Royal Highland Show 2021 plans coming together
With £70,000 of the £2 million target raised in the first four weeks of its fund-raising campaign, the directors of the Royal Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland( RH ASS) this week said their appeal was gathering momentum.
Six months since the cancellation of the socie - ty’s main event, the Royal Highland Show, the society said that members had been donating generously to help secure the organisation’s future - and that plans for the 2021 show were well under way.
“We have been heartened by the response to the campaign, but it is early days yet and there is a long road ahead of us ,” said society chairman, Bill Gray.
“RH ASS directors thought long and hard before embarking on this appeal, however we are convinced it is the right thing to do.”
Chief executive Alan Laid law said that as a charitable organisation the RHASS had a responsibility to do all in its power to make sure both Show and Society survived - and to increase its charitable impact for the next generation and for Scotland’s rural industries.
He said that the first
stage of the ongoing fundraising campaign would continue with an appeal mailing to RHASSS members, followed by a digital campaign targeting past show visitors.
Them ass cancellation of the show and other events as a result of the Covid pandemic has seen the society’s income dry up – with the cancellation of the show alone losing over £6 million worth of income, a situation which caused the society’ s auditors to issue a warning over its ability to continue as a going concern in the future.
With borrowings of £10 million for investment in showground infrastructure, including the new member’s pavilion, to be financed, Laidlaw said that “no stone was being left unturned” in the push to reduce expenditure and secure new sources of income.
A root and branch review of income and expenditure had seen across-the-board cutbacks, including senior management salary cuts and a significant number of redundancies, mainly across the
Society’s events team. The organisation also gained Government funding through both the furlough scheme and the Scottish Government Resilience Grant scheme.
Laid law said that with the funding generated by the appeal, preparations had begun for next year’s Royal Highland show, but admitted that this was likely to be against a backdrop of reduced visitor capacity and increased costs due to additional social distancing measures.
“We are committed to hosting the 2021 Royal Highland Show in whatever capacity we are able to do so, however, we also want to be able to celebrate the 200th Show in 2022.
Conceding that the income generated by next year’ s show would not reach normal levels he said: “This campaign therefore is about more than 2021, it’s about securing RHASS’ future and the next 200 years of shows.”
But he stressed that the society also wanted to maintain its wider remit –which included supporting the Royal Highland Educational Trust and helping RSABI run its outreach service for farmers experiencing financial and mental health issues.