Show Guide 2018

Chairman’s Welcome It gives me great pleasure to welcome you all to our showground for the Royal County of Berkshire Show. It may be hard to imagine but this year’s show has taken a year to put together with a tremendous amount of effort from our volunteers who are backed up by the staff team.

animals in the Society building between 12 and 3pm. The Flower & horticultural tent has also moved to a more central location with the introduction of a café and domestic classes. You will still find a wide selection of plants and fruit and vegetables to help you gain inspiration for your garden. We will be showcasing Visit a County this year, a brand new feature for our fellow counties to exhibit their amazing work, with Somerset taking the reign, and another innovation is the new business Enterprise Zone, which hosts new businesses that are less than a year old. As well as all the new additions, you can expect to find all the popular attractions such as the craft tent, a spectacular main arena line-up, a jam packed equine schedule as well as many free have-a-go activities for all the family to enjoy! So, as you see there is a lot for you and your friends and families to experience during your visit and I really hope that you enjoy your day!

Agricultural shows need to continue to evolve to keep things fresh therefore we have made some exciting changes. The Food Fayre has been moved to the south end of the showground just off avenue F and will be, as usual, full of amazing artisan producers. We have listened to comments and for the first time in a number of years, we are welcoming well-behaved dogs to the Show as well as a brand new dog zone. There are some areas that dogs will not be allowed into so please take note of signage as you walk around the show. This will be the 54th show that I have attended, the first being in 1964 at Henwick aged nine months. In that time I have seen the show progress from a one day event to the current two day show format, moving from Henwick to Seige Cross at Thatcham, then to Shaw and finally to its current location in 1985. Our objective is to educate and promote agriculture and the rural way of life to the wider public. To that end we are celebrating 100 years of farming with a pageant in the main ring beginning with horse drawn carts, steam engines and one of the first tractors to arrive in 1918. The pageant will move forward in ten year periods culminating in a demonstration of the latest kit available to farmers in 2018. The Grand Parade of livestock is a spectacle not to be missed with the best of the best being paraded. We have good entries competing this year, and visitors will be able to get up close with the

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