The 21st annual charity Budapest Burns Supper is only two weeks away and we’re looking forward to it.
The Burns Suppers organised by the Robert Burns International Foundation have been held in the ballroom of the Corinthia Hotel, Budapest, since 2004. They include all of the normal elements of a Burns Supper, including pipers who travel from Scotland specifically for the event.
The supper is a celebration of the work of the Foundation over the previous year. There are no administration costs of organising the Supper as these are covered by sponsors. A significant part of the money raised on the night comes from the raffle and auction.
Supporting children for 21 years
The Robert Burns International Foundation (RBIF) is a Hungarian-registered charitable foundation established with the primary purpose of raising and donating funds for sick and underprivileged children.
Continuing the work of the Hungarian Scottish Society from the late 1990s and led by current chairman Douglas Arnott, several hundred thousand euros have been donated in the form of equipment, medical devices and appliances, infrastructure and targeted financial assistance to improve the standard of paediatric healthcare and social care in Hungary and neighbouring countries.
There are still a few tickets left for the 2018 Burns Supper, click on the link while you still can!
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Funding of children’s hospitals and the Hungarian Junior Paralympic Team
Over the last twenty years the RBIF has funded medical equipment and device investments at various units of the SOTE 2nd Department of Paediatrics and at the Neonatal Unit of the Péterfy Children’s Hospital in Budapest. The Foundation also supported the Hungarian Junior Paralympic Team with a specially designed and equipped minibus to help transport Hungary’s young and talented Paralympic athletes to and from their training and competitions.
Donations nationwide
While based in Budapest, the RBIF does not limit itself to projects in the capital, and in recent years has helped to fund investments at children’s hospitals in Miskolc, Gyula, Orosháza, Mezőtúr, Kisvárda and Salgótarján. All of the projects are first vetted by the RBIF’s medical adviser Professor György Fekete. In 2017, aside from larger donation projects, the RBIF successfully launched its SME Sponsorship Scheme, which enables small and medium-sized enterprises to get involved in charity work by partnering with the RBIF. The scheme focuses on equipment that, while lower in value, is no less important to the hospitals and institutions receiving the donations. With initial sponsors including Inter Relocation, the beneficiaries of this innovative scheme to date are located in Zabar, Salgótarján county, and Nyíregyháza.
Wide visibility
The activities of the RBIF and its teams of volunteers are covered extensively in the Hungarian media. Every year at the annual Burns Suppers held in Budapest since the late 1990s, the RBIF’s principal social and fundraising event, television and newspaper journalists report on the work of the RBIF over the previous 12 months.
Sir Alex Ferguson, RBIF Honorary President, meets the Sponsor of the Year
Particular attention is paid to the Sponsor of the Year, an award given to the individual, company or organisation that has done most to facilitate the work of the Foundation in the previous year, or indeed on a sustained basis over several years. Besides a trophy and the prestige of the title, the Sponsor of the Year meets the RBIF’s Honorary President, Sir Alex Ferguson, former manager of Manchester United Football Club, at Old Trafford in Manchester.
Honesty, integrity, transparency
The success and reach of the Robert Burns International Foundation over the last two decades is largely attributable to the generous support of its many long-standing and dedicated sponsors. Both Hungarian enterprises and multinational corporations back the projects and the events of the RBIF year-in year-out, helping to complete the identified projects to improve the fortunes of sick and underprivileged children in Central and Eastern Europe.
About the Burns Supper
A Burns Supper is a celebration of the life and works of the poet Robert Burns, and these suppers are normally held on or around the poet’s birthday, 25 January.
While extremely common in Scotland, Burns Suppers are held throughout the world by groups of Scots, giving anyone the chance to celebrate Scotland’s favourite “bard”.
The first suppers were held in Ayrshire at the end of the 18th century by Robert Burns’ friends on the anniversary of his death, 21 July, and they have been a regular occurrence ever since. The first Burns club was founded in Greenock in 1801 by merchants born in Ayrshire, some of whom had known Burns. They held the first Burns supper on what they thought was his birthday on 29 January 1802, but in 1803 discovered that the correct date was in fact 25 January 1759, and since then suppers have been held on 25 January, Burns’ birthday.