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Kent County Show 2005 (printer friendly)
Canterbury's
Show report For
those of you who didn't know, Canterbury YFC returned to the Kent Show after several
years of absence.
Valley
Park School's Show report
As my last school year drew to a close at Valley Park, I was very excited to be able to round it all up with Kent County Show. It is the major event which Valley Park YFC participate in as we are only a very small club, unlike many clubs we are not home to cattle, sheep or larger animals alike, and it is something we look forward to. Myself, the former vice chairman and four other members of our club attended the show with our team leader, Tim Hare, and his wife. The weeks running up to the show had been somewhat hectic. As we do not have any larger animals to enter in the show all of our energy and efforts are focused on trying to perfect our small animals' condition and appearance, and working on our display board (which, I would like to say, we received Very Highly Commended for this year) and here I would like to add a big thank you to my Mum who was a great help with all the ideas and preparation of the display. We finally arrived at the showground Thursday afternoon, excited about what the weekend had in store and returned home Sunday evening very pleased with ourselves after receiving 4 rosettes in the small animals' class - out of only seven animals I feel this is something our club should be proud of. Our team leader and his wife also received a rosette each - in one of the ex-members classes. For Tim, we hear this was his first time showing cattle in ten years! All
in all it was a great experience and a lot of fun, 3 days I will not forget!
Helping
out at Axton Chase After the excitement of last year's show, I wasn't going to let the lack of a club stop me from being a part of this year's experience! And what a valuable experience it was. I decided to offer my services to another club. Although I wasn't a particularly formidable showman, I had plenty of experience preparing sheep for exhibition, and I was sure this could come in handy to some club somewhere. Kent Young Farmers' is made up of school clubs and open clubs, and I wanted to continue working with young students at a school club. I hoped to work somewhere where my presence would really make a difference - Axton Chase proved to be that school. Axton Chase school farm has only recently been re-established after closing several years ago. It is based in the Spectrum centre, which is a specialist teaching facility for children with special needs. Axton Chase young farmers' club is made up of children from the Spectrum centre, and helpers from the main school. Whilst at the centre, I worked particularly closely with two young girls called Marianne and Chloe. Despite the challenge of training four uncooperative lambs during one of the hottest weeks on record, the girls showed a remarkable determination to prove themselves. Their time and effort paid off - by the time the show started, Axton Chase had four placid, fluffy, white lambs! Chloe and Marianne weren't the only ones to be proud of the result they earned. A young boy called Nathan worked extremely hard preparing his Dexter cow for the show. With a bit of help from Mrs. Flight (the farm manager), Buttons looked great and walked very well. Even when the calf was stubborn, Nathan stayed confident and took control of the situation; a skill that many his age find difficult, especially with the pressures of being in a show ring. Nathan, Chloe and Marianne were some of the friendliest young farmers I have ever had the pleasure of working with, and they showed a real passion for getting their livestock looking right, and doing well in the show - regardless of who they were up against. Although the young farmers worked extremely hard, the show would not have been such a success for Axton Chase were it not for the amazing effort put in by Sheila Flight. It is not an easy task to run a school farm unit, especially around County Show time, when so much attention is focused on the animals. It is harder still to cater for children who require constant supervision because of their special needs. Sheila, however, kept everything under control, be it caring for the animals, children, or her own family members. Even an experienced club leader would have found this show a daunting challenge, yet Sheila handled everything that arose very professionally and with a lot of confidence, despite this only being her second County Show. She worked extremely hard to ensure her young farmers made it to the show, and gave up most of her free time to prepare and care for the livestock. Without a doubt, the show would not have been possible without her. I also had the joy of working with Sheila's family, who all mucked in to lend their mum a hand. Zara also showed a Dexter, and have up many hours to help Chloe and Marianne prepare their sheep. Axton Chase did extremely well this year, and the result of all their hard work was a well-deserved rosette for every member! I'm
very grateful to Sheila and Axton Chase for letting me help them out this year.
I saw for myself that special needs don't need to be a barrier to success, and
I was able to see that school farms provide many benefits and opportunities to
students who aren't necessarily comfortable with the national curriculum and classroom
environment. Axton Chase is clear evidence of how vocational alternatives can
benefit the neediest students in our schools and across our communities. I won't
forget the experiences I've had working there, or the kindness and hospitality
of the club and people running it. Most of all, I look forward to seeing them
at the show next year - bigger and better than ever!
Axton
Chase Show Report This was only our second year at the Kent show. Last year we took just two dexters and won a rosette in each class we entered. This year we took two dexters and four southdowns. There were also three pupils from the Spectrum Centre and my daughter Zara from the main school. It was a hectic lead up to the show and we still had to halter train the cows and sheep. Two of my pupils also had to get used to walking the lambs. This was not as easy as it sounds because sheep, being sheep, would either walk or kneel depending upon how they felt at the time!! It was also a very wet few days washing the lambs. Especially when Chloe had the hose. Stephen found that for some reason every time Chloe turned to talk to him the hose pointed where she was looking.
