Virtual Burns Celebration

Over the years the growing local interest in Scottish traditions and fundraising for charities has successfully transformed the BritCham’s annual Burns Night celebration into a highly popular event supported and enjoyed by the local business community in Riga.
As with almost everything over the last year, the Coronavirus crisis has forced the celebration online, with the Scottish Government calling for Scots to celebrate ‘Burns Night In’ on January 25 – thank you to our members and friends who joined BritCham online for our virtual Burns Celebration!

Thus it was a night without tartan and tam o’shanters, less whisky flowing and floorboards shaking, but all in celebration of Scotland’s favourite son, Robert Burns! We kicked off the evening by British Ambassador H.E. Keith Shannon giving a speech about love and friendship(in a true spirit of Burns!) as well as reciting Burns poetry. Our wonderful host and quiz master Gayle Hume from King’s College, The British School of Latvia guided us through the evening with the quiz about Rabbie, Highlands and Latvia and challenged guests to create their own haggis,neeps&tatties without using any food. We also had a performance from Glasgow by our longstanding friend and master piper Iain Watson. We would like to congratulate our Burns Quiz winners – well done, we will arrange the delivery of your prizes in the nearest days.

During the event our Charity Committee Chairperson Ieva Broka presented the projects supported by BritCham Charity Fund in 2020:

• SOS bērnu ciemati Latvijā
• Bērnu slimnīcas fonds
• Projekts “Pūriņš”
• Lielas rūpes par mazajiem

All the proceeds from this year’s event went to BritCham Charity Fund in order to continue supporting different charity projects and we are pleased to announce that thanks to our generous donors, we have managed to raise 2620.90 EUR. We also had a special prize for the most generous donor and we are pleased to announce that the winner is RISEBA University.

If you were unable to join our virtual event and would like to donate, there is still time to do so:

BritCham Labdarības Fonds Nodibinājums

Reg.No: 40008245477

IBAN: LV19HABA0551041265900

The pandemics did not stop us from taking a moment to soak up the warm feeling of spending time with members – see you next year!