This year, HIVE is celebrating its 40th Anniversary, and marking four decades of supporting the Service community. HIVE has come a long way since the first location in Hohne, Germany, was opened in 1984.To start off the celebrations, a 40th Anniversary Launch Event was held in June at MOD Main Building in London. Army HIVE, RAF HIVE and Royal Navy Family & People Support (formerly RN HIVE) hosted guests from across the MOD and external stakeholders.
Head of Army HIVE, Nikki Peterson, gave a speech on the HIVE journey and said:
“I have had the pleasure of working for HIVE for almost 20 years and been involved longer as a customer during my time in service and as an Army spouse.
“Over the past 40 years, HIVE has supported the military community in many ways. Our information delivery is centred around our network of local information centres located worldwide providing that valuable face to face support, but equally through our various online platforms, our ability to support outreach offsite delivery through unit and community events, our remote international HIVE service, and much more for our customers.
Also speaking at the event was VIP guest Air Commodore Wendy Rothery, who said:
“I would like to pay tribute to everyone who has been involved with the HIVE over the past 40 years. Thanks to them, accurate, reliable and, most importantly, trusted information has reached our people when they needed it most; from helping Service families to prepare for an overseas move, and supporting our community during operational deployments, to signposting to specialist support agencies.”
Guests were able to watch a video showcasing HIVE’s history, created by Chris Keen of Totally Keen Creative especially for the event, which included photos old and new, plus customer anecdotes from over the years.
There was a lot of cake on sale too, to kick-start the 40th Anniversary fundraising for HIVE’s chosen charity partners – Celebrating Forces Families and Operation Christmas Box. Our showpiece anniversary cake was kindly provided by the Queen's Gurkha Engineers catering team, based in Maidstone.
HIVE is proud to still be the MOD’s primary information provider after supporting the Service community for 40 years. And ultimately, the ethos of our volunteer founders in Germany remains at the core of what HIVE still does – providing the right information and support when it’s most needed, and from a trusted Defence organisation. Our strapline of ‘You Ask, We Answer’ still endures.
Watch out for more news on our local HIVE 40th Anniversary events, which are being held across the UK and overseas over the next few months. If you want to find out about events near you, please do get in touch.
