NEWTON Abbot Young Farmers members have had a busy few weeks learning the ropes of stock judging and having practice evenings to prepare for the upcoming club and group finals.

Over the past couple of weeks, our members have been judging and placing lambs, whilst preparing and reading out speeches as to why they placed the stock in the order that they did.

Following our lamb stock judging came our beef stock judging - although they are very different animals to judge, members can use the same skills to judge them.

On November 17, we had our club final, after many previous club practices, our members did extremely well and many even went on to compete in the group round against members from Totnes, Kingsbridge and Tavistock Young Farmers.

Since this, we have begun our group pub sports competitions. We began by playing Kingsbridge YFC at pool, coming home with a great win! We are due to play skittles against Tavistock YFC in the forthcoming weeks! Our pub sports competitions are a great opportunity to meet members from other clubs.

Despite all of our competitions, our members have been keeping up with the social side of YFC. On November 18, we joined Ivybridge YFC in Plymouth to celebrate their annual dinner and dance. Following this, on November 19, our members boarded a coach to head up to Crealy Adventure Park for the YFC Crealy Ball and after many hours of adventure zone fun, members then danced the night away!

Friday night was the Devon County Federation Annual General Meeting held at Padbrook Hotel, Cullompton. NAYFC were allocated 2 places to attend and vote on who will be our incoming County Officers this year.

And finally, on Monday, members attended the Newton Abbot Christmas Show 100th Anniversary Show at Humber Barn, Bishopsteignton.

We had members partaking in cookery, flower arranging, photography, crafts, showing and stock judging - a huge success with many coming away with lots of rosettes and trophies!