Shropshire Star

Newcomers Fred and I have got the county covered

My name is Clarrie Hocknell and I have just taken over from Rebecca Green as the Shropshire Young Farmers' county chairlady.

Published
Clarrie Hocknell, chairman of Shropshire Federation of Young Farmers Clubs

Earlier this month Shropshire Young Farmers held our annual meeting at Shrewsbury Town's football ground. It was a massive success with a handover of office from Rebecca to myself and an exciting vote for the vice county chairman, Fred Allen.

Fred is a member of Cleobury Mortimer YFC and, as my home club is Whitchurch YFC, between us both we will be able to cover the county effectively. Luckily Fred is used to driving as his job through working for Genus Breeding.

At the annual meeting, we also heard reports from county committees over the past year's events and celebrated all national finalists of Shropshire members. Now though my role really starts and the hard work begins!

Part of my role will be to manage a team of two office staff, lead 18 different clubs consisting of chairs, secretaries and treasurers, people who are on a variety of different committees, including a social committee, rally committee, chairman’s ball committee, personal development committee and several others. Not forgetting that I am accountable to our Shropshire YFC President and last, but by no means least, I’m responsible for all 900-plus members of Shropshire Young Farmers, of which I hope the number will increase due to a push on membership this year.

When you add it up it is a daunting number of people to manage and lead and because of it my poor little car rarely has a night in!

The year ahead is very exciting with many big Young Farmer ideas planned, from a chairman’s trip to do a tour to Peru including the Inca Trail to a chairman’s charity challenge - one year, 12 challenges, will we do them all? The first challenge is with my home club, Whitchurch YFC and we will be swimming Alderford Lake on Sunday, November 26.

Outside of YFC I work at home on our family dairy farm and I am a student at Harper Adams University. On the farm we are growing our dairy herd and looking at innovative technological advances to move our farm into the next generation. Of course, I am keeping up with my university studies and always thinking of how farming can be improved for the future.

I am very much looking forward to my year ahead as Shropshire Young Farmers' county chairlady. It is going to be an exciting year and one I definitely will not forget!

Clarrie Hocknell chairs Shropshire Young Farmers