"Vigil 1914-1918", National War Memorial, 4-11 Nov 08

[The Bread Guy]

Quick search didn't show this elsewhere, so feel free to move/merge, mods, if I missed it....

Canada's National History Society Receives Federal Support for Vigil 1914-1918
Veterans Affairs Canada news release, 12 Jun 08
News release

OTTAWA, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - June 12, 2008) - Vigil 1914-1918, a public Vigil to commemorate Canada's fallen service men and women from the First World War, will take place at the National War Memorial in Ottawa from November 4 to 11, 2008, thanks to Government of Canada support.

On behalf of the Honourable Greg Thompson, Minister of Veterans Affairs, the Honourable Jason Kenney, Secretary of State for Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity, announced today a contribution to Canada's National History Society.

Funding of up to $300,000 provided through Veterans Affairs Canada's Community Engagement Partnership Fund, will support the production and delivery of Vigil 1914-1918 at the National War Memorial in Ottawa. Beginning at sunset on November 4, the names of Canadians who lost their lives in the First World War will be projected onto the National War Memorial each night. The last name will appear just before sunrise on November 11. Canadians will have the opportunity to watch the event live via the Internet. The national vigil in Ottawa will be streamed live through an interactive Web site and Canada's National History Society will provide support materials to schools or communities interested in holding their own vigils.

"Our government is committed to remembering the great sacrifices and achievements of all those who have served Canada," said Minister Thompson. "Vigil 1914-1918 will pay tribute to each Canadian who made the ultimate sacrifice during the First World War."

"The men and women who served in the First World War contributed so much to our collective history," said Mr. Kenney. "This will be an important opportunity for Canadians to pay tribute to these individuals for their courage, devotion, achievements and sacrifice."

The Community Engagement Partnership Fund provides funding to non-profit groups, educational institutions and other organizations delivering remembrance activities and events.

To learn more about this Fund, call Veterans Affairs Canada at 1-877-604-8489 or visit www.vac-acc.gc.ca.

For more information, please contact
Veterans Affairs Canada
Janice Summerby
Media Relations Advisor
613-992-7468

or

Office of the Minister of Veterans Affairs
Richard Roik
Director of Communications
613-996-4649

 

[MarkOttawa]

Queen to appear at London launch of Canadian war vigil (usual copyright disclaimer)
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=733f42e3-a230-44ee-b134-5171f89a8e26

The Queen will take part in a unique Canadian Remembrance Day ceremony in London next week to mark the 90th anniversary of the end of the First World War, Buckingham Palace announced yesterday.

The Queen and Prince Philip will participate at an evening event Nov. 4 at Canada House, the Canadian High Commission building in Trafalgar Square.

A huge projector will display, in sequence, over seven straight evenings leading up to Remembrance Day on Nov. 11, the names of Canada's 68,000 war dead on the building's walls.

The same spectacle will begin several hours later as night falls in Canada, starting in Atlantic Canada and moving gradually from east to west.

The main Canadian display will be at the National War Memorial near Parliament Hill, although official vigils using the technology will also be held in Fredericton, Halifax, Toronto, Regina and Edmonton.

The project is the brainchild of Canadian actor R.H. Thomson and lighting designer Martin Conboy, and is intended to symbolically "repatriate" the bodies of the war dead who, by law, had to be buried in Europe.

Its other goal is to remember on an individual basis the dead who, for 89 years, have been remembered collectively during Remembrance Day ceremonies.

Mr. Thomson said he didn't expect when the project was launched that it would get the Queen's support, and he hopes the news will prompt schools, historical societies, community groups and Royal Canadian Legion branches to acquire the software to hold their own smaller-scale vigils.

He noted that the Queen was born in 1926, eight years after the end of a devastating four-year war.

"I'm actually quite cognizant of her interest of the men in that generation who died in the millions," Mr. Thomson, 61, said. "Her generation understands the size of that loss. Her generation gets it. Her father and her grandfathers must have talked a lot about it.

