Berkshire Federation Of

Young Farmers Clubs Newsletter

Berkshire YFC Office, Liberty House, Enterprise Centre,

New Greenham Park,Newbury, Berks, RG19 6HW

Office Tel: 01635 500872 Mobile: 07917 714640

email: berksyfc@btopenworld.com

The YFC office is open- tues, weds and thurs 10-2.30pm

News from your County Chairman

Hi Everyone,

We have once again had a cracking couple of months, firstly we had the County officer training day, where current officers and those thinking about taking on roles got together and had a fun day looking at each role and some of the key bits involved with running our clubs. It was a great day and such a good opportunity to learn how the roles work together in creating successful clubs.

We also have the SEA spring competitions weekend which was fantastic fun!!! - The sport on the Saturday provided some fierce competition and I loved being able to get back involved and have a game of football. The Speaking, Reading and Member of the Year competitions on the Sunday were also great and once again Berkshire did really well. I must congratulate to all members who competed over the weekend and those who came along and provided some loud support! We have also had the Firearms and Knife training from Thames Valley police, following some technical difficulties we were shown a video about how to keep safe and also shown some real and replica firearms and asked if we could tell the difference. It was a fun evening and really made us all think especially those of us who use firearms and knifes in our jobs. I hope you have all got your yearbooks and are busy marking down which classes you’re doing, I know I have! Look forward to seeing everyone over the next month at the Pre-show competitions,

Kate

County Diary

Dates

April 7th Comps Meeting 15th Exec Meeting 24th SEA Meeting 27th Pre-Show Comps

May 10th-12th National AGM 25th Country Fayre 30th June Newsletter Deadline 31st Merl Village Fate

Field Officer News

Hello,

It’s been a busy time for me in the office as well as having time away to attend the staff conference, some safe guarding

training and the national Train the Trainer course.

I am still yet to meet all of you. Shefford will have the pleasure of my company at the end of the month.

Having now been in post for 6 months I am getting to know when is a good time to be in the office. This will vary from week

to week. Your club officers will know of the exact dates and timings, emails will be checked daily. When not in the office

please call my mobile. Georgie

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We have had a really busy couple of months getting ready for the Area competitions weekend at Sparsholt College, Hampshire. The seniors put together a hockey team which was a combination of all the clubs in the County. They had several practices at Park house school (thank you to Katharine for organising the astro-turf pitch and lights) under the watchful eye of Charlie Plank who took time out to train our team. Everyone who attended enjoyed the get-to-gethers!

The junior had great fun on Stroud Green in Newbury putting together a team for the touch rugby even though I (Biddy) thought it was tag rugby; if my life had depended on it I would have sworn it was tag rugby, so apologies to all concerned. Never-the-less our juniors had great fun practising getting covered in mud from top to toe; you can imagine what cars looked like, bags and towels all over seats. I would like to thank James Mason and Mr Neild for their time and effort helping to train this group.

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Then to Saturday 8th March and the Area competitions weekend which saw the sports being run on the first day and the speaking comps on the Sunday. Everyone arrived in a highly competitive mood, I don’t think that I have ever seen our members so highly charged, and this was an eye opener for me. Sophie and Patrick competed in the mixed doubles badminton competition and did well against a tough set of opposition. Well done to them both. Touch rugby and hockey took place at the same time, so juniors and their supporters went off in one direction and the seniors stayed indoors to play hockey. The hockey team played and worked together really well and this was great to see, even if the results didn’t match their own high expectations.. Juniors did enormously well (considering they’d trained for the wrong competition – again my apologies for this) a few minutes running through the correct rules and guidelines for the games and they were off! I’m not sure who shouted more; the team members or the supporters on the side lines! Despite the difficulties of game/ rule changes the team did incredibly well and to their credit really enjoyed their efforts. The “non-competitive” (really?) ladies and men’s football matches were played in the afternoon and although neither team fared favourably in the results it still ended what was a very enjoyable day; well done Berkshire. We would like to thank the Spring Competitions committee for a well-run day. All the results are listed after the speaking report.

The 2014 Berkshire YFC mixed hockey team.

