Skills ranging from fence erecting to public speaking were celebrated at NFYFC’s Competitions Day in July.
More than 500 YFC members participated in the Federation’s national finals, the culmination of months of hard work for YFC members competing in county and area rounds.
Supporters could watch young people in all competitions across the Staffordshire County Showground, and at Oakedge Shooting Ground for the Clay Pigeon Shooting competition.
The event also featured entertaining afternoon performances, with members showcasing their talents in the Disco Dancing finals and the Show Choir to a packed room.
Show Choir winners Erwood YFC in Brecknock involved 14 members from the club, aged between 12 and 28, who sang a medley of songs from the Top 40 in 2023.
“As our contrasting piece, we did Yma O Hyd by Dafydd Iwan, which is a Welsh song, so it gave us the opportunity to speak in the language of Welsh,” said Samuel Powell, who explained the team had rehearsed in the village hall in the build-up to the competition.
“It’s obviously a busy time for everyone at the moment with lots of our team being farmers, busy doing different things, so we just tried to meet up once or twice a week to get everything together.”
Welsh voices also impressed the judges in the Public Speaking competition, with a team from Radnor winning the overall trophy, as well as individual awards for Best Speaker and Best Chair.
The competition, which is for under 16s, takes the form of a meeting, with a guest speaker, a chair and a role to give the vote of thanks. The team of Tori, Laura and Ellen practised for the competition in Laura’s kitchen and had prepared a speech on vaping.
“I wrote the speech myself and I have performed it quite a few times now in various rounds,” said Tori, who also won the Junior Member of the Year competition, sponsored by Tama.
In Situations Vacant Rosie Parsons from Cumbria won the 22-28 years category and Jack Hammond from Norfolk won in the category for the 16-21 years.
The competition requires participants to apply for a ‘job’ – including submitting a CV and covering letter to the judges in advance and then attending the ‘interview’ on Competitions Day.
Jack chose to apply for a Data Engineer role at the NFU Mutual and was asked questions about working in a team and meeting deadlines.
Jack said: “It was a great opportunity to practice my interviewing skills. It’s the sort of job I am looking to apply for in the future so getting some experience and practice of interviewing and applying for that sort of job has definitely been beneficial and I’ll use the feedback I have received as part of this process to help me in the future.”
Rosie Parsons from Cumbria was surprised but happy to win the Senior Situations Vacant trophy, and felt the whole experience has given her confidence about her career prospects.
“I chose the role of an assistant psychologist so a bit out there from a young farmer but something I am really passionate about and a job I am striving towards, so I thought this would be really good practice and it obviously was,” said Rosie.
“After doing this competition, I definitely feel more confident to apply for any job in the future.”
A team from Devon outperformed nine other teams in the Brainstrust competition to win the trophy. They credited their Chair, Katie Davie—who also won the Best Chair award—for helping them secure the victory.
“We have done a lot of practices from group rounds all the way through and we have a fantastic chair who is very good at what she does, controlling us though as we can get a bit carried away with it at times,” said Jack Tucker who also won Best Panelist.
The team are only given 20 minutes notice to prepare for the topics that the chair has chosen and then 20 minutes to discuss them in front of the judges. The winning team discussed whether the badger cull should be used to eradicate Bovine TB, the use of derelict buildings to house people who are homeless and whether the membership age for YFC is manageable for clubs.
“Quite often in the competition you may be going against your own beliefs but if you can argue a good point and don’t make it personal, that’s the best way to go about it,” said Harry Sprague from the Devon team.
As well as the public speaking competitions, YFC members got to show off their skills in more agriculturally related competitions, such as fence erecting, auctioneering and farm machinery skills.
Pembrokeshire retained their title in the Farm Machinery Skills competition, sponsored by Kramp, for another year. As well as Kramp toolkits, the winners also received a VIP trip to the JCB factory.
Competitors were asked to complete five tasks, including managing a realistic first aid situation and completing a farm safety challenge with The Farm Safety Foundation.
Rhys Bevan said: “It’s one of the only competitions that saves a life. Even learning how to operate machinery safely and then on the back of that, the accident as well. It has always been a good competition.
“We all have an interest in machinery, and we have had previous competitors over the years who have trained us up. It works out well that they ask us questions that they have had in the past, so we’re prepared on the day.”
More than 50 people also took part in the Clay Pigeon Shooting competition, supported by BASC, at Oakedge Shooting Ground. Harry Dickens from Bedfordshire won the senior category, with a joint first place for Charlie from Gwent and Jack Bacon from Dorset in the junior competition.
Harry has shot for the England team and qualified for the World Championships in New Jersey, America.
“It’s the addictiveness of winning that keeps me going. If I’m not winning, I’m not happy but it pushes me to try even harder the next time,” said Harry.
NFYFC’s Competitions Day wouldn’t be possible without the support of the judges and stewards who help support the competitions, as well as the sponsors and partners.
Thank you to Kramp, IAE, BASC, Tama, and ArcelorMittal for their support, as well as Rea Valley Tractors, JCB, Teagle, Border Plant Sales, CFMOTO, The Farm Safety Foundation and Arley Medical Services for proving support and machinery for the Farm Machinery Skills competition.
See all the results from Competitions Day.
