It was a great day and completely exhausting, but so worth it. It's so short a time ago that the 'shall we have a Scottish Smallholders event?' question was raised, and look at it now
Two shows under the TAS belt and already it's an established event. Then to realise it's all run by volunteers - it's truly amazing. I loved seeing all the redcoats busily keeping things on track, as well as all the stewards in their boiler suits. Well done every one and well done all those who travelled so far to get there. I wonder who had the longest journey. Brucklay told me it took her 5 hours each way. I wonder if anyone came further than that? (It took us less than 20 mins to get there - I feel almost ashamed at our lack of effort
)
So a huge 'well done' to all of you who made the show happen and made it run so smoothly. The rest of us can only imagine the effort and time you gave to enable us all to have such a good and valuable day out. Thank you all
I just wish I had had more time to look around the rest of the show and to get to some of the demos.
I will be there next year but without sheep so I can wander around to my heart's content.
Mr fw and I felt there were a couple of issues worth sorting, especially if the show is at Lanark again next year, mainly to do with signs. We have already mentioned some to Dan at the show, and will fill in the form at some point too. Obviously it wasn't a problem for us to find the event, but others did comment to us that there were no signs on the road to direct folk who don't know the town. Dan has explained that finances are involved here, and just what the Council will allow
but I think it's worth investigating further what is and isn't possible.
The other signage problem we felt was for those unfamiliar with the mart, especially those who have never been to any mart, in other words members of the general public. We rarely had time to venture out into the front foyer, but we felt there were far more people there than seemed to find their way through to the penning areas. It's not all that obvious really where you need to go and how to operate all those gates and avoid ending up stuck in a pen
We thought some BIG signs to show the way, and maybe horse tape (or bread crumbs
) to mark a route through the pens would help for next year. Also perhaps red coats moving people through and publicising the stands and stalls which were through there. I suppose the mart might not be happy with us putting up giant signs, but it's worth discussing.
I put this on here rather than only on the comments form to see what the rest of you think? You need to put yourself in the position of someone who's never been to a mart before and doesn't want to make an eegit of themselves.