The actual show date came round all to quickly. We loaded up the animals and I towed them down to Detling. Many thanks for all the help when I arrived on site. This was only my second attempt at towing.
Friday arrived and Chloe, Marianne and Nathan arrived nice and early to start getting their animals ready. All was going well until our steer calf was about to enter the ring and for some reason decided to misbehave. Poor Nathan had never shown anything before and he is not good with new situations. However with help from the stewards Nathan coped with the situation and entered the ring where he did well. Nathan came 5th and Zara 4th. It was then time for our lambs. Eventually, Chloe, Marianne and our lambs were ready. Once in the ring they finally managed to sort themselves out and Marianne came 6th with our twins.
Saturday was a nice restful day as we had no pupils to look after. Sunday however was a different matter. Trying to get the cows, sheep and my four YFC members ready for the turnout classes. Tim, Stephen, Simon, Emma and I were at full stretch. Eventually everything came right. Zara & Nathan were first in and came a creditable 5th & 4th respectively. Chloe also got a commended with her lamb, so once again we achieved a rosette in every class we entered.
My overall opinion of the show was that my little "party" had a great time and want to go again next year. Even some of the parents have offered to come down next year to stay on site and help with the cooking or the animals. Finally, our thanks to the show committee for all their hard working making this year's show so enjoyable!
Meopham
Open Kent Show Report Well where do I start? This year's show seemed bigger and better to me than ever before with lots of attractions and main lines packed full of animals! On the Young Farmers side of things, the three days were packed full of competitions and events. I think it was true to say that there were more cows than ever. This was helped by one of the most recent clubs attending, Maidstone, which was great to see. The time seemed to fly by and everything was well organised which was a result of months of planning by the Show Committee and especially Philippa and Catharine. Kent Show started for Meopham at the beginning of the week as some of our members were on the committee and helped on Tuesday and Wednesday with the erection of the Marquee and making sure everything was ready for the influx of lorries filled with livestock. On Wednesday night several of us who were borrowing animals from a neighbouring farmer washed our cows for the last time at the farm and picked out 4 sheep to take to the show out of about 150. As you can imagine this was quite good fun, but we made some quick decisions, and these decisions paid off as we didn't do too bad in Butchers Pairs and Turnout Classes. Thursday morning arrived; some members were at the show helping with livestock coming off the lorries while others were at farms loading livestock. All livestock was at the show by about 6pm, the marquee had that usual buzzing feel as we were all glad we had arrived and were looking forward to the next three days. Meopham fed, watered and bedded down all their animals and returned to the Campsite. Now one of our members which will remain anonymous but many of you will know him had his 18th Birthday. The club had a barbeque for him to celebrate and I recall he had many presents of the alcohol variety. Darren had many ideas of what he was going to do to the poor young farmer but I don't he got his way, but it would have been funny seeing someone drinking Guinness out of a Wellington. Friday morning arrived a lot quicker than many of us would have hoped which was probably due to the large quantities of alcohol consumed the night before. Well at least only one of our members was showing that morning; the member who had is 18th birthday the day before. Oh well it was funny for us watching him getting his animal prepared but several members helped him. The day went on with other classes, perhaps the most memorable to me being Beef Pairs, watching David Brown from Meopham Open and Emma Gladwell from Meopham School walking round the ring with two Aberdeen Angus which walked perfect and to think two months ago, when helping to unload them up at the school my life flashed before me being dragged round the pen. Anyway it is all good fun!
Saturday, a key day for Meopham, with the Beef Confirmation Class. Many of our members were up early again washing and preparing the animals ready for the show. The morning went fast with many animals going into the ring and some coming out with rosettes and some not but it is the taking part that counts. The afternoon arrived and a class which my brother had been looking forward to was 'Ex Members'. Well you can have your own opinion, but a dairy definitely doesn't suit him.
Sunday, the last day of the show but the most important as it was Beef Turnout. I think I was up at 5am but others must have been up before that looking at the number of tired faces there were in the YFC marquee. Sheep were being blown to bits by hairdryers and Class 1 beef being frantically washed and brushed for the 8.00am kick off. Throughout the show I feel there was a great team effort but especially today. All members were helping each other, making sure animals don't sit down, changing halters etc. Once the last beef turnout animal was in the ring, we all concentrated on the Sheep. The sheep did well and next year we will hopefully have them to work on advance a bit longer. There was a couple of hours free before the award ceremony so we took it in turns to man our area while others went off for a look around the show. The award ceremony started promptly at 2pm with all clubs in attendance. Meopham was happy with their results throughout the show and look forward to Kent Show 2006!
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