WALES REGION

Regional Contact member – Alison Ross

Firstly, I must introduce myself as your new Regional Contact Member for Wales. Please feel free to contact me anytime.

Welcome to our new members, Mr. Glynn Evans, Mrs. Anne-Marie Coffey and Robert Williams, Mr. John Martin and Miss Julie Gough, Mr. Nick Wileman and also Mrs. Denise Doney.

James Leonard’s champion ram at the Royal Welsh Smallholder Show

Gwenllian Evan’s reserve champion ewe at the Royal Welsh Smallholders Show

I would like to thank Siwan Harries who generously stood in as RCM for the AGM year hosted in Wales. I think we can all agree that the event was a huge success; we saw wonderful sheep from some of the leading flocks in Wales, had a chance to catch up with friends (and make new ones) and who knew we could have such fun from a wooden sheep and a piece of string. A big thank you to Lyndon Trumper for agreeing to auctioneer for us.

Every event we hold relies on a team of willing helpers and I feel very lucky to know I have a great bunch of kind and knowledgeable folk to steer me along in my new role.

The showing year in Wales commenced with the Royal Welsh Smallholding and Countryside Festival. A special mention and grateful thanks to our relatively new member who gamely stepped up and took on the Jacob sheep promotion stand (and imagine our horror when we discovered we had been given a stand twice the size we had requested!) but thank you Joanne Roberts and family for your hard work.

The Spring Show is a small friendly show and a good start for those of us new to showing or to give young stock show experience. Congratulations to James Leonard for winning the Jacob championship with his smart shearling ram and to Gwenllian Evans taking reserve championship with her aged ewe. After many successes in young handlers’ competitions, Gwenllian has qualified for the RBST Young Shepherd of the Year final at the English Winter Fair, well done, Gwenllian.

For more shows and results, please follow us on Facebook and I will try and make up a full list of results for inclusion in the winter Journal.

We are blessed with a strong contingent of young handlers competing in local shows. At the time of writing this report I am compiling a score chart for the coming year please message me if you would like one.

The AGM this spring feels like a distant memory and now we enter another year in the breeding calendar. Some of our members will have put the ram in with their ewes and others of us will be holding back to lamb in kinder weather next spring.

The Wales region show and sale will be held on the 21^st September at Monmouth Livestock Centre with grateful thanks to Lyndon and Straker Chadwick.

There will be a flock competition in early October, I would like to encourage our new members to enter this as it is a chance to have your sheep assessed by our own JSS judges, they will give you encouragement and advice. I have found this a huge benefit to improving my flock and have enjoyed their visits as no preparation of the flock is required!

We will have a Christmas meal in early December.

Ewes at the Greenmeadow Community Farm flock in Powys