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On Sunday March 9th 2014, Berkshire members went to the more formal part of South East Area Spring competitions weekend at Sparsholt College, to take part in the Public Speaking, Reading and Member of the Year competitions. As we all know it takes courage to stand up in front of an audience no matter how big or small the audience appears to be or how much or little experience you have. To simply take part in these daunting competitions deserves credit. Our Junior Public Reading team (Jessica Elliman, Alecsandra Court, Ellie Taylor) did a sterling job reading their passages from the challenging text; "Journey to the River Sea" by Eva Ibbotson. Well done to you all for taking part and coming 4th overall. Our speaking team (Holly Findlay, Jacob Reid, Glenn Crockford) came 2nd. The team was Chaired by Holly with Jake repeating his talk about bell ringing (Campanology) which is really quite a hard subject! Well done Jake. In the Junior and Senior Member of the Year competitions both of our members Holly Findlay and Katharine Bunn were definitely pumped, primed and ready to go and sell themselves and Young Farmers with great results. Well done to you both for winning two of the most prestigious competitions that the Area has to offer. Your fellow members, Clubs and County are justifiably proud of you both! Good luck to you both in your respective next rounds; Katherine at National Convention in May and Holly in the summer at National Comps day. Overall results from the weekend;

COMPETITION FIRST SECOND THIRD FOURTH Badminton OXON HANTS BERKS Touch Rugby OXON BERKS Rush Hockey HANTS BUCKS OXON BERKS Ladies Football HANTS/ OXON BERKS Mens Football BUCKS/ OXON HANTS BERKS Public Reading OXON SUSSEX BUCKS BERKS Public Speaking BUCKS BERKS OXON Junior MoY Holly Findlay

BERKS Fraser Compton

SURREY

Senior MoY Katherine Bunn BERKS

Jade Bowerman OXON

Ben Robinson HANTS

A massive congratulations to everyone who competed, supported, drove, fed watered and everything else that goes into making these competitions happen!

Bridget Findlay-Competitions Chair

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Newbury

Over the past couple of months Newbury YFC have been busy having meetings, raising money for our charity “Brake” and competing. We have had some really enjoyable meetings from an evening with the Rural Crime Officer. This was great fun learning about what they had to do. Bell ringing at St Nicholas’ church in Newbury, this was one of our members idea’s well done Jake. We had a fantastic evening all having a go at bell ringing, learning about the church and the bells. Our other two meetings have been indoors, sorting pre show classes who’s doing what and show classes also making mother’s day presents. I do hope all mum’s enjoyed them. A big thank you to all of you that helped organise these meeting. We held a jumble sale in February thank you to all those that helped and gave jumble. Newbury have been competing for Berkshire at area level, we have been to practises, had practises, then on the day they did us proud. Well done to all of you that competed in the touch rugby even though Biddy thought it was tag rugby (will she ever live this down?) We all had great fun. Well done to the reading team Elle, Alecsandra, and Jess and to our speaking team Holly, Jake and Glenn you were all fantastic. Lastly a huge well done to Holly for wining junior member of the year at area level so of she goes up the motorway to compete at National, Good Luck to you. Biddy Findlay- Club Leader

Club Contacts Newbury: Andrew Findlay- 07979455903

Bradfield: Simon Fernandez-07876493236 Reading: Declan Gillan-07751 0509119

Shefford: Sam Austin- sheffordyfc@hotmail.co.uk

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Shefford

Shefford has been busy, busy, busy. First of all on Wednesday 5th February, we had the magic man came to visit us at Brightwalton village hall; many of us have seen the magic man before. Beth Ackrill and Lauren Eeley were very excited to be the magician’s assistant. This was a very joyful evening. Our next meeting was at Sam Austin’s house watching some calves being born. Unfortunately no calves were boring whist us young farmers were there. We split up into two groups. One group were looking at the cows, the second group were with Jerry Austin talking about stock judging. We all learnt so much about cows. The next was on the 19th march, this was such a fun evening. We all made pancakes and decided what events we were doing for the Berkshire Country Fayre. We all had so much fun even though some of us burnt are pancakes we still had a lot of fun.

Natasha Chamberlain-Press Secretary

Reading

In the last couple of months we’ve had a range of various activities that we have all enjoyed very much. We started out by playing football at Swallowfield Parish Hall, where we had a short meeting before hand to discuss upcoming events in our YFC calendar, then moved on to have a small kick about. Our next meeting was a games night where all of our members came together and socialized with one another while playing many different games such as card games and board games. However the most competitive game was Uno. The next meeting which followed on from games night was our pancake evening; this meeting was very much enjoyed by all of our members. As we created weird and wonderful concoctions to go along side our pancakes which we made from scratch. The latest evening was to discuss our Country Fayre prep, where we talked about who was going to do what at the Fayre. This was followed by a few pointers on how to stock judge by Debbie Cockman and George Mason.

John Middleton-Club Treasurer

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Bradfield

Since the last newsletter the club has held a number of fun meetings. We held our traditional

pancakes evening. Some decided to cheat this year and failed miserably with their ready mix

dried pancake mix. It came out in dry lumps, but they persisted to make pancakes for the fun.

The real experts made proper tradition batter. Great fun to see everyone concentrating so hard to

make that perfect pancake. Pity a few ended on the floor when they were flipped!

