Update: Young Farmers, Hunting and #studentfarmer

Last weekend we went out following our local hunt for the first time this season. It was great to get out again to see the hounds, even if it was a bit cold! But we managed to see a couple of draws and got a few nice photos. We were stopped to watch them draw a bit of cover and some muntjack deer ran out into the field. With the trees changing colour and the wildlife, it was an autumn scene fit for a postcard.

I was at the Worcestershire Young Farmers Winter Wonderland Ball last night with my club. It was a really good night out with some great people and good music! We really danced all night... They had a live band, The Tsars, who were really good and a big bar. There were dodgems too which were hilarious. Everyone had loads of fun and the committee did really well to put such a great event on.

Next Friday I am going to NFU #studentfarmer headquarters for a forum they are hosting to improve their magazine and get some feedback. It’s going to be a good afternoon  and a chance to have a look around their headquarters and meet some people involved in the student farmer magazine. If any of you are going let me know and I’ll see you there!

Next Sunday I am in a young farmers competition, it is the Junior Member of the Year competition at county level. I have to give a presentation and have a formal interview so I better brush up on my YFC facts and figures! I will probably do another post about the competition day for anyone who is interested/wants to know what the competitions are all about. That should be a good day because there are a few competitions on the day such as public speaking and group street dance. It’s always a laugh when we all get together on competition days. 

8 Members You Will Find in Every Young Farmers Club

I’m sure many of you are young farmers or have at one point in your life been a young farmer. There are some massive clubs and it’s easy to let the crowds blur into one; after all everyone is in the same shirt, gilet, boots and polo belt... But if you dive deeper into the masses you will pick out a few distinct personalities, I thought I would pick some of these out (just for fun) and compile them into a list of the 5 people you will meet at every young farmer's club.

1.      The club chairman

Every club needs one, so every club has one. I take my hat off to the club chairman because running the club is a full-time job – one that you aren’t paid for! They give up their time to plan weekly activities and keep it all going. You can spot them as the extra frazzled looking one around rally time. Often, they are one of the more senior members of the club, they have been in young farmers for years and has really seen it all.

2.      The social butterfly

There is always one person in the club who is at every doo, dinner, and competition. They are the one who you can depend on for a lift to anything because they are definitely going! When there isn’t an event on they can often be found in the local pub organizing the next party and getting all the gossip on what’s going on and who’s been where.

3.      The one that's away at uni

There tends to be a lack of members aged 18-21 in my club, it’s because between these ages lots of people are off at uni. You will see these people again (eventually) but for now, the occasional message in the club group chat or appearance at a big event will be the most you see of them! Meanwhile, the club is severely lacking in intermediate members...

4.      The keen junior (I will admit that this one is probably me...)

We all know that juniors are the easiest to convince to do the pantomime or group dance competition but there is always one in the club that will literally put their name down for anything. They seem to have more competitions to do at rally than hours in the day but they manage to do them all and come away with certificates! (This eagerness will most likely wear down after a few years)

5.      The one that only turns up to doos

There are sometimes a few of these in the club. They hand in their membership forms at the start of the year and then you don’t see them until doo season. If you’re lucky you might convince them to do a competition at rally but it’s hit and miss to whether or not they will make it, or whether they will miraculously turn up for the after doo.

6.      The one that's always late

There is always that one member that somehow manages to turn up late enough to miss the meeting, but not so late that they miss the trip to the pub. Hmm... suspicious.

7.      The ‚Mum‘ of the club

There’s always one older member that seems to be unofficially in charge of the juniors. She has to wait for their parents to pick them up before she can go ‚off duty‘ and join the party.

8.      The one that has been in young farmers forever

Someone who has probably been a member since they were 10 and will be until they are 26. They have seen many rallies’s in their time, wins, losses and everything in between. If there are any discrepancies within the club they are the ones to ask because chances are they have seen it all before and know how to deal with it. 

Trophies, Cars, the NFU & More

I’ve been quite busy recently with young farmers, half term, milking and other bits and bobs. I thought I would do a quick update to let you know what I’ve been up to and what’s to come over the next couple of months and over Christmas.

On the Saturday before half term, I was at my young farmer's club’s harvest supper. It was my first time going to one of these but I knew it would be a good night and well worth going to as it is the last event hosted by last year’s chairman, as the chairman hands the shield over to the next year’s chair of the club. There was a lovely ploughman's buffet for dinner, and then some speeches from the previous year’s committee before they moved on to the cups and trophies for the year just gone. Last year I was lucky enough to be awarded the cup for the best junior girl member of the club, I’ll admit that I am one of the only junior members in my club so I didn’t have to fight off too much competition to win it again this year.  However what did come as a surprise was another cup I was awarded. This was the stock judging cup for the whole club. You may remember from my post earlier this year that my stock judging competition didn’t exactly go as well as I had hoped, although I did have a lot of fun trying, so I was shocked when I found that I had won the club trophy for it. Overall the harvest supper was a success and it was a great way to bid goodbye to our chairman who was unable to rejoin the club this year because he had reached the age limit. Hopefully, we will still see him at events from time to time.

The following week I was doing my work experience on the dairy farm if you didn’t already read my post about that you can find it here.

The weekend after my work experience, I went to look at a car to buy, since I have been doing driving lessons. We went to check it out and decided it was a good deal and that I liked it, so we bought it. I’ve shared a few photos of it on Instagram – it's a blue Hyundai Getz. I like to think its the same colour as the inside of my Le Chameaus! My family was laughing at me because they said how lucky I was to have air conditioning in my car, but I thought that all cars had air conditioning... I drove it for the first time this weekend too.

Another thing I wanted to mention is that I joined the National Farmers Union last week, and because I’m a young farmer, it was completely free! I would recommend joining to absolutely anyone because it is a great organization and you get so many benefits. Members are represented politically, there is a free helpline for Farmer & Grower members, you get a whole range of discounts and publications such as Student Farmer and much more. Anyone can join, the fee isn’t very much and it’s definitely worth it. If you are an agricultural student or a young farmer you can join for free, so what are you waiting for? Visit their website now and get signed up!

I’m back at school now and counting down to Christmas... But in the meantime, myself and Ruth from Farmer Ruth are going to be writing an Ultimate Country Christmas Guide on our respective blogs, so look out for news about that!