Page 53 - Simply Veg 4 2022

Nick Smith – Director of Harrogate Shows
cost-prohibitive. It was not breaking even and relied heavily on supporting subsidies from the more popular and lucrative Spring Show event. Fortunately, a new venue was found at Newby Hall and the first Autumn Show was held there in 2021 which did actually generate a small surplus for the first time in many years.
A few specimen vegs especially grown for the local Show inside the small green polytunnel
Nick heads up a small team of staff who draw up initial plans for each Show some 18 months before each event, with more detailed
planning taking place
from six months before
each Show. The weather
remains unpredictable, of
course, and flooding, wind
damage and snow have
all happened at some time
in the past. Building of the
indoor show marquees
starts some 3 weeks before
each Show, including 4 days
of arranging benches and
tables and covering them
with waterproof fabric.
The Spring Show is said
to host the largest Floral Art event in UK and includes exhibition stands created by local flower arranging societies and college students as well as competitive classes for individual exhibitors. The Show gardens are not on such a grand scale as Chelsea but they afford young designers and college students an opportunity to show off their talents and inspire others.
Promotion of the Shows to as wide an audience as possible and with a special newsworthy twist is critical to their success and income generation. Nick recounted
examples of various press events that
his team had organised over the years including bringing in a dressmaker from New Zealand who had created twenty dresses to mimic various types of flowers. Quite expensive as an outlay to organise but press coverage of Harrogate Show subsequently reached as far as New York, South China and Australia. Similarly, the classes featuring the heaviest and longest vegetables might not be as
are available from their website https:// www.pocklingtonallotmentassociation.org. uk/ Rabbits and pigeons are a particular problem at this site and suitable protective measures are advisable. I have included a few photos of one particular allotment for illustration purposes.
A neat and well-kept allotment but fencing is necessary to deter rabbits.
We have now confirmed our meetings and speakers for the remainder of 2022 and have also started to plan our programme for 2023.
To aid recruitment as well as to provide information we have launched our
new nvseyda.uk website (based on the Wordpress format), together with our
NVS East Yorkshire Facebook page. As the pandemic hopefully recedes, we hope that more and more people will develop the confidence to return to our meetings and events. In line with the rising cost of living, speaker fees are increasing and so visitor income from our meetings becomes increasingly vital to aid our ability to cover these costs.
Reports on our Autumn events (including our October DA Show) will feature in the next edition of Simply Vegetables but, in the meantime, our programme of planned events and current news can be seen
on our website http://nvseyda.uk and Facebook page National Vegetable Society - East Yorkshire D.A. Our continuing aim remains to provide a variety of interesting topics throughout the year that will appeal to our existing members, as well as attract new ones.
Paul Neve FNVS
There is no magic ‘Show Fairy’ but there is certainly a lot of dedicated teamwork that goes on behind the scenes
visually attractive as the conventional exhibition classes but they generate tremendous press interest and therefore help to promote the Show and bring in visitors and revenue.
Despite the relatively
low audience attendance,
it proved to be a very entertaining and interesting talk about the history of the Harrogate Shows and the ‘behind the scenes’ work that goes into bringing
these events to life. There is no magic ‘Show Fairy’ but there is certainly a lot of dedicated teamwork that goes on behind the scenes to bring these events to fruition.
In July we visited Pocklington Allotments, a large council-owned allotment site situated about halfway between Hull
and York. Despite the inclement weather,
a sizeable group of us turned up to explore the site and compare notes on our growing experiences and the problems we faced this year. Further information and details about this site
Simply Vegetables 53