This is a long one, but Wythall has done so much over the last year and I just had to share everyone’s successes, and in some cases catastrophes. I finished last year’s report by saying that I hoped we would return to a more “normal” year for YFC and that Wythall would continue to be on the rise in success and in numbers, and both of my wishes came true. What was once our small but mighty club has now more than doubled in size with more than 40 paid up members and more still turning up each week! That is more than we have managed in a very long time and everybody’s enthusiasm and commitment to the club has been evident in the things that Wythall has achieved over this last year. 

Last year’s Harvest Supper saw an attendance of around 80 people, we shook it up with a fish and chips dinner and we donated more than £3,300 to The British Heart Foundation in Harvey’s memory - a very successful night if you ask me. We hit the ground running getting into a full programme with crazy golf, bowling, pumpkin carving; supported other clubs at pub of the month nights, charity bingo nights and a visit to The Buzz in Worcester for a county social. I went for some chairs training on the National Chairs weekend in Cardiff, we partied hard at the Halloween doo and many members donned their high vis to put in the charity hours and volunteer at the Umberslade Bonfire Night, parking around 4,500 people in the mud bath that became the field, after which we gratefully received a generous donation to the club. We took the younger members on their first footcracker - personally one of my favourite events, they sort of looked at us in disbelief when we explained it but I think they enjoyed the exhilaration of it as they kept turning up to them!

Wythall took home a lot of silverware from the county AGM - I was very humbled to receive the Secretary of The Year award from pre-Covid and the President’s award. We had nominations in both the junior and intermediate members of the year and Wythall received the Charity award for our hard work raising money and putting in the charity hours. Rocko even had a special mention in the President’s speech as a rising star to watch for the future!

It was then time for us to get back into the competition spirit. Our quiz team came back with a 3rd place from the county pub quiz and the English Winter Fair in Stafford saw Wythall and Worcestershire gain wonderful results again. Lydia, our dab hand stock judger, placed 6th in the live beef whilst I managed to wing it again with a 2nd in the beef carcase. We also took a few of our younger members who had never stock judged in competition before and threw them in the deep end competing as juniors in the intermediate classes. Joe and Rocko were fantastic and held their own, with Joe bringing home 5th in the live beef and Rocko 10th in the live lamb, being the youngest by many many years. Overall Worcestershire placed 3rd and I am so pleased the boys enjoyed and learned from their experience.

After this, Wythall got into the Christmas spirit. We went ice skating, made wreaths, hosted parties for the juniors with pizza and games and of course we all descended upon The Lad for our annual Christmas meal and consumption of many, many bottles of wine. It was also the return of the Boxing Day doo, where the bad behaviour continued and Wythall made their way front and centre to the dance floor.

In amongst this busy period, our vice chair Bizza was selected as the West Midlands Ambassador for the NFU Student & Young Farmer programme, the second person from Wythall that has managed to secure this position. This is an incredible achievement and I am sure she will spread her knowledge and experience of this with you all over the coming year. 

We started the new year with a Burns Night, more pub trips, county socials, a skittles night at the hunt kennels and a bounce round the trampoline park. We got some smart new club clothing and sent some teams to the sports competition - a junior netball team and a men’s football team, in which our junior boys had to puff their chests out a bit against the rather large teams of Bromsgrove and Inkberrow, but they came home in one piece. I’d just like to say another massive thank you to Lucy, who stepped in last minute to help me umpire the ladies netball and learnt that not all girls are that understanding when you’re pulling them up for obstruction or footwork.

Another thank you to Ryan and Edd who pulled together a hedging practice in the blustery storms and showed our younger members the ropes. A lovely day was spent at Churchfields with Rocko and Rob placing 2nd in the junior team competition - their first time hedging and they weren’t afraid to give it a good go! It’s so rewarding seeing all of our newer members taking on such opportunities to learn the valuable skills that young farmers have to offer.

For Valentine’s Day we put ourselves out there and hosted a Take Me Out fundraiser. Hats off to those that weren’t afraid to make a bit of a fool of themselves - Fred for becoming known as Worcestershire’s Mr Stihl and Dan for doing the worst Paddy McGuinness impressions I have ever seen. But it was all in the name of charity and we raised another £400 for The British Heart Foundation.

We had four entries into the Member of The Year competition, with Rocko and Rob placing 2nd and 4th respectively and receiving some brilliant feedback from the judges, and Wythall did it again winning Mr & Mrs YFC and Overall Member of The Year for the second year running between Fred and myself. Within the week I then found myself winning the West Midlands Area round of the competition and going on the following month to compete against some exceptional advocates for YFC from across the country in the national final of the competition. I was more than pleased to have been placed joint 4th in this - it was a very daunting but incredibly rewarding experience and one of the highlights of my time in young farmers, from which I have learnt so much about myself and the organisation and met some truly wonderful and inspirational people.

Further into the spring we bagged ourselves a new doo, being asked to run it after the Shelfield Park races, to which we jumped at the chance. Despite Hannah and I nearly having a breakdown because everything that could go wrong in the set up, did go wrong and we were soon reminded that every other man and his dog were at work or school Monday-Friday and don’t have the same shift flexibility that we do and 100 fence panels are a lot to lift and move for two little people, we got the job done with minutes to spare. I can’t thank our sponsors, RKC, enough - Tom and Brendan were our knights in shining armour and without whom the event simply would not have been possible. The night ran successfully and we have secured the date for next year, with many lessons taken forward.

