Young Farmers meet
Young Farmers Meet
The Young Farmers Committee met at 7 pm on Thursday, July 20th with the following members present: Corey Brandau, Jarrad Mulderink, Adam Maves, Kyle Johnston, Ryan Nugent, Scott Brummel, Dist. 5 Representative, Kevin Ardaugh, Kandice Kestel, Courtney Sowa, Austin Brown and Mark Schneidewind, Farm Bureau manager.
Corey started with pedal pull events with Kandice and Courtney reporting on the Family Fun Night pull. They added to their workers for the Threshermen’s show this weekend and developed work schedules for the Will County Fair, Symerton HomeComing and the Chasing Cans for Cancer pedal pulls and will do a work schedule for the Christmas in the Village of Peotone pedal pull at their November meeting. They have secured prizes for all of the pedal pulls but will need to get some for the December pull.
Focus on Youth program is done and the committee is providing 4 awards this year. The news releases are in the Farmers Weekly Review (all of July and one per week) and are in Directions Electronic Newsletter. Corey asked Kyle to read the thank you from one of the winners, Dale Hauser and the group really appreciated the note. They will work with CD and Me on an event after the first of the year for the committee. The Young Farmers Committee will cook and serve pork chops for the PrimeTimers picnic on Wednesday, August 2nd and they developed a work schedule. The committee will have a huge loss of committee members this year as going off in November will be Ryan and Lauren Nugent, Luke Baskerville and Corey and Amy Brandau. A retirement event is planned for September before harvest begins and the details were discussed. Plans were finalized as they would like to have the last 15 years of young farmers invited as Ryan was on the committee for 17 years.
They then spent 30 minutes on finalizing the golf outing set for Friday, July 28th at Green Garden Country Club. Ryan reported they are sitting at 33 full foursomes and a half of a foursome. We have at least 3-hole sponsors per hole and we will order the signs for the golf course On July 21st. They reviewed the 4 live auction items and decided to maybe add one more the day of golf tourney. The raffles look good and 2 more Chinese raffle items were added tonight. Set up is 9 am so please arrive by then so we can get signs up and banners up. Luke is hauling the wheel game for Mark. Ryan finalized the prizes for the cannon game and we still have 9 golfers yet to pay but will have 134 golfers with 25 volunteers working. 12 people are just joining us for dinner so close to 170 total people to support ag education. They reviewed beverage holes and beverage carts, hole in one holes which there are four – one for $40,000 towards purchase of a vehicle from Dralle, 4 other games with only 1 being an additional pay game. We will have 17 Chinese raffle items, 4-5 live auction items and 2 straight raffles. They will deliver golf hole signs and the hole in one signs Thursday, July 27th to the golf course and they will have 8 to 9 carts for the workers set aside. They will still need to stuff items after tonight into the bags which is the program with prize holes and activities and lunch halfway tickets.
Austin reported on the Ag Olympics held July 8th and all went well. They have the animals secured for the fair and will set up after 5 pm on August 22nd with animals but some will help at 10 am with the tent set up. They developed a work schedule but need more help for Sunday. Corey said get your tickets for SWCD awards program on August 4th. The cost is $25 per person but great food and great time. The deadline is next week. The legislator barn meetings are set for July 25th at Kestel Farm with 5 legislators attending and August 3rd at Warrick Farm with currently 3 legislators attending. All start at 6 pm with a meal and then program to follow at 6:30 pm.
The Young Farmers trap shoot is set for August 12th and it starts at 4 pm. Scott said he will see if they can bring over a carload. Harvest Dinner is September 8th at the Kevin and Molly Gorman Farm invites out to teachers and health professionals will be sent as a reminder in 2 more weeks. The County of Will has a used tire collection also for farm tires set for Saturday, September 16th at the Will County Fair grounds from 8 am to 3 pm with a limit of 100 tires per address. Corey reminded the group we need to get straw and hay for animals and feed. The next meeting was set for November 20th at 7 pm at Austin’s Machine Shed and Austin has refreshment duty. At the November meeting, it will be the election of officers for the 2024 fiscal year and Corey, Ryan, and Luke’s last meeting.