How a Young Farmers Club in Yorkshire is changing with the times to attract new members

Back then the more likely Young Farmers discussions would have been about calves, heavy horses, stooks and the oat crop, which was the largest crop in the UK at the time – and young farmers clubs were also vastly different in attire.

Today the Young Farmers Clubs movement has changed with the times. No longer are YFCs the domain of purely those from a farming family and there is much more colour with club sweatshirts and county rally competitions include far more than purely countryside pursuits.

Lucy Dale of Bank House Farm, Saltmarshe is the newly elected chair of Howden YFC which will celebrate its 85th anniversary with a celebratory night at the Doubletree Hilton in Hull next Saturday 29 October and said the club will be looking to enjoy the evening with fellow YFC club members from other clubs in the East Riding Federation of Young Farmers Clubs as well as past members and those who are on the club’s advisory committee..

Lucy said Howden YFC is very much still part of the community in the market town.

“Our Young Farmers Club is really important to the young people of Howden and its surrounding area as it is quite rural. A lot of young people need somewhere to go that can be a bit of a distraction from such as GCSE work during the rest of the week and just need a night doing something different.

“It’s a social thing and is far better than being sat in a room at home on your own especially with social media having such an influence. It’s something that gets people out and at the same time educates.

“I’ve always been passionate about Young Farmers and farming in general, trying to improve the movement’s name and reputation. I didn’t really get interaction with younger people like me who had a countryside background when I was younger because I was at school in York. That’s why I enjoy it so much. It’s a different group of friends that are more like me than my old school group of friends.

Lucy said the club has its eyes firmly fixed on recruitment this year, with last week’s AGM signalling the start of the 2022-23 season of meetings and activities.

“At the moment we are probably one of the medium-sized clubs across the county of East Riding Federation and this next year our main focus is going to be on getting new members involved. We are planning a big push as we’ve had quite a few older ones leave to go to university or Australia in the past few years.

“It’s a half and half mix of those from farming backgrounds and those not. There are more people that have joined YFCs that aren’t farmer’s daughters or sons. When I first started there weren’t many that didn’t have anything to do with farming. Now more friends without anything to do with farming come, that’s probably the main change.

“We want to appeal to everyone. Anyone from any background that is interested in meeting local people. We do a range of meetings. Some are to do with farming, tours around farm machinery companies, different kinds of farms but we also go to Xscape or bowling or Laser Quest, and we have talks from different charities. Each year we choose a charity to raise funds for.

“We have a new members night planned on Wednesday 9 November at our regular meeting place – The Wellington Hotel in Howden at 7.30pm. We would all really love to see lots of new faces.

One of the more novel farming-related events was Howden’s first Dyno Day as Lucy explained.

“We did it instead of a tractor run. A dyno is something you attach to your tractor while it is not moving and it tells you how much horsepower your tractor is actually giving, how powerful it is. People in agriculture always want to know who has the most powerful tractor. We are told when buying a new tractor it has this much horsepower, but does it really? It was last year’s chair Mark cooling who came up with it and we had 30 tractors come, it made a fun social gathering and we raised funds for the Young Mind mental health charity.

Lucy said that while this was one example of something farm-related that the club is always shaped by the members and what the new members want to do as much as the existing members.

“Our current membership is largely in the 14-24 years old age group, but we really want to welcome anyone who is in the YFC age group of 10-28 years old. I’m from a working family farm and my three older siblings have all been Howden YFC members. I started when I was 14 years old.

“It’s a great time to join the club at the start of the year. We are currently planning the programme for up until Christmas and the new members night is when we would really like to see people come and join us. It will be all about fun, games and icebreakers to encourage everyone to get to know each other. We just want everybody to look forward to really good meetings that they want to come to.

Lucy is appealing for anyone who has any past photographs of Howden members to get in touch too.