Chelsea Pensioners come to Littlehampton as part of a pilot project, The Royal Hospital Chelsea Veterans Outreach programme
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00:00Just to let you know a little bit about what we're trying to do, so the Royal Hospital
00:21has been going since 1692. It was the brainchild of, well they say it was King Charles II, but
00:30everyone said actually it was Neil Gwynne. When they put the Royal Hospital, it was finished
00:36when Charles died by 1692, so we've been looking after army veterans at the Royal Hospital
00:42for over 300 years. One of the key ingredients of the Royal Hospital is comradeship and friendship
00:49and being part of our community. The Governor, when he came in 2018, said right, well that's
00:55great, the 300 lucky souls who were able to live here were doing something right and we
01:00reckon that actually life expectancy because of this comradeship and everything else is
01:04enhanced and extended thanks to that whole ability to have a like-minded peer group.
01:13The Governor said, well I'd quite like to sort of make this increase our footprint really
01:18beyond just London. So people tend to see Chelsea pensioners at national events, whether it's
01:25Remembrance Sunday or BE Day or something like that. But actually, apart from around where
01:33we live in London, Chelsea pensioners seem very pleasingly. So we're trying to increase our footprint
01:40and actually spread a little bit about what's so good about the Royal Hospital beyond our
01:47own quarters, which is why we're doing this Veterans Outreach. We're calling it Nationwide Outreach.
01:55And we're looking at, there are 12 regions of the UK. We've decided to do a pilot here in the
02:01South East for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it's a very target-rich environment. By that I mean
02:08there's lots of Veterans living in the region, of all three services. And although the Royal Hospital
02:14itself is in the Army, this programme is all about all three services and the Merchant Navy as well. We've decided to come to the South East and do this for a year to see how it works, what it works, what it works.
02:24The other reason that we can come here, not only because of the large number of Veterans who are here, but also because it's quite close to London, so it's very different, the easiest logistic, I'm going to use quite close.
02:36It depends on having partnerships. I've mentioned it already. We need to partner with other existing charities, veterans-focused groups in various counties and various places.
02:47So we rely on partnerships with other groups over here. And here it's been predominantly the Armed Forces Veterans Club run by Ian and his team. And it's been, this is the sort of thing that we're trying to do.
03:01So we're trying to spray a little bit about what the Royal Hospital is about. Finalship, Palm Reachhip. And most basic is sitting down having a cup of tea together. We'd like to bring something along with that as well, which is the singers and other stuff that we'll be doing in other places.
03:16But we want to connect with the region. And we'd like to make this, we're trying to find locations in the South East where there is, we can do events like this where we can bring people together and do it on a more regular basis than just once a year or even less frequent.
03:31We also would like to, if you've registered, and I hope everybody here has actually registered with us and filled out the form, there will be opportunities for you to come up and visit us and have a tour at the Royal Hospital as well.
03:42So it's connecting with everybody. And the final bit really is that what we're doing is we've got an app and it's called Old Comrades. And if you go on that, it's relatively simple to use.
03:53I say it very quickly because I'm personally busy as far as IT stuff is concerned and I'm interested in working. So most of you, I'm sure, will be able to suss it out too.
04:04So that's what we're trying to do as far as Veterans Outreach is concerned. And this is part of our programme and it's wonderful to have such a great terminal.
05:11Thank you very much.