Meath Macra are having a Farm Skills review "meeting" on Monday the 9th November in the foyer of the Ardboyne Hotel in Navan.
Members are asked to come along and express their views on the competition - good or not so good!!
It wont be a long meeting and all are invited

Will ya let me know how this goes as we are interested to see how we will move on in our own county.

Sorry County, was hoping to make it tonight though we've now got a football match on now this evening.

We did discuss it on Friday at our meeting, and the thought go as following-

In general our members seem to like farm skills, though these are a few of the tweeks.


Fencing:
-> Have a prize for the best girls team. Or have a separate section for them, were either more time for fencing or make it slightly easer.
-The basis was that even with my help my girls from North Meath couldn't get the fence done right in time.
-While I do acknowledge there many girls out there that can do it better than the men as seen in Trim. We feel that the bit of encouragement of a reward could get more girls involved.
e.g. Thinking back to this years county final in Hoeys farm in Castletown were we (North Meath) and Moynalty both had 3 teams, and there was about 10 spectators there who could of potentiality formed 3 girls teams to put against our one had it gone right.

-> The though that the fencing is maybe to technical with teams using rulers and such, the though was that on a common farm the farmer would just use his eye to judge and so shouldn't that be rewarded here. To reward the every day farmer.

-> COSTS - Farm skills is beating only by the hire of Musical Bands on the North Meath Macra accounts for both this year 2009 and last 2008 kitting out 8 teams. Now people can say sure you'd pick a few poles and a bit of wire up of some local. Though the issue is that if you seriously wish to be a contender you need so much more, e.g. Spinning-Jenny to put wire on for speed, tensile and tying wire, eggs, insulates, brackets, grapples, all the special tighteners, all the other tools and 24 Poles {(6 six foot poles and 2 pencil poles for the H-frames) x 3 (for our 3 teams)}. And there's a fair bit of hassle going round each time getting the lend of the tools.

-what we'd propose is that there was a set list of equipment given to each club, this would help the new clubs like our self's know what to bring.
-Or that possibly materials could be optionality be supplied and club pays a fee e.g. £30 per team, this would save money in a whole as buying in bulk would be cheaper, would also make it easer for teams to turn up, though leaving the option there that you can bring your own, for if come teams getting it for free they don't want to change. The fee would have to be payed a month in advance and if implemented we'll bring our £90 to the next exec, to get the show on the road..lol.



The Questions:

No big issues with the Questions though slight suggestion that they should be more farm based.
e.g. Telling signs a lamb has maggots? a, b, c, d,
Instead of:
What does I.C.S.A. stand for? a, b, c, d,



Tractor Driving:

Well our girls wouldn't do it last time though that's just the individualizes in question.
Though some of the lads think there should be time given before the competition to get use to the tractor,
e.g. I have an old John Dear 2850 and have knowledge in driving Massey 35, though these new tractors with different controls take a bit of time to get use to. And use don't really want to be asking the judge and you getting in.
-Suggestion that tractor type is allocated well in advance given lads to practice, or given an hour before to practice.



Well there the thought of North Meath Mafia.

Regards,

Paddy, Not quite sure where to start. Firstly some of your opinions I can understand.
However there have been many females in the national finals of this competiton and females are just as capable to do well in the competition as men as proven in the past.
Secondly the issue on tools. Our club has participated in farm skills for the past three years now. 95% of the materials can be sourced on members farms and reused. Wire, insulators, gripples, posts, staples etc. There are very view farms around these days which would not use these regularly.
Also 24 posts? 8 for each team?? Not sure why this would be necessary as in National Final only 4 posts are used. 3 on fence and one for hanging gate.
The only costs our club incurred for the previous 2 years were the insulators as the team used a specific type.

If your club has participated in farm skills over the past 2 years, can you not reuse the equipment you have bought already?
It would be extremly difficult to send a list of tools to clubs beforehand as the tools required depends on the type of fence you are putting up.

I agree the fencing has become extremly technical and is almost at fencing contractor level. However I dont feel a lot can be done about this as its not because of national office or rules, its due the high standard of competitors at national level.

Also the questions. I.C.M.S.A I feel is a relevant question however there are often questions on who the C.E.O of Dairy Board is etc which I do not feel is relevant to Farm Skills.
Finally I agree with you on tractor driving, it is extremely difficult to drive a tractor you are not familiar with and i understand it is difficult for competitions to find the time for practising driving but perhaps teams could get 5 minutes each to familiarise themselves with the controls. A competitor who is uncomfortable with driving a tractor could lead to safety issues as was seen last year when a person could not get the key out of the ignition and almost broke the key.

Thanks Mr./Mrs. Promises,

I agree with most of what your saying but just to answer your questions.

In regards to poles and the number of 24.
In the national final it may be done with only 4 poles though in the 2 farm skill county rounds I attended in Meath it was done with 8 poles by near all the teams.
This was with a "H"-Frame on both sides and 2 poles between. (the "H"-Frame is made up of 3 poles on both sides which adds up to 6).
And so 2+6=8 poles per team,
Thus 8x3=24 poles for 3 teams.

And I’d like to stress "females are just as capable to do well in the competition as men" for I fully agree with that, and in fact some of them are much better.
As I saw at a show in September in Trim "The Royal Meath Show"
Where Meath Macra put on a display of Farm skills for the general public. And my team from North Meath Macra, which I would of though were pretty good (two student farmers and a carpenter) got beaten in every section by a girls team Kilcloon Macra, so I’m in no dought that many girls can be much more capable than men.
I don’t question that, and I wasn’t before. Though I still stand by the belief that there’s possibly potential of building the number of girls participating in the competition. And so that’s why I put forward a suggestion.
Now maybe my suggestion of a separate section or a price on the day for best girls team aren’t the best idea’s.
Though there the first one’s that come to mind for my self, If anyone has a better idea I’d go with that. Though this year in Meath, in my club of North Meath Macra we rewarded our girls who entered Farm Skills with our own North Meath Macra Titles , and whilst they get no formal Macra Na Fermi recognition they did get it from there club. Which I felt was very beneficial, also the local publicity they received from it highlighted to others girls in our area that this mightn’t be as hard a think to do having seen pictures of these other girls doing it.

Anyway that’s my though for this morning, I do hope my clarity of idea’s and counting of pole meets with your approval, and sure if not I look forwarding to reading your reasoning.

Regards,

the rescheduled Farm Skills Review meeting is this coming monday the 16th at 8.30pm in the Rugby club in Navan

thanx to all those who turned up on Monday night for the meeting.
Those who were there had a lot to say, both positive and negative.
I have a nice long letter to send off to the Competitions Committee with proposed changes. And thankfully there was not one person in favour of keeping the post driving as a part of the competition!! We need to bring back the entertainment factor of the competition so that needs to be given the boot ASAP!!