RNCI recently celebrated its 25th anniversary with a Dinner Dance, auction and raffle.
Local farmer and businessman, Jimmy Dick was guest speaker with Alan Hutcheon, ANM Director, in charge of the auction.
A very interesting variety of memorabilia was displayed on the night including the minutes of the first meeting held in October 1997, along with the menu and pledges of support from the North East farming and business community. Some of these businesses still support RNCI to this day.
Over the last 25 years there have been 10 chairs, 8 project Co-ordinators and 2 Educational assistants. But more importantly there have been over 120,000 schools pupils given opportunities to learn about food, farming and the countryside. Last year alone 16,500 pupils have been provided with educational experiences by the RNCI.
RNCI resources now include our famous CCOW, 3 Early Years Boxes, 3 Environmental toolkit boxes, 2 Smoothie Bikes, Truck and a new Educational Show trailer, which will visit the Agricultural Shows in the North East each summer.
Over the years RNCI have taken a variety of projects into schools including Count & Grow, Totally Tatties, Grow your Own Soup, Plant it, Grow it, Taste it and the recent hugely successful Windowsill Garden Project.
Along with events that we have organised or been partners in are including the RNAS Spring Show, RNAS Countryside Live/Education Day, RAF STEM Day, Moray Higher Biology Day, Grow your Future Day, Sustainability Day and Food and Farming Days.
RNCI work closely alongside RHET to enhance our digital offering into schools and on projects including this years which is Journey of Food, Seeds and Grains, which is looking at all things cereal, including Oil Seed Rape. This is a fantastic opportunity to build resources that can be added to throughout the year and beyond.
This gives RNCI a wide variety of opportunities for pupils and teachers to become engaged with all we can offer.
A huge thank you to all our Directors, Committee, Volunteers, host farms and RNCI staff over the last 25 years who have made all this possible.
Here’s to the next 25 years of RNCI.