It's a simple enough proposition - 25 January 2009 marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns, the greatest Scottish poet who ever lived - a man whose literary genius, humour and compassion have won him admirers the world over.
The year has been recognised as an important opportunity by key public bodies including the Scottish Executive, VisitScotland, the Scottish Arts Council, the Scottish Museums Council (SMC) and the Heritage Lottery Fund.
Meanwhile, 2009 has also been officially designated the Year of Homecoming, a tourism initiative to attract overseas visitors with Scottish ancestry. A steering group has been established; and Allan Burns, the director of drinks multinational Diageo Scotland, was recently appointed chairman.
Moreover, the Scottish Executive has just awarded £100,000, spread over five years, to the Robert Burns World Federation in order that the 80,000-strong organisation might galvanise overseas visitors towards Scotland during that critical year.
A comprehensive audit and economic impact study, Towards 2009, published in April by tourism consultancy the Moffat Centre, found that Burns was already worth some £157m to Scotland's economy, with the potential to generate plenty more. With all this support and positive thinking, what could possibly go wrong?
We Scots are not always prone to calling a glass half-full, but in the case of Burns heritage, there's cause enough to be canny. The festival of 1996, which marked the 200th anniversary of the poet's death, was widely seen as a wasted opportunity. The Towards 2009 report describes it as 'lacking in focus, landmark events, direction and innovation'.
We can learn from those mistakes. But then there is the condition of Burns' birthplace in Alloway, Ayrshire, which the Scottish Executive reportedly wants to place at the heart of the celebrations.
'Burns Cottage is in a lamentable state,' says Gerry Carruthers, a lecturer in Scottish literature at the University of Glasgow, and a member of the National Burns Collection committee. 'It's a great world heritage site and, for whatever reason, Scotland has mismanaged it over a number of years.'
The cottage was established as a museum in 1995, as the centrepiece of the Burns National Heritage Park, which also incorporates a museum of Burns artefacts, the Tam o' Shanter visitor centre and two key settings from that famous poem: eerie Kirk Alloway and the Brig o' Doon.
Via a joint venture between South Ayrshire Council and the Burns Monument Trust, the park received some start-up funding, but was always intended to become self-supporting, and even to generate funds for reinvestment. It broke even in 1999, but then a succession of crises in tourism - fuel shortages, foot-and-mouth disease, 9/11 - began to erode its earning potential.
It was against this background that Nat Edwards became the director of the park in 2000. He quickly found himself struggling to fulfil his vision for its potential.
'It should be a living collection,' he says. 'This kind of material continues to inspire people it is re-interpreted all the time. It's also a collection of documents that people need to be able to access, for research in its broadest sense.'
But the facilities at Alloway simply weren't secure or conservation-friendly enough. In 1996, much of the Burns Monument Trust collection had been moved from Alloway to the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh for safekeeping. This archive of letters, manuscripts and other documents was established at Alloway in 1814. Edwards believes its proper place is at home.
'There's nothing better than seeing the manuscript of Tam o' Shanter and looking out at the fields where Tam rode his horse, next to the building where Burns sat and heard the stories that he based the poem on,' he says. 'That's quite a magical experience.'
Edwards was one of the driving forces behind a proposed £7m scheme to modernise and expand the facilities at Alloway. But the project faltered and ultimately collapsed at the end of last year, by which time he had left to take up his present post at the National Library of Scotland.
But he has not lost faith. He was a key consultant for the Towards 2009 report and remains passionate about Burns heritage.
Now the Alloway site is being closely examined by the National Trust for Scotland (NTS), whose executives are sitting on the board and sketching out a business plan, with a possible view to taking over the running of the park.
They have made a comparative study of Dove's Cottage, the Lake District home of William Wordsworth, as a model of how the site might be developed. If the NTS management takeover does go ahead, a major funding appeal will be launched.
Such a takeover would certainly help preserve the site's built heritage. But with rising damp reported earlier this year, and no curatorial plans in place for the collection, the park's future is far from secure.
But it would take a resolutely glass-empty pessimist to deny that there are grounds for hope. Partly this is down to the huge enthusiasm Scots have for their national poet.
Leaving aside the countless Burns Night suppers every 25 January, there is a story-writing competition for secondary school pupils, run by the Burns Federation, which attracts 140,000 entries every year. Then there's the Burns An' A' That festival in Ayr each May, which has attracted stars of the magnitude of Lou Reed and Patti Smith.
The international following for Burns is already well documented. 'We have many translations, including ones into Punjabi and Chinese,' says Gerry Carruthers. 'It's quite clear that Burns does speak to these other cultures.'
