Keynote by Sue Black at the Over The Air conference at Bletchley Park on September 30th 2011.
www.sueblack.co.uk
savingbletchleypark.org
www.bletchleypark.org
3. It looks as if Bletchley Park is the single greatest achievement of Britain during 1939-45, perhaps during the (20th) century as a whole George Steiner, American author expert on the impact of the Holocaust Ultra shortened the war "by not less than two years and probably by four years"; moreover, in the absence of Ultra, it is uncertain how the war would have ended Sir Harry Hinsley , official historian of British Intelligence in World War Two.
4. Bletchley Park is a national treasure: the home of the best-kept secret in history, where a group of peculiarly brilliant people made a huge contribution to winning the war Ben Macintyre , British author, historian and journalist The work here at Bletchley Park was no optional extra; no engaging very British sideshow; it was utterly fundamental to the survival of Britain and to the triumph of the West and I’m not actually sure that I can think of very many other places where I could say something as unequivocal as that. This is sacred ground. If this isn’t worth preserving, what is? Professor Richard Holmes , Military Historian
12. #bpark You might want to sign the Save Bletchley Park petition. Read @ Dr_Black 's reasons why on http://is.gd/ikEh - BP won us the war! 2:11 AM Feb 4th from web Photo by @Documentally
13.
14.
15. Bletchley Park's codebreakers get glimpse of lottery funding The wartime site near Milton Keynes will receive £500,000 to help seek a £4.1m grant - but campaigners say more is needed Charles Arthur and agencies guardian.co.uk , Tuesday 29 September 2009 12.28 BST Supporters of Bletchley Park, home to crucial code-breaking work during the Second World War and birthplace of the computer, expressed delight today after outline proposals to overhaul the site were given approval by the Heritage Lottery Fund. Bletchley Park Trust has been awarded development funding to help prepare an application for a £4.1 million grant towards a £10 million restoration project including repairing key buildings, improving visitor facilities and expanding educational programmes. However Sue Black, a campaigner who has sought to gain heritage status – and funding – for the site, said that the award was "the end of the beginning for Save Bletchley Park, not the beginning of the end". On the social networking site Twitter, she pointed out that the site "needs £10 million plus £250k per annum operational funding for five years. HLF [Heritage Lottery Fund] funding gives £500k plus hopefully £4m to come..."
28. Thanks for listening, any questions? @Dr_Black www.sueblack.co.uk savingbletchleypark.org DrBlack.posterous.com Photo by @bpteditor
Hinweis der Redaktion
Intro to who I am www.sueblack.co.uk @Dr_Black etc I ’ ve spent my life as a geek, it wasn ’ t trendy in the 60s….but it ’ s getting there now Being a geek led me to Bletchley Park and to me starting a campaign which has taken over my life for the last three years.
Government Code and Cipher School opened at Bpark at the beginning of WW2. Major achievements include the invention of the Bombe and Colossus machines which were used to decipher Enigma and Lorenz encrypted messages. Prof Fred Piper going to talk about how that was done this afternoon.
Quotes about Bletchley Park by experts
Quotes about Bletchley Park by experts
Went to Bletchley Park again July 2008, did a full tour of the 26 acres, got upset at the state of the huts in which major codebreaking achievements happened. The work carried out at Bletchley Park shortened WW2 by two years potentially saving 22 million lives! But according to the Director Simon Greenish (June 2008) it may have to close due to lack of funds
Went to Bletchley Park and discovered that more than 5000 women worked there! Raised funds for the Women of Station X project.
Went to Bletchley Park again July 2008, did a full tour of the 26 acres, got upset at the state of the huts in which major codebreaking achievements happened. The work carried out at Bletchley Park shortened WW2 by two years potentially saving 22 million lives! But according to the Director Simon Greenish (June 2008) it may have to close due to lack of funds
Emailed all heads and profs of computing in the UK asking them to sign petition on Number 10 website. Was amazed at the support, many well known UK CS profs signed. Decided to write a letter to the Times saying that Bpark should be saved, 97 Heads and Profs signed.
Decided to do something about it. Contacted all Heads and Profs of CS in the UK, asked them to sign a petition to save Bletchley Park on the No. 10 website. Also asked to sign a letter to the Times asking to save Bletchley Park. More details on my blog: savingbletchleypark.org. Interviewed for Radio 4 Today and BBC News and live on News 24.
Set up a blog Saving Bletchley Park to help raise awareness of the plight of Bletchley Park and record campaign highlights
I realised the potential of Twitter for raising awareness and forming a community around Bletchley Park, so took social media gurus @Documentally @Sizemore and @Jemimah_Knight up to Bletchley Park to help me persuade them that using social media was a good idea.
Contacted Stephen Fry through Twitter, he tweeted about my blog and I got 8000 hits instead of the usual 50 Stephen came up to Bletchley Park for the day for lunch and a tour
I was the most Retweeted person that day, Stephen Fry was the second most Rted ;)
I went to the annual veterans reunion in September 2009. Still more than 1000 veterans around…fabulous people, an absolute joy to talk to and some great stories told.
More funding comes in for Bletchley Park, this time the Heritage Lottery Fund
Jason Gorman, a friend, organises an amazing standup comedy night in aid of Bletchley Park
Wrote a paper with Kelsey Griffin and Jonathan Bowen ‘ Can Twitter save Bletchley Park? ’ Wanted International museum community to be aware of Bletchley Park and for Bletchley to become part of that community.
When paper was accepted for the conference realised that we had no travel funds! Twitter friends suggested setting up a justgiving page…we received £2.5 in two weeks! I love Twitter and the fabulous people who have helped Bletchley Park.
Thses are many of the people who funded our trip via justgiving
Another great supporter of Bpark is Gareth Halfacree who decided to raise money to purchase the Turing papers for Bpark
The Turing papers came on sale in November 2010. I blogged about it http://drblack.posterous.com/turing-papers-saved-for-bletchley-park. Many thanks to Google for giving a fabulous $100k towards the purchase
This year the Turing papers were saved for Bletchley Park, they are now on display
Astrid Byro is another great supporter of Bpark, she invited Simon Greenish and I to speak at the ACCU conference 3 years ago, supports Bpark in a big way, this summer raising £ks by climbing to Everest Base Camp! Amazing stuff.
Robert Llewellyn also a great supporter recently driving me from my office to Bpark, we had a 20 min whistlestop tour of Bpark with simon Greenish and then drove back to London
Google funded fab garden party at Bpark to raise funds, raising over £10k! 400 people came despite the horrendous weather. Google ’ s Simon Meacham who engineered the $100k Google donation for the Turing papers flew in from India for the day to attend!