Then we were off to Vicars Game, to see traditional butchered meat. We made our own Bradfield

sausages. We decided on a a unique combination sage, rosemary and thyme to bring out the real

taste of the pork. Some members have never worked so hard filling the cases then hand linking

them. Were we made every shape of sausage from small bite size pieces to what can only be

described as brick size.

We would like to thank Owen Howard for such an interesting evening.

And finally our sell out Bingo and Buffet night. The event was hosted at Bradfield social club

and organized by the lovely Sarah Wale. The hall was packed with members and friends from all

over the county. The night started off with four rounds of bingo, followed by a break for the

buffet.

Once everyone was happily fed, the night continued with our special 'The Box Game' which

involved everyone who had bought a ticket. The idea of the game is simple. There are five boxes,

one person per box. When your number is called out, you will choose a box to stand in front of.

If another person is called, and chooses to stand behind that same box, the first person has to sit

back down. The game continues until all of the numbers have been called out! The remaining

people behind the boxes then win whatever is inside the box! This game attracted a lot of

attention and proved to be a huge success as everyone in the room felt involved and had a laugh.

Afterwards three more rounds of bingo were played and the night ended with the raffle! A huge

thank you on behalf of Bradfield to everyone who came and made the night what it was! Also a

huge thank you to the staff at Bradfield Social club and James Clifton, the bingo caller! We

already can't wait for next year!

James Monaghan - Club Leader

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Sir Ralph Glyn Trophy for Club Efficiency

Congratulations to Shefford YFC for winning the 2013 Berkshire Federation of YFC Club Efficiency competition. Charlie Plank and Clare Killen will be contacting clubs soon to arrange visits to begin judging the 2014 competition and to see just how efficient you all are! This year Charlie and Clare hope to visit each club 3 times (2 regular meetings and the AGM). The sort of things that the judges look for includes: how well you carry out the administrative tasks; how you communicate with members and your local communities; and how well the meetings are run. The rules are available from the County Office and if you have any queries or questions please do ask. We know just how much effort you put into running your clubs so make sure you show Charlie and Clare all that you do.

Fake Training (Firearms and Knives)

On Wednesday 12th February about 30 members from across the county gathered at Milehouse to receive some education on knife and gun safety. The rural crimes officer for Berkshire, PCSO Colin Reeves joined us with a colleague to help us grasp an understanding on knives, guns and the law.

We were shown a variety of guns, some real some fake highlighting that it is hard to tell the difference. Some questions were answered as to what to do in certain scenarios.

I think we all took something away from it, even if it was just a reminder about not keeping your gun cartridges on show in your vehicle! Watch out for further county meetings that will be organised to the benefit of us all.

Club Officer Training Day

A massive thank you to the officers who came and took part in the officer training day. I

hope you will all agree that the day was of benefit to us all. The opportunity to meet fellow

members and learn about how the other clubs do it is in valuable to us all. I hope that you

have all managed to implement some of the things you were taught, any small change you

can make t the running of your club is a positive thing.

Make sure you tell your fellow members how much you enjoyed the day and to look out

for information on an training offered in the future. A free lunch is always worth any effort

in my opinion!

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There are lots of links below to the NFYFC website. Don’t just click on these though, check out the website regularly.

Rural+ Campaign- Everyone struggles with the pressures of growing up from time to time and young people in rural areas have the added difficulties of accessing real social networks, education, transport and services. Click here for help and information on this year’s National Chairman’s Campaign. http://www.nfyfc.org.uk/Ruralplus/ruralplus Youth Forum Time Capsule - The NFYFC Youth Forum, would like to invite members to a celebratory event to bury the Time Capsule on the 12th April. http://nfyfc.org.uk/Onceweekly_news?articleid=10602&single=1

Club of the Month -Clubs interested in being featured as a future Club of the Month in the YFC Buzz should send in their nomination to the Communications team. Every month, the YFC Buzz features a Club of the Month to help promote clubs and share ideas. http://nfyfc.org.uk/Onceweekly_news?articleid=10562&single=1

Get mentoring in Farming- Members looking to become volunteer mentors in farming can take part in a new scheme to pass on their experience to others. http://nfyfc.org.uk/Onceweekly_news?articleid=10588&single=1

Keep Britain Tidy-Get your club involved in Britain’s biggest ever tidy up. Click this link for more information. http://nfyfc.org.uk/Onceweekly_news?articleid=10585&single=1

acebook keep liking-Don’t forget to keep up to date with NFYFC this is the easiest way –it is also one of the best online places to have a conversation with Young Farmers. http://www.nfyfc.org.uk/national_news?articleid=10550&single=1

Hops Recruitment-HOPS is a provider of temporary labour solutions, recruitment and educational services to land based and food industries. http://www.nfyfc.org.uk/hops