"My generation and the generation underneath me don't quite get it."

Veterans Affairs Canada contributed $340,000 to pay for the production of the National War Memorial vigil, the simultaneous webcast of the event, and the co-ordination of vigils in the other cities that were funded by local and private sector sources.

Canadians can look up the names of relatives who died during the war and determine the exact moment when their names will be displayed during the live broadcast from Ottawa by going to www.1914-1918.ca.

Community groups that want to take part in vigil activities in the cities involved or acquire the projection software package for smaller vigils can contact Canada's National History Society through www.historysociety.ca.

More at The Torch:
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2008/10/eleventh-hour-of-eleventh-day-of.html

Mark
Ottawa

 

[ENGINEERS WIFE]

Queen launches vigil for Canada's war dead
Updated Tue. Nov. 4 2008 4:55 PM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

The Queen kicked off a trans-Atlantic tribute in London on Tuesday honouring Canada's war dead from the First World War.

She and the Duke of Edinburgh were among those who helped launch the international debut of "Vigile 1914-1918 Vigil." The vigil is an electronic tribute to fallen soldiers featuring a nightly display of the names of soldiers who died in battle.

The names were projected on to the outer wall of Canada House Tuesday, and the display will run from dusk until dawn through Remembrance Day on Nov. 11.

"Long may we all remember the multitude of Canadians, and indeed all of those who laid down their lives to defend the lives of others," the Queen told a crowd gathered at Canada House, before greeting Canadian veterans, including those who have fought in Afghanistan.

Jim Wright, Canada's high commissioner to Britain, said the tribute was an emotional experience.

"It was extremely moving watching the names scroll down very slowly ... there was absolute silence," Wright said.

"It was a passing of a generation from veterans to the youth of today."

Wright explained that "Vigile 1914-1918 Vigil" begins in London and then makes its way west in order to commemorate the very same journey that was made by fallen Canadians when their bodies were repatriated.

The tribute will move westward, across the Atlantic, with similar vigils being planned for Halifax, Fredericton, Ottawa, Toronto, Regina and Edmonton.

The high-tech commemoration was the brainchild of actor R. H. Thomson and lighting designer Martin Conboy. They raised money for the tribute with the help of Canada's National History Society.

About 68,000 Canadians died in the First World War.

With files from The Canadian Press

 

[the 48th regulator]

For God and country
And a $26Gs tax grab ...

By MIKE STROBEL

The names of 68,000 Canadians killed defending Britain from the Hun will be up in lights in London next week.

Even the Queen is coming to see. It's a pricey project, with funds raised by Toronto actor R. H. Thomson.

The least the Brits could do is give 'im a tax break.

Blimey. I doubt the boys who charged across No Man's Land foresaw jolly old England's Value Added Tax.

Thomson is stuck with a $26,000 VAT bill on the London part of his 1914-1918 Vigil light show, which, did I mention, honours men who died for England.

"Strange, eh?" says Thomson. "I've tried to get around it. But maybe no one realizes. It's a big bureaucratic machine.

"I mean, 68,000 died for them and they're hitting us with this big tax bill.

"When we're done, I'll write a letter to (Prime Minister) Gordon Brown and suggest if he gives us back the VAT we'll donate it to veterans' groups."

I hope they're listening, over there, over there.

I hope taxes don't mar this superb project.

Here's how it works. Starting at dusk on Tuesday, the names of those long-dead Canadians will rise ghostlike on walls in Halifax, Fredericton, Ottawa, Regina, Edmonton, Calgary. On Toronto City Hall, facing Queen St. And at Canada House on Trafalgar Square in the British capital.

Each name will float for eight seconds, 9,700 names daily, dusk to dawn 'til sunrise on Remembrance Day.

