Thornton Young Farmers

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 12, 13 January 1948, Page 5

Thornton Young Farmers

Leadership Training Plan To Be instituted In opening the monthly meeting of the Thornton Young Farmers’ Club held at Thornton on January 5, the chairman, Mr N. Law, thanked all those who had given various commodities for the Christmas hamper which was recently collected to raise funds for the club’s annual quota to ‘the National Memorial Fund.

The treasurer’s report showed a credit balance of £l7 2s 4d for the month. This was, however, after the total amount for the two years’ National Memorial Fund quota had been paid. The main item of correspondence was a letter from the Auckland Council. This letter asked for a report on various suggestions to be given to the District Committee meeting to be held on January 7 at Edgecumbe, including a Stock Judging Competition to be held in either March or April, and a proposal for a Y.F.C. Leadership Week. As difficulty would probably be encountered in obtaining the necessary holidays, the latter was declined. Mr Marryatt, who was present at the meeting, suggested arranging a similar type of meeting somewhere central for the clubs of the Bay of Plenty district to attend. The idea of the meeting was to give officers and members of the various clubs, together with any farmers who liked to attend, a more advanced knowledge, conduct of meetings and book-keeping etc., which up until now was usually acquired by one’s own initiative. In short, tne whole idea was to give a teaming where beforehand club officials were plodding along as best they knew how. It was therefore decided to leave Mr Marryatt to invite various prominent citizens to speak at a lecture for not more than 15 minutes each on various subjects pertaining to those items, the- meeting to be held at some not too distant date to be arranged later. It was proposed to run the debating competitions on a tournament basis rather than on a “knockout” basis as they were now being run. This would not be easy as there are eight clubs involved and the distance between furthermost clubs being in the vicinity of 20 miles, would make further inconvenience. Mr Marryatt proposed and Mr J. Jones seconded that “The competition be run on a tournament basis between two groups of four clubs and that the two winners would meet to determine the final winner. Mr A. Martin proposed and Mr T. Shaw seconded that “The competitions be left as they were and run on a “knock-out basis.” The matter was then left for the delegates to bring up at the District Committee meeting." Delegates selected to attend the District Committee meeting were Messrs M. Law, Mr A. H. Adams and T. Shaw.

For the next monthly meeting Mr Barwell was invited to give the club a lecture, subject to his being available and it was also decided to invite Mr lan Gow to give a lecture on the Art of Debating as the competitions would be coming very shortly. It was decided to hold a field day of stock judging to select a team to represent the club in the coming inter-club competitions, it was left to the officers to elect an official judge and arrange the day and place.