Some events come round so regularly that you think they’re the product of an effortless and natural process. I’m not talking about Christmas, Bonfire Night, the days we change our clocks or the deadline for filing our tax returns (though they may seem so) but of events that require effort to organise and keep going. The effort might not be visible: it they’re well done, we only see the result and don’t think about how they came, yet again, to be. “It always happens,” one might think. Well, perhaps…

The Newbury Show fits into this category. The first one was in 1909, which makes it older than the Mars Corporation, MacMillan Cancer Care, British Telecom, Arthur Anderson, the Girl Guides and Leeds United. However, this event, like so many others, only happens because a lot of people put a lot of work into it. The main consideration, aside from their energy and enthusiasm, is money.

The Newbury Show is run by the Newbury and District Agricultural Society (NADAS). About four years ago it was clear it was running into financial trouble. The solution proposed was not to the liking of a large part of the membership. This prompted what might fairly be called a revolt which led, in late 2021, to the election of new trustees.

Earlier this month, I caught up with Steve Ackrill and Nick Wallis (see photo above), two of the people involved in this change of the guard, to ask how all this had come about and how things have shaped up in the three years since.

There were at the time, they explained, two main problems. The first was that the agricultural nature of the event, dominated by livestock, had survived pretty much intact until the late 1980s. Thereafter, by slow degrees, local demographics changed. The result was that an increasingly small percentage of people in the district had any connection with the land. The question thus arose how the Show was going to adapt.

This led to the second problem. By seeking to address this, the Show became larger and moved outside the comfort zone of its traditional market. It got more complex: and, seemingly as a result of this, progressively less profitable. Did this vicious cycle, I asked, create a sense of despondency at NADAS?

“I think it did,” Nick Wallis said. “When you’re doing what you’ve been doing for a long time but also need to tweak it and it still isn’t working, there’s going to be a sense of ‘this isn’t meant to be anymore’.”

“There was,” Steve Ackrill added, “also a limit to how much the members and the donors could carry on subsidising what’s looking increasingly like a bad business model. Something needed to change.”

Efforts were made to do this. At some expense, a building (known informally as the cattle shed) was built, the intention being to use this to increase the appeal for third-party events. Unfortunately, a restrictive Section 106 agreement with West Berkshire Council placed four months of the year off-limits. The main event continued to lose money: and then, in what must have seemed like the last turn of the screw, the pandemic struck, wiping all in-person events off the calendar for the foreseeable future. The situation looked bleak.

When you own a 150-acre site just off the M4 and the A34, the temptation is to cash in the asset. The management decided the Showground would have to be sold. No Showground would mean no Show. Although the Show is by no means not the only thing NADAS does, it was for many members the reason they’d joined.

Aside from this irrevocable step, there was also the question of to what purpose the proceeds would be put and how the society would re-invent itself. The route from being an organisation with an event but no money to one with money but no event was not one the then trustees were able to define.

A number of members felt unease at this. A few, led by Steve Ackrill, decided to do something about it.

NADAS’s 2021 was fractious and divisive. The result was that in November, a new board of trustees was in place with Steve Ackrill as Chair. During our many conversations that that time, one of his main concerns had been about the finances. I recalled this when we spoke this month.

“We didn’t have a complete picture of what we were taking on,” he said. “When we got to see the figures, they were problematic but not as terminal as we’d been led to believe. Economies needed to be made and we put these in place as soon as we could.”

The big question, though, was what was going to happen about the Show.

It was eventually decided that September 2022, at that point just ten months away, was too soon. After two fallow years because of Covid, many relationships had withered and would take time to revive. “The worst option,” Nick Wallis said, “would have been something that went off at half-cock. We also had to reflect on what the Show was, and needed to become, and how it could be made profitable again.” 2023 was therefore fixed as the return date.

Despite indifferent weather on the Sundays – and, perhaps more damagingly, inaccurately gloomy weather forecasts – in aggregate the 2023 and 2024 Shows broke even. “We tried to re-define the event as something that appealed to both its traditional agricultural roots and also to people who wanted a good day out,” Nick Wallis said. “The reactions from both years suggest we’re on the right track. It’s definitely work in progress, though. One is always learning, and coming up with new ideas. The challenge is to make these work…”

As well as the preparations for the Show, other matters needed attention. One of these was NADAS’s educational work. “We employ an education officer,” Steve Ackrill explained. “With the help of various volunteers, she visits numerous schools throughout the year to explain about the many aspects of agricultural life that still play such a large part in the local community. This includes where food comes from – something which affects all of us.” More information on this work can be found here.

Another issue was resolving the S106 agreement regarding the cattle shed. “We’re almost there with getting the easing of the restrictions,” Steve Ackrill added. “WBC has basically agreed to our request and it’s currently with the their legal department to draw up the revised S106. For the application, we had the support of both Chieveley and Hermitage Parish Councils.” This should result in an increase in rental income, so protecting the site from the threat of sale.

The temptation to sell still surely exists, though? “Indeed,” Nick Wallis said. “However, we were elected to retain the Showground for its original purposes. We still see this as being viable. We hope those who visited the last two Shows, and those who’ve rented the site for other purposes in the last three years, would agree.”

Finally, I asked how they’d sum up their stewardship of NADAS over the last three years. “Newbury Show has returned,” Steve Ackrill said. “Many in 2021 doubted that would happen. There’s still a long way to go, though. Our aim is to hand the society over to the next generation of trustees debt-free and with a viable and vibrant event. We think we’re on track for that. Work for 2025’s event is already underway.”

The question of succession was also in Nick Wallis’ mind. “Any organisation is bigger than the people running it,” he said. “We need a good handover, with a gradual and organised transfer of experience and knowledge. The Newbury Show has had to change and adapt. The management needs to as well. The Show has been a part of life here for over a hundred years but, as the last few years have shown, nothing can be taken for granted.”

Which kind of brings us back to where we started…

Brian Quinn