Letter from the Retiring Chairman of FONFA
FONFA Members will have already received the notification, in this month’s Newsletter, that I will be stepping down from the role of Chairman and Chair of Trustees, at the end of March, after ten years in the roles. The Management Board has elected me to be the first ‘Life President’ of FONFA, remaining on the Board. I still intend to make an active contribution to FONFA, modelling and giving presentations to community Groups about the airfields and other allied WWII topics. It is timely for us to reflect on how far our Charity and its two most prominent material assets, the New Forest Airfields Memorial and the Heritage Centre Museum, have come during that time.
In 2014, the former Education Centre, housed in two small rooms, a smaller kitchen and a corridor, in the former Guardroom of the RAF Sopley Camp, was closed prior to demolition, to make way for the new Heatherstone Grange housing development. Our then Chairman, Bernard Baily, decided that we would move into the Camp’s former backup generator building at the western end of the site, which he owned and generously renovated, at his own expense, installing underfloor heating and new wooden doors. All material assets were temporarily put into storage at his nearby ‘Blue Gates’ facility.
We spent the following year ‘on the road’ in a gazebo at various local fetes, shows etc. and gained access to our ‘new home’ in September 2015, which was then an empty shell, into which Bernard had installed under floor heating and a wide metal stairway to two lateral walkways at first floor level. One led to a small room, later to become an office, and a storage/boiler room on the floor above. The floor tiling in the main room was then completed during the installation of cabinets, which continued steadily. Many willing volunteers were involved in kitting out the building, too numerous to list here. Their ‘can do’ attitude mirrors that of the veterans, whom we honour and remember.
The building had plenty of vertical space, but a small footprint, for such an extensive project, requiring many scale models to be displayed. Therefore, vertical cabinets were an essential part of the way in which the displays evolved. The only ‘ready made’ cabinet contained Paul Moores’ display of models of aircraft, all of which flew from the New Forest airfields in WWII. I planned the layout, designed and commissioned the displays and co-ordinated the work, over the next eight months, and we were able to open the new Heritage Centre to the public in May 2016. The explanatory wall panels from the former Guardroom museum, the frames for which were obtained by John Levesley, were then paper A4 sheets on cardboard, telling the story of local aviation from 1910 to the end of WWII. Tony Prince obtained the stairway panels, depicting the WWII airfields and the WWI training airfield at East Boldre.
In 2018, we liaised with New Forest District Council, to obtain funds via their LEADER Project, with a welcome contribution from Lord Montagu’s Charity, to upgrade the 36 wall panels to a modern standard, thereby increasing the space for photos and text. We collaborated with Promultis, a Lee-on-Solent IT company, to install and commission three ‘state of the art’ interactive electronic screens; two wall screens and a ‘welcome table’ for visitors, giving an overview of the building and a century of local aviation history. Several of John Levesley’s images and text slides are illustrated on the latter ‘welcome table’. Together with a young Promultis software engineer, I was able to create the interactive displays, with timelines, 3-D drawings of aircraft, photographs, video and sound, and enhanced the displays with scrollable descriptive text, all of which have stood the test of time, over the seven years since.
Throughout, we have been well supported by our Patron, Lady Ailsa Montagu, our local MPs, Dr Sir Julian Lewis, Sir Desmond Strange and Sir Chris Chope, as well as local civic leaders and the New Forest District Council. The Centenary Caravan Site at Holmsley South has supported us throughout, with cash collections. Martin Baily, Bernard’s son, as our ‘landlord’, has continued his family’s support for our Charity through the decade. We look forward to closer co-operation with the Holmsley Camp Site, in the future, now that they are being managed by New Forest District Council.
The Centre’s displays and artefacts are steadily improving and evolving, as new items are offered and acquired. The innovation of the CGI videos in the past year, produced by Gaz Keenam, together with the projector, which was used for the first time recently for a large visiting Rotary Group (rather appropriate in that the video presentation was by two Chinook Pilots, who flew in Afghanistan!), signals a valuable new dimension to what we have on display. This will provide a more ‘all round’ immersive experience for our visitors for the 2025 Open Day season. New metal doors and shutters and new windows have enhanced the appearance and improved security of the Centre. We can now offer refreshments on every Centre Open Day, thanks to Kim Parkinson’s dedicated efforts, which are also very much appreciated by guests at our Annual Service. We must not forget the recent renovation of the New Forest Airfields Memorial, at Holmsley South, originally dedicated in 2002, which was a necessary upgrade, after twenty years. Now, it looks fresh again, with the Portland stone shining white and the map display repainted as new.
Throughout my ten years as Chairman, I have given PowerPoint presentations about the airfields and other WWII topics to community groups, to raise funds and, with John Levesley, John Brooks and Service Veterans, free to New Milton Junior School Year 6 pupils. More recently, both Paul Moores and Dave Connor have taken on the delivery of presentations to other local schools. By the end of 2025, I will have given one hundred of such presentations, thereby ‘spreading the word’ about FONFA and its unique value and contribution to local historical knowledge.
There have been several changes of Management Board Members over the decade, with none, except myself, remaining from the pre-2015 group. Our current team has a unique and valuable blend of historical knowledge, management and media skills and experience, financial and IT expertise, practical engineering and catering ability and expert scale modelling skills, and is now the best equipped group to take FONFA forward into the next ten years. Financially, the Charity is in a much stronger position than a decade ago, with visitor numbers giving us confidence for further development in the future. The support of an increased number of enthusiastic, willing and capable new volunteers bodes well for the 2025 Open Day season.
So, we have come a long way from the old 1950s RAF Sopley Guardroom. All this has been achieved by an enthusiastic team of volunteers giving freely of their valuable time, to enhance local knowledge and to honour those who worked on and flew from the Airfields in WWII, without whose dedication, commitment and sacrifice, we would not be here today. I have been privileged to receive support and advice from many volunteers, for which I have been grateful, on many occasions.
Sam Ruddy takes on the Chairmanship of FONFA from this April and I wish him every success, with the task of spreading FONFA’s influence still further. I will continue to lead on our application for the King’s Award for Voluntary Service this year and Dave Connor will continue with our application for Arts Council accreditation. We have much to look forward to, this year and in the next decade, building on what we have achieved so far, ‘Per Ardua, Ad Astra’.
Henry Goodall
Life President, FONFA
