Asset Guardian Solutions backs Shotts with sponsorship

The Grade 1 Shotts & Dykehead Caledonia Pipe Band of Shotts, Scotland, has struck a sponsorship deal with Asset Guardian Solutions Limited, a leading industrial software company. According to a statement from Shotts & Dykehead, the financial support will “enable the band to continue its evolution . . . and further develop links with young pipers and drummers.” as demonstrated in its recent, highly successful youth competition that it staged in partnership with North Lanarkshire Council.

The band said that Asset Guardian Solutions and its sister company Elite Control Systems have indirectly supported the band in the recent past, stemming from a relationship with the McAllister family, who have been closely connected with Shotts & Dykehead for most of the last century, including three former pipe-majors.

“The band is absolutely thrilled to announce our partnership with Asset Guardian Solutions Limited,” said Pipe-Major Ryan Canning. “It’s such an enormous job to run a band of this size, and having the support of Sam Mackay, our own Ewan McAllister, and the Asset Guardian Solutions team will go a long way towards helping us continue in our development.”

Shotts & Dykehead is arguably the most celebrated and award-winning pipe band in history, and one of the first great civilian non-police bands.

Canning continued, “It’s also very meaningful to us that Asset Guardian Solutions is a local company, supporting a band in its own local community. It’s with the help of this kind of local support on which Shotts and Dykehead Caledonia was originally founded in 1910, and we’re very proud that Asset Guardian Solutions will be a part of our next chapter.”

Asset Guardian Solutions is headquartered in Livingston, Scotland, and is in the business of compliance, configuration management and disaster recovery of process critical software, with business around the world and annual revenues of approximately £2-million. Band member Ewan McAllister is a partner in the four-year-old company.

“We are happy that we can play our part in this success story,” said Sam Mackay, CEO of Asset Guardian Solutions. “Also, as a local lad myself, it will be nice to see our brand proudly displayed throughout the UK and especially when the band attends our local championships in Bathgate next year.”

McAllister said that the band’s name will remain the same, and only the placement of the Asset Guardian Solutions logo on the bass drum and bag covers is required.

Shotts & Dykehead under former Pipe-Major Robert Mathieson was sponsored by the House of Edgar, and changed its name during the endorsement. The band’s only other sponsorship was relatively informal support from Cummings engineering in the 1980s.