Royal Highland Show - David Cochrane

The speaker was David Cochrane who is the Chief Production
Executive of the Royal Highland Show. David is originally from Glasgow and said
that he had to quickly learn a lot about farming, animals, machinery etc when he took
up this post.
He gave us a brief history of the show which started off as a Society in 1784 and
Changed its name to The Highland Show in 1822. For many years it was held in
different locations throughout Scotland. In 1960 it moved permanently to the golf
course next to the Airport.
At one time the Airport tried to take the area over but when it was realised that the
cost would be in the region of 230 million this was dropped. Ingleston House is the
HQ of the Show and will shortly be brought up to date.
The Show attracts around 189,000 people and attendances increase each year. It is
a massive undertaking and has around 135 permanent staff. Attendances work out
at approximately 60% Urban and 40% Rural and is a wonderful annual social event
for farming people.
David thanked Rotary for the Wrist Band service for children