Young farmers step up to fundraising challenge

June 20, 2020 at 10:48 am

East Mainland Young Farmers Members, from left , Aiden Cooper, Kim Budge and Eilidh Scott (on her horse Bandit) have all been contributing to their club’s effort to travel the equivalent distance of Orkney to the Royal Highland Show and back, during what would have been the show’s dates this year.

Orkney’s East Mainland Young Farmers Club have a fundraising challenge underway to mark what should have been the dates of the Royal Highland Show (RHS).

To help ease the blues from missing the show, the club’s members will collectively be walking, running, cycling or horse-riding 600 miles – the estimated distance between Orkney and the RHS’s showground at Ingliston and back again. They began their challenge on Thursday, which would have been the first day of the RHS, and have already managed to pass their fundraising target of £500.

It’s all for a good cause, as any money raised will be going to the Scottish agricultural charity, RSABI, which has been running a campaign called #KeepTalking, encouraging farmers to keep in touch with each other and give people a call or communicate online.

Scotland’s agricultural shows give those working in agriculture an important chance to socialise following the hard work that comes at this time of year, such as calving, lambing and silage.

Unfortunately this year has seen the shows across the country, including Orkney’s own shows, cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Talking about the challenge on their Facebook page, Graham Low, from the club, said: “Like many businesses and clubs we’ve been part of this lockdown, trying to combat coronavirus. We’ve not been able to do many of the activities that we would be hoping to do – socialising as a club, our young farmers rally, sports events, stock judging, practices and even covering silage pits for farmers to raise money for the club.

“It’s been a quiet summer and a lonely summer for some folk and I suppose we are especially vexed to be missing the Royal Highland Show this year, which is a big part of our calendar. We always take great pride in going down and representing Orkney as part of the stock judging and country cooks competitions and other various events. So this year the East Mainland Young Farmers have decided to do an online challenge.”

TO donate and track the club’s progress visit their fundraising page here.