyone understand the lived experience of being a Naval/Armed Forces child/young person.  Particular thanks to Coby, Clarice, Helana, Rhiana and Tallulah as well as the rest that were unable to join us in person. 

We had some wonderful attendees – too many to mention individually, although I will just pick up on our wonderful new Patron – Dame Kristin Scott Thomas who was able to join us in person at our Portsmouth event and would particularly like to mention how lovely it was to see Monique Bateman MBE and her husband Cdre David Smith CBE.  As the key architects in turning our orphanages into the charity we are today they are probably the most important part of our history and on behalf of all our beneficiaries, past, present and future, we thank them particularly. 

Thanks also go to our new Royal Patron, HRH The Princess Royal, who sent us the warmest letter of support as we celebrated. 

We took those who joined us on a whistlestop tour of how we help our families, children and young people today.  Please visit our refreshed website to find out more or contact us directly. 

If you think you would like to support us – volunteering, donating or in any way you can think of, please do get in touch.  We need your help to ensure we are reaching as many of our families as possible. 

Finally, here are some pictures from the various events, which I hope capture the flavour of what we did.