Pressure to keep island in bloom
ANOTHER successful year for Floral Guernsey has again culminated in a gold award and silverware from Britain in Bloom – but the organisation has worries about its future.
States funding of £50,000 a year is peanuts to some, big money for others. It used to be so much more, with huge Floral Guernsey shows and events at Cambridge Park, and the whole thing intended to be a major visitor attraction on our tourism calendar, building on the island’s long legacy of cut flowers as an industry.
Now the focus is on fantastic displays across the island, supported by volunteers, but much of which is all too easy to pass day-by-day, as we take the natural beauty for granted.
Floral Guernsey also has a role to play in exchange for its public funding, to encourage visitors to Guernsey, which, without strong data, can be difficult to prove.
Like all public funding today, the grant to Floral Guernsey should be stress-tested and the organisation is expecting it.
Currently it appears to have core and non-core activities, and the committee already knows it must justify the way it spends its money.
But what’s not arguable is the level of commitment from Floral Guernsey parish volunteers, the great job that they do, and the results and profile that they have been able to achieve on a national scale.