summer do & supersunday

Thanks to Paul and Simon Burden we held our Caribbean Summer do at Higher Tredundle last Saturday night. I've heard nothing for days but 'great do' and I agree, thanks to everyone who helped setup and take down.

After the cleanup operation the next day, fifteen of us headed off in convoy to Paignton for the next Supersunday instalment, on a trip to Splashdown... Splashdown is a big water park with loads of slides, including normal ones, rubber ring ones, and one very high and steep one, which Jess and Hannah were pretty much the first on! Everyone had a cracking day, a lot of course thanks to the weather.

 July's supersunday is next sun 4th July, and it's a car treasure hunt!

enviromental

Paul Cossens from the Environment Agency came to Eagle House last night to give us a talk on his work along the Inney, Kensey and Ottery rivers. Whilst as expected a few people were sceptical about hearing anything new, it was in fact pretty interesting.

He discussed crop breaks against rivers, breaking up maize fields after harvesting to allow rainwater to penetrate instead of causing soil erosion, and how covering your dung heap stops half the nitrogen content leaching out. One thing a lot of people took away with them is that the Agency isn't out to prosecute, and accepts accidents happen - it's whether you let them know it's happened and whether you do everything you can to try and rectify it - apparently fines don't happen as often if that's the case!

Hope to see everyone at Burdie's shed to prepare for tomorrow night... the LAUNCESTON YFC CARIBBEAN DISCO. Spread the word!

Also this sunday, it's the next Supersunday trip -we're off to Splashdown in Paignton - it looks like fun. We need as many as possible to help clearing up at Burdie's sunday morning, then we'll set off from there/Kennards at about 11.30am. Sorry this clashes with fathers day but it's just the way it worked out.

south west area competitions day

Well done to Ed, Pip and the others from across Cornwall who've been up to Compete at SW Comps Day. Ed came 7th in Stockman of the Year, we won the mini-cubicle which Pip organised, and amongst others, Helston got through to the National final with both male AND female Tug of War teams.

royal cornwall show

The cubicle competition is always a tough one to do well with at the show, but this year we managed to pull out all the stops and WIN IT! 1967 was the last time, I've been informed by a few people that Lanson did so. There were many many long evenings of hard work from a number of members, but it was all worth it in the end - thank you everyone for your time, ideas and effort.

However... the cubicle wasn't the only thing we did well at, with wins and high placings in stock judging, flower arranging, club promotion and painting giving us a total of six trophies (plus two shared ones) including most points overall! Well done members, something to be very proud of. Once again, a fun and enjoyable few days of Royal Cornwall.

agronomy

Last thursday Mr Anthony Ellis Esq. - Cornwall YFC Vice-Chairman and Agronomist for Matford Arable invited us to his home farm; Pensipple Farm, Liskeard for an Agronomy talk/farm walk. After an introduction, we walked to grass, barley, maize and oat fields, learning about about crop management, herbicides, pesticides, and how his house is actually heated by the 6 acres of oats in one of the fields!

A lot of the land is rented by Graham Whiting, who rears barley beef, so we got a second farm walk on the same night, looking at his modern and well ordered rearing unit.

Our Royal Cornwall Show cubicle is going well - we put it up last night, and have finishing touches to do at Wadebridge tonight, so only a couple of days 'til you all get to see it (lets hope the weather clears up). Thanks to everyone who has helped, for their hard work in preparing it.

See you at the show!

competitions day WINNERS!

Well done club members! Yet  again we have won the county competitions day, held near Grampound last saturday. With a number of first, seconds, thirds, and in one category all three (!), we ended up a long way ahead points wise of the other clubs.

In the evening, our tug of war team competed in the county qualifiers. After a really tough first pull against Helston (which we won), we ended up meeting them again in the final, where after a tight fought pull we couldn't quite make it, resulting in a Helston win. With over half the team over club age next year, this was really disappointing, as we've trained long and hard to try and have a blinding last year, but alas it was not meant to be.

Soon after the evening do started, where our team competed in the folk dancing competition, and despite a fantastic looking piece, we were pipped to first place by St Columb, excellent work anyway!

Thanks to EVERYONE for their hard work on comps day; lets keep it going for RCS, Lanson Show and Rally!

competitions prep evening

With all the big YFC comps coming up who is there better to give us guidance on how to win than a competitions judge?! Well last thursday, Alison Gribble gave us a talk and hands-on taste test of how to do your best with the cooking competitions, so hopefully there's no excuses now!