Local charities benefitted to the tune of £2000 thanks to the popular Caithness Model Club (CMC) show in Wick.
Exhibitors had their usual colourful displays of agricultural machinery, cranes, model railways, dioramas, and many other modelling delights for the public to come and enjoy at the Norseman Hotel over the first weekend of April.
Chair of the CMC, Kenny Gunn, said: “As you can see from the balloons here, we’ve been going for 20 years. This is a great event for Wick and for Caithness and we have £2000 to donate to our local charities.”
Davie Mackenzie was the show manager at the event and is the CMC club secretary. He helped to organise all the stands that were set up and liaised with the exhibitors and the hotel so that it ran smoothly.
“Our club’s quite small in numbers and the main event for us is this show,” said Davie.
“We started [with shows] at the town hall in Thurso. Then it went to the Royal Hotel in Thurso and then the Nethercliffe in Wick.
“We found that when it started to grow we needed a bigger venue. We were passing here one night [Norseman Hotel] and we knocked on the door and were greeted by the owners at that time – that was in 2007 and we’ve been here ever since.”
Davie went on to praise the efforts of Andrew Mackay from the Norseman Hotel along with his staff who provided “wonderful hospitality” for the event.
He noted that the number of visitors was up on last year despite an increase in costs at the door. “If a family comes in and it’s more than three then we just charge a tenner. You could come in with 10 bairns and it would just be a tenner.”
Kenny said that though many of the same people come along to the annual event there is always something different to see as well.
“We all try to alter our displays in some way and this year we have the Inverness and District Model Railway Club, we have people using Lego and there’s a new First World War display too.”
Just before the end of the event on Sunday (April 7), the CMC committee, together with many of the exhibitors gathered in the sunshine outside the hotel to see the charity cheques handed over to the worthy local causes.
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