Somerset YFC

About Us

A very lively club with a wide range of ages, we take part in many activities through the year! We are part of Severn Group.

Year Report

2009 Year Report

The 2008/2009-year started off in typical Chew style with a change of AGM date in September just to throw everyone!

This year Caz Sage was Chairman, Christina Ford as Secretary, and Matt Curtis as treasurer; this team and all of the other officers have done a great job. Especially concerning the difficulties with The Pelican Inn, our meeting venue, which has looked after us so well over the years and has suffered manager trouble and closure. We were temporarily hosted at Norton Marleward Village Hall, the Queens Arms in Chew Magna and the Sage’s garden room. Thank you to all!

The Harvest supper was a messy night with the egg, flour and water from our entertainments, based on the drunken antics of a chef (Matt Curtis) making a Christmas Pudding. The cast did a great job!

 Well done to everyone who was awarded a prize that evening; all well deserved. Jo Avery did a fantastic job organising the evening.

The year as usual has been a blur with a great programme of events organised by Kate Lyons, with all of our sports events;  football, hockey, netball, skittles, clay pigeon shooting and rounders to name a few! We played hockey at Churchill in a freak monsoon, and abandoned BBQ’s after clay pigeon shooting and rounders from the weather. But always found shelter at the trusty watering holes throughout the valley!

Socially we have been Go Karting in Cheddar; where you were safer being behind the pack of young farmers forgetting the karts weren’t tractors!

 Also quiz nights that are still based on ex-member Chris Sage’s ‘riiiiight’ questions!! We have also enjoyed talks from the Police, Johnny Perrin’s Bio-Fuel farm and from a First Response officer, who prompted Chew to donated £500.

We also donated towards Caz’s trip to Kenya on the YFC Discovery Programme, where she was involved with a rural children’s project.

Also there has been the YFC Roadshow, bowling, a trip to Weston magistrates court, cinema, hunt kennels and a trip to Bath Races.

Some of our own social nights have included our annual Bonfire,  kindly hosted by the Lane’s, with catering provided by the Sweet family and fireworks display/kamikaze mission laid on by Mike Sweet and Matt Curtis.

The Christmas meal was held at the “Castle of Comfort”, and once everyone had battled up the hill in the fog we sat down to plenty of great food and drink. 

The highlight of the YFC calendar was the Annual Chew Valley YFC Snowball with huge ticket sales managed by Kate. The night involved a casino, inflatable gladiator fighting, bungee runs (where a lot of the guys were hanging around as some of the ample and not so ample girls struggled to contain themselves in their gowns!).  The music was great, the chocolate fountain flowed and so did the bar, a vintage year! Thanks to Matt Curtis who did an amazing job.

Our big weekends started with Southwest Area, held in the familiar hunting ground for Chew Valley, in Weston-Super-Mare.  A lot of members attended, and two of our members competed; Mike Gibbons and Mark Lyons in the Football on Sunday morning.

 Then we moved on to Blackpool for the National AGM, where we had an awesome weekend in the Winter Gardens. As a club we were given the ‘executive’ minibus to travel in once we filled the bus with our essentials (Thatcher’s, port, & vodka) we managed to fit a few members in and off we went. Somerset had to be one of the best fancy dressed counties, and Ross Elliott really stood out as Banana-man, with the other 2000 of them! We are pretty sure Matt Lane didn’t stay in his own bed that weekend not because of his charms, but every night after returning from a “do” he was asleep on the sofa in the bar!

 We made use of the pool where if you didn’t throw yourself in quickly removing valuables someone would throw you in with everything you had on!

 Wearily we blew the dust off the tents and caravans, (Chew were the only club to travel with luxury of their caravans and Benji’s BBQ) gave the handicrafts a lick of paint and headed off to the Rally. Jo Avery did a brilliant job securing the coveted Senior Handicrafts Cup and lots of points for the club. Caz and Liam Groves took part in as many competitions as they could on a mission for extra points! Liam didn’t even worry about ruining his infamous hair do for the apple bobbing!

 Benji put Chew Valley on the map with his creation of a record-breaking lawn mower tractor, which won by several country miles in the tractor pulling! Harriet Tibbs was on great form, as she has been all year with her great stockjudging results.

Moving on further into the summer unfortunately our summer camp collided with one of the only sunny weekends so we missed going!

 A few members Mike Sweet, Jo Avery, Matt Curtis, Caz Sage and Ross Elliott volunteered at Glastonbury Festival; staying at the Festival watching the bands and sampling some of the ciders on offer was difficult but with a few shifts worked they got a donation for club funds for their efforts!

There’s always lots going on with Chew Valley Young Farmers and this year is no exception, all the officers have worked hard and we just look forward to next year…………