no self-respecting rural person would use the word awesomeness
unless they are a relatively uncool 13 year old
but it is the most appropriate word for the
2012 National Bank Young Farmer Grand Final.
This guy Elliot Scott was the man in charge
of a team of a fair few people who pulls together a massive,
a huge, an epic year of organising, planning and challenging
all for their fellow Young Farmers.
Early in the morning inside Forsyth Barr Stadium, Dunedin,
looking down on the modules on the concrete at the right end and
on the field the AgriSports set up to be raced through in a few hours.
So this is how the volunteer side of Young Farmers works.
We have these great young people who
join Young Farmers.
They blithely go along to meetings,
having a few jars,
meeting people,
talking harvest and calving stuff.
Then they enter the National Bank Young Farmer Contest.
At first they are having a good opportunity for a skills day with their mates.
They have a go at skills modules welding, building, digging, or calving/lambing
(really gross defrosted, limp dead calves or lambs).
They do this for a couple of years
then one year they make it through to a Regional Final.
Then after a couple of goes a Regional Final
they might, might make it through to a Grand Final.
Only eight from each Region make it through to a Regional Final,
only one from each Region makes it to Grand Final.
Katherine Tucker (Northern Region Grand Final Contestant)
in the dairy module at 2012 Grand Final
Along the way the Young Farmer volunteers
will have chaired a Club,
run a District/Regional Contest Final,
organised fundraising, bus trips, hunting trips,
a million and one social activities
and
making really great, life lasting friends.
Chris Will, Cam Lewis (elected the NZYF Board just now)
and Cam Brown (Regional Chair, Taranaki/Manawatu)
Contest is like no other event in anywhere in the world,
the rural world or otherwise.
Three levels - District, Regional and National
400 enter, then 56 (8x 7 Regional Finals)
then just 7 at Grand Final
then just 1.
There is only one winner each year.
We've have been doing this Contest for 44 years.
There have now been 44 Young Farmer of the year.
2012 is Michael Lilley's turn.
That's Micheal in the cloak with his wife Kelly
and the six Grand Finalists.
Grand Final is a gruelling three day event
that has a day of mental challenges,
a day of physical challenges
then a night of conquering rounds of mastermind type ag questions
all the while being filmed, photographed and interviewed.
There are only seven each year.
Only one wins.
Don't worry we train them young these days.
We have AgriKids with their own Contest in teams of three
and TeenAg in pairs.
Training Grand Finalists for the future.
We have a TV series called
so click above and hopefully TVNZ will be generous
and allow my overseas peeps to watch a little of what we do.
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