Farming Talk: It's non-stop for Shropshire's YFC

As the weather dried up eventually in mid-April many of our members were busy playing catch up with planting, spraying and fertilising as well as still turning up to support their young farmer's clubs.

We hosted a Joules sale at Minsterly Village Hall which was a great success with lots of people turning up to grab a bargain and supporting SFYFC with ticket sales going to us to help fund some of our organisation's running costs.

The social committee also then arranged a mystery tour which this year was kept a mystery until we arrived at Adam Henson’s farm where he met us and gave a talk before welcoming the group to have a walk around the farm park. it was very interesting to hear first-hand how both he and the business had evolved and the struggles that he still faced with farming like many of our members can be involved with from time to time.

The early May bank holiday saw many of Shropshire’s farming community members ascend on Blackpool once again. With the National Federation of YFC no longer holding the AGM there it is purely a great social event with all having a great time partying.

May was jam-packed with a variety of competitions, we started with the stockman of the year and Shropshire Show stock judging, kindly hosted by the Woodcock family. As the first stock judging competition of the year, stock judging officer Richard Ratcliff had arranged a couple of training nights beforehand to get everyone’s eye back in.

The following weekend Shropshire hosted the West Mids Volleyball competition, with only a slight setback of a power cut leaving the sportshall in complete darkness for a while it went well. Sadly the two Shropshire clubs Cleobury and Ludlow didn’t make it through to the national finals but they provided some excellent competition for Staffordshire.

To round up the competitions we had our tent at the Shropshire show once again and it was great to see it looking so full with a great standard of entry.

A huge thank you to all our judges who attended on the Friday before the show to judge and give comments on how the members can improve.

As well as a fantastic tent and the wheelbarrow racing we did in the main ring, the show is also where we bring out the club floats and this year they were superb. There were 11 floats which were all fairytale themed and did several laps of the main ring whilst the judges decided on the best float, judged on construction, decoration and costumes.

My team and I were very proud of what the clubs provided at the Shropshire show in both entries and support and we hope it continues.

As I hope you can see Shropshire YFC does a lot more than just farming and if you would like to know more about joining the biggest rural youth organisation please contact the county office on 01743 442880 or visit our website.

Max Porter, Shropshire Federation of Young Farmers' Club