Businesses to take aim at mental health at Newton LDP's charity clay shoot

Published by

Peter Davison

Business professionals will return to Newton LDP's annual charity clay shoot on the Warwickshire border to help raise funds to address mental health issues among the farming community.

Southam-based land, development, and property firm Newton LDP is hosting the Newton Cup at the prestigious Shuckburgh Estate on May 11 as part of its charitable partnership with the Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution (RABI) – a national charity that provides local support to the farming community across England and Wales.

It follows a hugely successful inaugural clay shoot held by Newton LDP last year, which saw over 160 business professionals help to raise more than £23,000 for RABI through a dinner, raffle and sponsorship.

Funds from last year’s event have been allocated towards two of RABI’s new counselling and mental health training services, launched in response to the results of a survey which found a third of the farming community are probably or possibly depressed.

Since the launch of RABI’s new services in January 2022, the demand for face-to-face, professional counselling has been 12 times the expected uptake.

In 2022 alone, RABI supported over two-and-a-half times as many farming people than in 2021, with demand for its services rising amid rapidly growing costs.

Piers Beeton, director at specialist land, development and property agency Newton LDP, which is based at Stockton House in Warwickshire, said: “We have a strong working relationship with farming communities as many of us have spent our lives and careers growing up in or working within them.

“The pressures on the farming community have only been heightened by the global challenges in economies both abroad and at home, which makes the work of charities such as RABI and the role they play so vital.

“We are proud to support their work over the past 12 months and are thankful to all who took part and generously sponsored last year’s event.

“I am really pleased to say the fundraiser will return at the Shuckburgh Estate in May, and I look forward to seeing many familiar and new faces there.”

Suzy Deeley, head of partnerships at RABI, added: “Thanks to the tremendous support RABI receives from organisations such as Newton LDP, we are able to respond to specific needs in the farming community while developing and extending our support offer.

“Last year’s clay shoot raised over £23,000 and this generous donation has helped us to make a real difference to the farming people that RABI helped in 2022. With so many ongoing pressures impacting the sector, RABI continues to provide an extensive range of holistic, wraparound support services - covering wellbeing, financial support and practical advice and guidance.

“Being able to support our community is dependent on robust resourcing - something RABI is in the unique position to be able to do, thanks in part to organisations such as Newton LDP who support our initiatives. Thank you to everyone who has joined Newton LDP’s fundraising events and we look forward to another successful event this year.”

To express your interest in the Newton LDP Clay Shoot on May 11 2023, please email Tilly England at communications@newtonldp.com

Peter Davison

Peter Davison is deputy editor of The Business Magazine. He has spent his life in journalism – doing work experience in newsrooms in and around Bristol while still at school, and landing his first job on a local newspaper aged 19. By 28 he was the youngest newspaper editor in the country. An early advocate of online news, he spent the first years of the 2000s telling his bosses that the internet posed both the biggest opportunity and greatest threat to the newspaper industry and the art of journalism. He was right on both counts. Since 2006 he has enjoyed a career as a freelance journalist. He lives in rural Wiltshire with one wife, two children, and three cats.