The association put together a programme of five workshops for members and delegates from sister organisations Macra na Fierme, the Scottish Association of Young Farmers' Clubs, the National Federation of Young Farmers' Clubs and Wales Young Farmers' Clubs who attended the most popular event in the YFCU calendar.
The delegates joined in with the YFCU members and rotated in groups around five workshops delivered by the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, The Youth Justice Agency, ArtsEkta, the Millennium Volunteers and learned some basic Finger Spelling from Jane McCombe (City of Derry YFC).
Before embarking on their workshops members picked up a few tips on self defence from David Oliver and Bill Mallett from Faloozarus Personal Safety Training.
The two gentlemen showed members how to help defend themselves safely in times that they may be at risk through a series of demonstrations and group exercises. All those who took part were energised and ready to take part in the workshop programme at the end of the demonstration.
After this, members visited the Youth Justice Agency, where Bernadette McDowell and Aideen McLaughlin. The Youth Justice Agency workshop consisted of a simulated Youth Conference with the help of some willing volunteers.
A Youth Conference is a meeting between the victim of youth crime and the young offender to explore in full the impact of the crime and ensure that effective reparation is made for the harm caused. Members acting out the various roles involved in a Youth Conference, got to experience at first hand how it might feel both for a young person who has committed a crime and the victim of that crime to come face-to-face.
Then members learnt about funding available to them through the existing Northern Ireland Rural Development Programme from Gareth Evans from the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development. Gareth outlined what opportunities there are available to Young Farmers in Northern Ireland through improving the environment, country side management and business creation and how best to go about applying for this.
Members then went to visit the workshop taken by community-based project ArtsEkta and listened to information presented by Nisha Tandon on Indian culture.
The participants had to guess what items of fruit came from India and learned how to put on a traditional Indian sari. Members got to sample some exotic fruits at the end of the morning.
After this members were given an introduction to basic Finger Spelling by Jane McCombe from the City of Derry YFC. Jane showed members how to spell their name, give basic greetings and other phrases in Finger Spelling. She gave members information on how Finger Spelling was developed and how sentences are formed using this medium.
Finally attendees learned about the benefits of taking part in the Millennium Volunteer programme from YFCU Executive Officer Alexey Janes. The members also learned about a new Millennium Volunteers post that is available within the YFCU and what it will mean for clubs.
Kerri Galbraith, Personnel Manager at the TESCO store in Newcastle visited the morning programme and was very impressed with the content of each workshop.
The YFCU would like to thank Aideen McLaughlin and Bernadette McDowell from the Youth Justice Agency, Gareth Evans from the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, Nisha Tandon from Artsekta, YFCU Executive Officer Alexey Janes and Jane McCombe (City of Derry YFC) for providing workshops for its members. The association would also like to thank TESCO for sponsoring the event.