January has started with lots of team building activities to start 2017 with a highly motivated set of members all filled with brilliant ideas and a set of young farmers committees all revved up and working as a cross club team.
Being the friendly types we sent the senior club chairs and committees for a weekend of “team building” and silliness to Thorpe Woodlands. The members present were asked to get to know each other and work out their aspirations for their year in post. Before we let them work out their aspirations and good points and bad points though, we sent them out to do some challenges including a death drop and climbing trees as well as canoeing on what was the coldest weekend of the year. Being the tough bunch they are, of course, they excelled in the activities and all managed to stay dry throughout. The members were a little jaded when I met them on Sunday morning but full of beans and breakfast cooked by the multi talented Nick from Hadleigh. The enormous £200 pizza bill had obviously kept them fed long enough for inter club bonding to take place and from what I can see, a lot of laughs and bonding had been had. I’m not sure the game of twister was so successful for those who got sat on but no bandages were required. When asked to name three good and three bad points those present then had the realisation that sometimes what they see as bad about themselves is often seen as good by other people. It’s a great exercise to do and so tricky to find good points about yourself, worth a try!
All committee members were surprised to see that most of them have the same or similar aspirations. To promote YFC, gain new members and work as a team. Amazing to hear and inspiring for all of us to realise that all those involved have a mutual goal.
The following weekend we repeated the event on a shorter basis with our junior club committees and tackled the toilet roll game. Needless to say our junior members know our county chairman Beth much better with a great variety of embarrassing stories. We also found out a lot more about Tom from Brett with the fine system of an embarrassing tale every time his phone went off….it would seem he spends more time in ditches than he likes. The perils of being so popular on a Sunday morning! The junior members then put together a promotional advert for YFC – watch this space for a 1 minute whistlestop of Young Farmers – let’s open some people’s eyes as to what’s involved!
Stowmarket Young Farmers annual ball was an excellent evening with fantastic hospitality put on by Trinity Park, certainly the perfect evening to blow away those January cobwebs and put a spring into your step!
Looking forward this month we tackle the County Quiz competitions for the clubs – which teams will be the ones to remember the County Office phone number – standard question for the past 20 or so years and still some clubs get it wrong!
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