National Heroes Day 2012

Welcome to Heroes Day 2012 - the second annual National Heroes Day.  It will build on the tremendous support that it got last year with over 240 organisations and many thousands of people taking part and taking one day of their year to honour their personal hero.

Heroes Day is a simple idea, I wish I could claim the credit.  That, however, has to go to a young teacher, called Danny Glavin, who has climbed Mount Kilimanjaro for Help for Heroes in memory of Marine Richard Hollington.  Rather than just ask people to sponsor him, he invited schools to allow their pupils to honour their heroes (whoever that is – mother, father, Buzz Lightyear, George Best, Winston Churchill, Christopher Columbus, Yuri Gagarin, their class teacher), by coming to school dressed as their hero one day in lieu of school uniform. 

A few schools piloted the concept in the summer and the children and staff had a really great day honouring their personal heroes, some of the best costumes being a simple t-shirt with a picture of a relative serving in Afghanistan on it and children dressed as their great grandfathers along with their WW1 medals.  Schools really got a buzz out of discussing with the children the difference between Heroes and Celebrities.  As a result, hardly a football shirt was in sight during the pilot events.

The BBC Coverage of the 2011 Press Launch is here:

The Prime Minister was so taken with the concept of an "Official Annual National Heroes Day".  Heroes Day itself fall on 21st October, which fittingly coincides with Trafalgar Day.  This year this is a sunday, so we expect most participants will run their preparatory activities the week before, culminating on their celebration on Friday 19th October.  The Prime Minister's endorsement can be found here.

Whilst the concept was originally focused on schools, there is no reason why businesses can't join in and those who have chosen to encourage their staff to honour their hero this year can be found here and a video introduction, below.

SO what are you waiting for, whay not register to talke part this year - take a look around the site for coverage of the 2011 event and just see how engaged the participants were.....  SIGN UP NOW