[ambriel]

I'd certainly be interested in visiting a show, but couldn't really justify a trip down to the central belt from where we are in the far northwest. We couldn't do the round trip in a day so would need to stay overnight, and so would need to organise not just accommodation but for someone to take care of our animals while we were away.

[Rosemary]

I think it is likely that any show will have to be linked to another existing show like Gardening Scotland, so likely to be in the Central Belt, where the majority of population is and because it's, well, central.

[Anke]

But where is the majority of smallholders/small farms/crofters in Scotland? I would think not in the central belt....
However getting commercial exhibitors would be a problem anywhere else but in the central belt...

Unless I could get free entry to such a show (like being an exhibitor), I would not really go. It is just one of a few things that will have to be cut from our family budget for this year, living costs are going up so much.... (even going to BUAS show would cost us well over 20quid for the family if I weren't an exhibitor!)

[robert waddell]

this is one of the problems in Scotland that the vast majority will not travel unlike england and wales(i always put it down to short arms and deep pockets) but there is a minority that will grudgingly travel to events or buy stock anke it might surprise you just where the majority are located perhaps that is something that Dan could organise on an area bassis

[Anke]

Well I milk three goats am and pm (and bottle feed kids/lambs), have sheep to check daily, a polytunnel to water plus garden if necessary, and also bees to have a quick look at during swarming season... So usually it is only one of us that can go away for the day, and if the journey is longer than a couple of hours, of course it has to be for a justifyable reason... and with an ever tighter family budget, such trips become luxury... and we don't have that right now...

I think you find lots of proper smallholders that will have the same problems!

And it would be interesting to know where most smallholders are based - my bet is on the Northeast, but also Dumfriesshire.... but probably not the Borders or Central belt

[Rosemary]

So woudl you have it in NE or Dumfries? This is probably why there isn't one. If folk don't support it it won't happen. Never mind, I'l enjoy Wales.

[ballingall]

this is one of the problems in Scotland that the vast majority will not travel unlike england and wales

Interesting- I've always found it to be the opposite especially with goatkeepers. There are goatkeepers in England who only go to shows within 30miles range. The trouble being, they have so many shows to choose from they can do that. Whereas we think nothing of a 3 hour drive to go to a show.

I think people would be interested Rosemary, its just that everyone's opinion is different. I think it's still a worthwhile idea to get in touch with Gardening Scotland.

Beth

[doganjo]

I agree with Beth.  I think you'll find that there are a lot of people (perhaps like myself) who would have become 'proper' smallholders had their circumstances been different and would love to go to such a show.  Not all of us are able to do the 'real thing', and I am sure there will also be a large number of people who'd want a show such as this who do have the good fortune to be able to live the smallholders dream.

[Fleecewife]

I think a large proportion of those who would come would be 'wannabees'. I don't mean this in any derogatory sense, as most of us here were at one time without a smallholding, but desperately wanting to have one.  So a Smallholding Show would be the place where people would get ideas, see the kinds of animals smallholders keep, what they grow, how they get an income - or IF they get an income. At that stage, people still have money to buy tickets to a big event.
As Rosemary has said, it really would have to be in the Central Belt - it's one of the penalties for living off the beaten track, that anything that's happening happens far away.