And a forthcoming feature film, provisionally entitled Burns, is certain to heighten interest both here and abroad, with its high-profile Scottish cast including Gerard Butler as the poet, Brian Cox, James Cosmo, John Hannah and David Hayman; and American star Julia Stiles as his lover Jean Armour.
The build-up to 2009 is already generating energy. One ongoing outcome is the Distributed National Burns Collection project.
Supported by the SMC and the Scottish Executive, it aims to curate Scotland's collection of more than 36,000 Burns-related objects, while allowing them to remain distributed at sites throughout Scotland.
'It's about getting non-national museums to work together better,' explains Edwards, 'developing policies about exchanging material for exhibitions and creating a single portal for digital resources. This way, the material can stay as close to the community as possible but it can be used as a central resource.'
The plans for the 2009 festival itself are yet to be confirmed, but there's no shortage of ideas.
'One can't be snobbish about it,' says Carruthers. 'Obviously I believe that Burns is worthy of serious academic study. But also, I would not disrespect a wide range of popular activity. Burns has both academic and popular appeal, so that's entirely to be welcomed.
'But I would make an appeal for a balance,' he continues. 'There must also be a more rooted appreciation and study of Burns' work. I would like to see the Scottish Executive fund two or three PhDs on Burns, not necessarily on poetry. They could be on Burns' impact on the visual arts or tourism: there's a huge reach.'
Donald Urquhart is the chairman of the Friends of Ellisland, which runs Ellisland Farm, near Dumfries, where Burns lived from 1788 to 1791. For him, a key aspect of 2009 is access.
'There should be a major exhibition, but it's got to be capable of travelling round the whole country. It's got to be a proper travelling exhibition to a high standard, because they'll spend a lot of money on it; and they'll want to borrow from various collections. It's only fair that these things are made as public as possible.'
Urquhart is already discovering the benefits of the distributed collection project. 'They ran a course, and the advice was fantastic. If I was at the end of the phone it would take me months to get what I got in a couple of hours. If we can get across to the public that we have a national role rather than just a local role, that's a huge step forward.'
The cup may not be running over just yet, but the signs are that 2009 will mark a real turning point in Burns heritage. But as Edwards points out, it has to. 'It really is a unique opportunity,' he says. 'If we don't get it right this time there aren't going to be many better opportunities.'
Andrew Burnet is a freelance writer and editor based in Edinburgh
The year has been recognised as an important opportunity by key public bodies including the Scottish Executive, VisitScotland, the Scottish Arts Council, the Scottish Museums Council (SMC) and the Heritage Lottery Fund.
Meanwhile, 2009 has also been officially designated the Year of Homecoming, a tourism initiative to attract overseas visitors with Scottish ancestry. A steering group has been established; and Allan Burns, the director of drinks multinational Diageo Scotland, was recently appointed chairman.
Moreover, the Scottish Executive has just awarded £100,000, spread over five years, to the Robert Burns World Federation in order that the 80,000-strong organisation might galvanise overseas visitors towards Scotland during that critical year.
A comprehensive audit and economic impact study, Towards 2009, published in April by tourism consultancy the Moffat Centre, found that Burns was already worth some £157m to Scotland's economy, with the potential to generate plenty more. With all this support and positive thinking, what could possibly go wrong?
We Scots are not always prone to calling a glass half-full, but in the case of Burns heritage, there's cause enough to be canny. The festival of 1996, which marked the 200th anniversary of the poet's death, was widely seen as a wasted opportunity. The Towards 2009 report describes it as 'lacking in focus, landmark events, direction and innovation'.
We can learn from those mistakes. But then there is the condition of Burns' birthplace in Alloway, Ayrshire, which the Scottish Executive reportedly wants to place at the heart of the celebrations.
'Burns Cottage is in a lamentable state,' says Gerry Carruthers, a lecturer in Scottish literature at the University of Glasgow, and a member of the National Burns Collection committee. 'It's a great world heritage site and, for whatever reason, Scotland has mismanaged it over a number of years.'
The cottage was established as a museum in 1995, as the centrepiece of the Burns National Heritage Park, which also incorporates a museum of Burns artefacts, the Tam o' Shanter visitor centre and two key settings from that famous poem: eerie Kirk Alloway and the Brig o' Doon.
Via a joint venture between South Ayrshire Council and the Burns Monument Trust, the park received some start-up funding, but was always intended to become self-supporting, and even to generate funds for reinvestment. It broke even in 1999, but then a succession of crises in tourism - fuel shortages, foot-and-mouth disease, 9/11 - began to erode its earning potential.