The last name, early on Nov. 11 will be George Lawrence Price, of Saskatchewan, shot two minutes before the 1918 Armistice. Pvt. Price was the last soldier killed in the Great War. You can stand on Queen St. and read the roll. Or watch online. The site (1914-1918.ca) even tells you exactly when each name is up.

What a wonderful idea, as the last World War I vets pass into the beyond.

"This is a book of living history closing forever in front of our eyes," says Thomson, whose co-producer is genius lighting director Martin Conboy.

"As a country, we must mark these moments," says Thomson, 61. "Never again will we have that memory."

Even the children of those men are in their 90s. The last man standing from Canada's force is John Babcock, 108, who now lives in the U.S.

I had the honour to meet Clare Laking and Dwight Wilson, not long before they died, each aged 106.

Laking told me of watching Lionel Conacher at the Mutual Street Arena. Trumpeter Wilson sang O Canada for us whippersnappers in a lounge at Sunnybrook.

"For kids," says Thomson, "that war is the Stone Age."

So World War I will join the War of 1812 and Crimea on the history shelf.

We feel the last ripples of what Thomson calls "the slipstream of a war," the vestiges of pain and loss among survivors and kin.

The Queen gets it.

"That woman knows history," says Thomson.

I hope her kingdom's VAT collectors get it, too.

Ironically, the Queen's decision to open the London show upped Thomson's tab to $200,000, with heavy security and such added to the cost of equipment and projector tower.

He raised the dough from private donors. Same for all cities except Ottawa, where Veterans Affairs is paying for the names to stream across the national cenotaph.

"My hair is going white," Thomson says. "I'm no fundraiser."

But eight years ago, he produced a play called The Lost Boys, based on letters of five great-uncles who fought in World War I, only one of whom survived it.

"Think of the numbers," Thomson says. "A country of less than eight million in 1915 -- and 68,000 dead.

"Apply it to Afghanistan and we'd have 290,000 dead in the last four years.

"Can you imagine?"

I don't want to. Nearly 100 dead is wrenching enough.

I sure hope our children will know to honour our fallen in that dusty land.

Maybe even with a vigil and their names in lights.

I hope they at least get a tax break.



dileas

tess

 

[GDawg]

I read on the Globe and Mail site that Mr. Thompson was working on plans to do the same for the 100th anniversary for the war. For all 9.5 million soldiers who died in the war on all sides, with the names projected in cities circling the entire planet. I think that would be an immensely profound gesture that might help instill the staggering cost of that war. The Globe and Mail also referred to it as the 1914-1919 project , which will hopefully be fixed by morning. I vowed to never comment there again. Soldiers don't forget, but I think every war that vanishes to the public memory puts us closer to the next big one.

 

[Edward Campbell]

I just got back from the National War Memorial; I decided to go early in the morning, before first light, when one of my great uncles' names was projected, first, to the top of the memorial and then made its way down towards the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

It is a wonderful effort - I wonder if someone will do the same thing in 2015 for the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War.

 

[tomahawk6]

 

[geo]

The fact that the names appear, scroll down and dissapear is, to me, staggeringly profound.
Reflects how we are only temporarily here on the planet & will one day dissapear again.

BZ to Mr Thompson for having carried this project to it's conclusion... here is hoping that people will take the time to look & think

 

[gun runner]

You make a good point GEO, we are only here briefly. And this should be the time we use to make a difference. I am profoundly humbled by the sacrifices made on behalf of Canada in the Great wars of last century, but here we are in the 21st century and we have our brave troops again trying to wrest freedom for a nation in need. We as a nation should be proud of what we have, and gracious enough to want to share that feeling with those who want it as well. Just my 2 cents. Ubique

 

[rw4th]

The fact that the names appear, scroll down and dissapear is, to me, staggeringly profound.
Reflects how we are only temporarily here on the planet & will one day dissapear again.

BZ to Mr Thompson for having carried this project to it's conclusion... here is hoping that people will take the time to look & think

Well, I'd be willing to bet that was the intent and I agree: it's a profound statement.