Then it was time for what we have all been waiting for, after two years without it - rally prep! A massive thank you to the Johnsons for allowing us to take over the shed with wood, paint, dust and all manner of whacky things. We went all in with pre-show and had a record number of entries from our club. After a wonderful stock judging practice led by Chris and Michael and kindly hosted by the Charles’, many members gave stock judging a go for the first time in both live and carcase and I think many surprised themselves! Congratulations especially to Sophie who tackled horse stock judging for the first time all by herself. We came home with 1st’s, 2nd’s and 3rd’s across the board, a couple people such as Hannah have decided it isn’t for them, she’ll stick to just being able to point out the head and the udder on a dairy cow and do her bit by coordinating teams next year instead, but we’ve definitely found some stars for the future and I was so impressed by everybody’s efforts and talents. We had seven entries into the live show classes and massive congrats to Megan and John who both came away with not only the under 18 dairy and beef calf champions respectively, but also the overall dairy and beef calf champions! A huge achievement for both of them.

Rally prep continued, our show board took front and centre stage outside Beckett’s - I hope many of you managed to take a trip past to see it. The late nights continued, and I’m never going to forget the night before rally - after getting the rally box to site and forgetting its roof, Hannah and I were up until 3 in the morning attempting a decorative gravity-defying cake. After a power cut, melted butter cream and a lot of Hannah snapping at Cam who was snoring away on the sofa, the cake found itself upside down on the kitchen floor. We decided this was one competition we were not going to enter… on two hours sleep we were up again and all on our way to county for the big day. And what a day it was. The turn out was incredible, our members performed fantastically all throughout the day, even if they were dressed as aliens in tutu’s dancing around in wheelbarrows. I don’t know what they were complaining about, they won?! The standard of competition was high, with every club excited to be back at rally, and we came away with prize cards in almost everything we did and many qualifications for the Royal Three Counties! It was so rewarding to see our members enjoying themselves, meeting new people and really putting the effort in and I remember thinking how proud I am to be this club’s chair and that this is what we do it for. Our efforts for pre-show and rally prep paid off. Wythall came an amazing 4th, down from 3rd by only 100 points! It has been a long time since we’ve seen our name near the top of the leaderboard and that is all down to our fantastic members. I hope that in the coming years they can continue that success and they’ll only get better! And of course it’s not rally without a rally doo, brilliantly put together by the clubs joining forces and several of our members chipped in and supported. I admit I can’t remember much from that night after no sleep, a lot of caffeine and more than enough Cheeky V’s, but I do recall seeing some inter club relations from some of our younger members branching out to the west side of the county, and I’m sure they’ll be terribly embarrassed that I’ve brought that up again!

Our summer was full of activity - we volunteered at the village Jubilee party and even had our own navy officer there. I trekked up to Northumberland with some other clubs to celebrate National’s 90th anniversary ball on what appeared to be the windiest field in the UK. We filled our time with laser quest, BBQ’s, dodgeball and a waterfight and well done to Chloe who gave tug of war a go and competed in the West Midlands Area ladies team! Royal Three Counties was another big success for our competing members with more place cards and our head chef Lydia went through to the National rounds for cookery! It was rather entertaining watching Bizza try to network with Adam Henson whilst we were all covered in shaving foam and wotsits. We also hosted another county social, this time a rounders match and BBQ in the sunshine which was exceptionally well attended by other clubs and we raised £240 for Farm Africa who Bizza is running the London Marathon for next month.

The summer also saw the return of the Hanbury Show doo, the foam party and Defford and a massive thank you to those members that helped with the set up and clear up of Defford. And then came the best social date in the calender (not that we’re biased!), Bash on The Borders. Thankfully not as chaotic as last year and with more manageable numbers, we had a cracking night. Everything ran smoothly from set up, to the night itself, to clear up. We had a fantastic turnout from far and wide, Rob kept the dancefloor moving, drinks were flying out and everybody had a ball. We’ve always struggled with support to clear up the following day so I can’t thank enough the members, particularly the juniors, that put in such a hard graft the following morning to have it all cleared by lunchtime whilst nursing some serious hangovers, you were superstars. We made another healthy profit and will be making a donation to The British Heart Foundation in memory of Harvey.

Our charity work didn’t stop there - we hosted yet another county social, this time a car treasure hunt, which saw The Lad pub garden filled with traffic cones, eggs, bras and some very brave members, or silly you can decide, took their challenges to the next level and went for a swim in Earlswood Lakes. We didn't mention how many dead bodies have been found in that lake, probably best not. This event raised another £90 which we have donated to Farm Africa. Unfortunately our ploughing match had to be cancelled following the summer drought, but we rounded off the year a few more charity hours supporting the village in the local Flower & Produce Show and we took a trip to Aztec followed by the pub as my last meeting for the year, which was as much a playground for us older ones as it was for the kids!

And that concludes Wythall’s year - it’s incredible to see how much we have done compared to the last couple of quieter years. Although it has been hard work getting us to this stage, pushing on through Covid throughout all the uncertainty, recruiting and retaining members, I am so proud to be able to look back and say that Wythall has gone from strength to strength, and it’s showing. One of the best things for me personally is being able to watch our new and younger members experiencing and enjoying some of our favourite events that we have loved for so many years - seeing them come back flustered and muddy from a footcracker, the stress and excitement of rally, making friends at social events, and so on. It is so rewarding to see and I hope that they have found their ground in young farmers like so many of us have.

Whilst I am so sad not to be running the club again, a job I have loved for three years, I’m really looking forward to seeing what you will achieve with a new committee and new ideas. To my advisory, Adrian, Michael, the committee and of course you as the members, I can’t thank you enough for the support you have given me. As I take on the role of Worcestershire County Chairlady, I wish you all the very best of luck - I will still be around for any advice and support you may need but I know that Wythall will continue to shine and will continue to do us all proud. You really are the most wonderful club and it has been my absolute pleasure to be your Chairlady these past couple of years.

Molly Phillips - Chairlady 2021/22

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