It was against this background that Nat Edwards became the director of the park in 2000. He quickly found himself struggling to fulfil his vision for its potential.
'It should be a living collection,' he says. 'This kind of material continues to inspire people it is re-interpreted all the time. It's also a collection of documents that people need to be able to access, for research in its broadest sense.'
But the facilities at Alloway simply weren't secure or conservation-friendly enough. In 1996, much of the Burns Monument Trust collection had been moved from Alloway to the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh for safekeeping. This archive of letters, manuscripts and other documents was established at Alloway in 1814. Edwards believes its proper place is at home.
'There's nothing better than seeing the manuscript of Tam o' Shanter and looking out at the fields where Tam rode his horse, next to the building where Burns sat and heard the stories that he based the poem on,' he says. 'That's quite a magical experience.'
Edwards was one of the driving forces behind a proposed £7m scheme to modernise and expand the facilities at Alloway. But the project faltered and ultimately collapsed at the end of last year, by which time he had left to take up his present post at the National Library of Scotland.
But he has not lost faith. He was a key consultant for the Towards 2009 report and remains passionate about Burns heritage.
Now the Alloway site is being closely examined by the National Trust for Scotland (NTS), whose executives are sitting on the board and sketching out a business plan, with a possible view to taking over the running of the park.
They have made a comparative study of Dove's Cottage, the Lake District home of William Wordsworth, as a model of how the site might be developed. If the NTS management takeover does go ahead, a major funding appeal will be launched.
Such a takeover would certainly help preserve the site's built heritage. But with rising damp reported earlier this year, and no curatorial plans in place for the collection, the park's future is far from secure.
But it would take a resolutely glass-empty pessimist to deny that there are grounds for hope. Partly this is down to the huge enthusiasm Scots have for their national poet.
Leaving aside the countless Burns Night suppers every 25 January, there is a story-writing competition for secondary school pupils, run by the Burns Federation, which attracts 140,000 entries every year. Then there's the Burns An' A' That festival in Ayr each May, which has attracted stars of the magnitude of Lou Reed and Patti Smith.
The international following for Burns is already well documented. 'We have many translations, including ones into Punjabi and Chinese,' says Gerry Carruthers. 'It's quite clear that Burns does speak to these other cultures.'
And a forthcoming feature film, provisionally entitled Burns, is certain to heighten interest both here and abroad, with its high-profile Scottish cast including Gerard Butler as the poet, Brian Cox, James Cosmo, John Hannah and David Hayman; and American star Julia Stiles as his lover Jean Armour.
The build-up to 2009 is already generating energy. One ongoing outcome is the Distributed National Burns Collection project.
Supported by the SMC and the Scottish Executive, it aims to curate Scotland's collection of more than 36,000 Burns-related objects, while allowing them to remain distributed at sites throughout Scotland.
'It's about getting non-national museums to work together better,' explains Edwards, 'developing policies about exchanging material for exhibitions and creating a single portal for digital resources. This way, the material can stay as close to the community as possible but it can be used as a central resource.'
The plans for the 2009 festival itself are yet to be confirmed, but there's no shortage of ideas.
'One can't be snobbish about it,' says Carruthers. 'Obviously I believe that Burns is worthy of serious academic study. But also, I would not disrespect a wide range of popular activity. Burns has both academic and popular appeal, so that's entirely to be welcomed.
'But I would make an appeal for a balance,' he continues. 'There must also be a more rooted appreciation and study of Burns' work. I would like to see the Scottish Executive fund two or three PhDs on Burns, not necessarily on poetry. They could be on Burns' impact on the visual arts or tourism: there's a huge reach.'
Donald Urquhart is the chairman of the Friends of Ellisland, which runs Ellisland Farm, near Dumfries, where Burns lived from 1788 to 1791. For him, a key aspect of 2009 is access.
'There should be a major exhibition, but it's got to be capable of travelling round the whole country. It's got to be a proper travelling exhibition to a high standard, because they'll spend a lot of money on it; and they'll want to borrow from various collections. It's only fair that these things are made as public as possible.'
Urquhart is already discovering the benefits of the distributed collection project. 'They ran a course, and the advice was fantastic. If I was at the end of the phone it would take me months to get what I got in a couple of hours. If we can get across to the public that we have a national role rather than just a local role, that's a huge step forward.'
The cup may not be running over just yet, but the signs are that 2009 will mark a real turning point in Burns heritage. But as Edwards points out, it has to. 'It really is a unique opportunity,' he says. 'If we don't get it right this time there aren't going to be many better opportunities.'
Andrew Burnet is a freelance writer and editor based in Edinburgh
