Foden’s are pleased to announce that they have been successful in an application to the Heritage Lottery Fund for £26,400. The total project cost is £29,910 with the Heritage Lottery awarding an 88% grant to this project.

This latest award will see the Cheshire based Band record un-published works which will be uploaded to their heritage website www.fodensbandheritage.co.uk as well as a large number of new and innovative videos. To build on their community links a piece of Public Art, an interactive information board with QR codes, will be housed in Sandbach to attract and inform local interest to supporting the band’s heritage and culture. To increase awareness of the band and local history, 20 members of their Youth and Junior Bands will undertake the ‘Arts Awards Scheme’ working with a heritage artist resulting in the young people attaining a nationally recognised award. The main part of the project will see the bands archive housed in a central location where visitors will be able to view the artefacts in person as well as via a virtual tour. A new work will be commissioned to celebrate the opening of the ‘Museum’ as well as a launch concert to an invited audience. 

Speaking about the project Mark Wilkinson commented ‘We would like to thank the ‘Heritage Lottery Fund’ for the award which comes on the back of a previous grant in 2016. The grant enables us to protect and share our history as well as working with our younger members and community to gain a greater understanding of the band. To increase the outreach of the project, we will be collaborating with a number of partners and this includes furthering the work of our recently awarded Arts Council England grant where we are working with a group of young people with hearing impairments to add sign language and subtitles to make the heritage accessible to all. The Trustees of the band are extremely grateful to Vice President Carole Crompton for her work in submitting this bid. The association with Carole has now resulted in six combined successful applications to both the Heritage Lottery Fund and Arts Council England over a five-year period.’