#lanimers

Our annual “We-love-our-Royal-Burgh-fest”, aka Lanimer Week, is the highlight of Lanark’s year and for very good reason!

A massive team, led by the hundred or so strong Lanimer Committee and the throngs of individuals, groups and schools (who beaver away all year long to construct those phenomenal floats for Lanimer Day) put on what is without doubt the best event of it’s kind in Scotland… If not the world! (If you don’t blow your own trumpet, nobody will blow it for you!).

Add to that the literally thousands of Lanark folks and friends who participate in and enjoy the week’s events, from the “Kirkin’” to the Lord Cornet’s Ball, and you begin to get a wee whiff of just how much the Lanimers mean to Lanarkians.

We are addicted to it and it’s a very potent drug! Or, as some might say in other less cultured airts and pairts, we are Lanimer junkies! (OK! So they don’t always say it quite so politely!).

We love it so much, we’re now going to be doing it all twice a year! Starting in September 2016! That’s when those intrepid lunatics from Lanark Rugby Club, in partnership with the slightly more sane but also seriously afflicted members of Lanark and District Community Trust’ will launch the “Silver Bell Soapbox Challenge”.

What has that got to do with Lanimers? I hear you ask… Well, there are many similarities. Both require a substantial bunch of extremely loopy people on board the management team to ensure ultimate success!

Both require the aforementioned ‘throngs of individuals, groups and schools’ to “imagineer” and build superb entries that are at the heart of the entertainment.

Both have very much got the welfare of the Royal Burgh at ther hearts - and each will greatly benefit one another!

The Rugby Club intend to use Lanimers 2016 to launch an entry in the Procession under the title “Wacky Races”. This will, among other things  (provided they can find enough extreme sports nutcases to ensure an adequate supply of test pilots)  display a wee sample of Silver Bell Soapbox Challenge entries, as a taster of the delights to come.

The “Lanark Team” so eloquently described by Loraine in her maiden speech at the Marches (and very much inclusive of Lanark Rugby Club as you may have noticed on Marches night), have the imagination, the talent, the paper flowers, and the construction specialists to design and build fantastic soapbox entries and a wealth of people sufficiently uncaring about their personal safety to participate in the exciting thrills and spills of the Silver Bell Soapbox Challenge!

Another wonderful example of two organisations in the Royal and Ancient working in common cause for the common good!