Patrons, President, Vice President, Ladies and Gentlemen
Thank you all for coming to Threlkeld Village Hall. This is a lovely facility and one which Liz and I discovered one day when we went for a walk on the old railway track to Keswick, a walk which starts just down the road from here.
Last year, in Appleby at the Hub, we had a larger attendance at the AGM. This was because we chose to celebrate the end of Covid by providing lunch and a wide selection of speakers. This year we have the speakers, but our funds will not allow us to provide much in the way of food.
Our Treasurer will report a small deficit for the year ending 30th September 2022. As she will explain, there are reasons for this deficit, mainly due to the date of the year-end. We are therefore asking you to approve a change to our year end to 31st October. When you change a financial year end sometimes you either have a slightly shorter or slightly longer year while the adjustment is made. The next financial year will therefore be 13 months. By moving the date to the end of October we will be able to correctly include all of the income and expenditure which applies to the year.
2022 Entries and Results
2022 should be viewed as very much a beginning of a return to normal after the pandemic. There is no doubt that our competition profile has changed and will change further in the coming years. Some of this is due Covid, but it is also due to changes in perception by our Cumbrian communities, which is, indeed, reflected right across the country.
2022 Entry Summary
Number of judged entities – 195
83 Gold Awards, 58 Silver-Gilt Awards, 29 Silver Awards, 8 Bronze Awards as well as 17 Outstanding Certificates in It’s Your Neighbourhood.
6 IYN Groups were put forward for RHS Certificates of Distinction, with awards going to:
Appleby Hub
Beck Bottom Community Garden Group
Grange in Bloom Station Group
Keswick in Bloom Underpass Group
South Workington Youth Partnership
Windermere Elleray Woods & Orrest Head
Tourism
It was good to see our Tourism entries rising again, but still not back to pre-covid levels. This industry is so important to Cumbrian income. At £2.6 billion in 2021 the Cumbrian revenue was still 16% behind 2019 when it reached £3.1 billion.
Cumbria in Bloom 2022 Special Awards
We are very pleased with the results this year, and all our winners should be congratulated. However, it is important to look to the future. We hope that more of our towns and villages will want to come back into our competitions.
Britain in Bloom
2022 saw Cumbria achieving great things at the October Britain in Bloom finals in London. We had entries in the Village category, the Large Town category and the BID’s Town Centres and City Centres category.
Irthington, our entry in the Village category was awarded a Silver-Gilt Medal. Workington, perhaps at a very difficult time in their history with local government reorganisation, was awarded a Silver Medal. Ulverston BID came home with a Gold Medal. But, in addition to all that, Ulverston was the Category Winner in BID’s, Town Centres and City Centres and they were also nominated for a Horticultural Excellence Award, receiving a Certificate of Achievement. Congratulations to all our 2022 entries.
When it came to the RHS Discretionary Awards, Irthington’s Danny Poland received an RHS Young Persons Community Champion Award in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the village entry since the start of the pandemic.
We have also heard that Danny has been invited by Cumbria Wildlife Trust to become one of two new Trustees. This is a great honour for himself and for his community in Irthington.
We are anticipating some changes in the Britain in Bloom setup next year, but discussions are on-going, so I am unable to announce any differences at the moment.
Our Judges Cumbria in Bloom would be nothing without our judges. We have an excellent and enthusiastic team. I would like to record my thanks to them for all that they do and particularly the advice that they give entrants through the judge’s remarks. While we pay the going rate for travel expenses, Judges give of their time as volunteers, and their expertise is of a very high standard.
Marketing
This year we have conducted an unprecedented marketing campaign which has been run by Management Committee member Karen Morely-Chesworth of Chesworth Communications.
Media releases have resulted in regular media coverage with print, broadcast, and online news platforms, raising the awareness of Cumbria in Bloom – what it is and what it does to support local communities.
Since launching the two new social media platforms earlier this year (Facebook page and Instagram) the number of followers continues to increase and more importantly, there is good interaction with people who are providing positive comments and sharing the posts with their online friends.
The success of our social media has been picked up by the RHS, as Francesca Goff, RHS Community Programme Officer commented on the growth and reach of these accounts.
The Facebook Page and Instagram accounts were launched in February. We now have 137 followers on Instagram and 71 followers on the Facebook Page, however these platforms can be seen without someone being a follower and the reach grew well over the summer months.
Since May 2022 we have released 8 Press Releases resulting in at least 13 items of media coverage plus the coverage of Workington, Irvington and Ulverston on BBC1’s The One Show.
Karen has already released the 2023 Marketing Plan, a version of which will be posted on the Cumbria in Bloom website News page.
As Karen is unable to attend today’s AGM, I will also post her Marketing Report in full on the website, in due course.
So, thank you to Karen for her campaigns, all of which have raised the profile of Cumbria in Bloom.
Olive Clarke JP, DL, FRAgS Earlier in the year it was a privilege to help celebrate the 100th birthday of one of our Patrons, Olive Clarke JP, DL, FRAgS. To recognise the occasion we presented her with a planter, suitably populated with good quality plants, which we hope will continue to thrive in her garden and serve as a reminder of Cumbria in Bloom for years to come.
Our Sponsors
Cumbria in Bloom is dependent on income from, among others, our sponsors, of which we currently have 11. United Utilities were kind enough to sponsor us for three years, of which 2022 is the second. We hope very much that they will consider renewing at the end of next year. I would like to record a special thanks to them all and hope that they receive some benefit from their association with Cumbria in Bloom.
Administration, including Accounts and Sponsorship
As Chairman I am indebted to the work of Keith Macintosh as Vice-Chairman, Haydn Spedding for his continuing and future relationship with sponsors and to Janet Marden for her wealth of experience.
Thanks also to Ali Gordon, our Treasurer, who keeps our accounts in order and will shortly present her annual report.
Thank you also to Colin Cheyne for his presidential advice and to Alan Heath, our vice-president, for horticultural wisdom and experience over many years in Cumbria in Bloom.
Running Cumbria in Bloom, like all organisations which depend on volunteers and the goodwill of a very large number of people, is complex and sometimes frustrating for Liz Auld, our Administrator. Both Liz and our President have suffered from health problems this year, but hopefully these are in the past. However, it serves to underline that the existence of this organisation depends on older people. While the average age of our judging cohort is reducing slightly, we do need to recruit more younger people into the management team.
As always, I would like to thank Liz for the very large number of hours that she spends keeping the show on the road. We could not do without her and perhaps the time has come to find an assistant who might, in time, be familiar enough with the complexities to take over the role.
Ronnie Auld
Chairman, Cumbria in Bloom
