Farmers Weekly Review

The Will County Young Farmers committee met at 7 pm on Wednesday, November 20th with the following members present: Austin Brown, Courtney Sowa, RJ Nugent, Kyle Johnston, Jarrad Mulderink, Emma Millard, Kevin Ardaugh, Joe Davis and Mark Schneidewind. Farm Bureau manager. Jarrad introduced Emma to everyone, and she was interested in joining the group.
RJ reported on the last pedal pull which is set for Saturday, December 14th with registration at 11 am and the pull at noon at Dralle’s in Peotone in the back machine shed. It will be held in connection with the “Peotone in the Village” event. We will have 4 FFA students helping and the developed a work schedule for the event with RJ saying this is the same day as wreaths placement at the veteran’s cemetery so we should arrive at Dralle’s at about 10:15 am. They discussed the pedal pulls for 2025 and will do the following: Family Fun Night, Will County Fair, Symerton Homecoming, the Will County Threshermen’s Show and Chasing Cans for Cancer.
They agreed to provide the Focus on Youth award again in 2025. They are still working on the Christmas party and they threw out a couple of dates to try to work with. They will cook for the PrimeTimers picnic. There will not be a retirement party this year as tere is no one turning 35 this year from the committee.
The group then spent 25 minutes reviewing the 2025 golf outing and prices will be kept the same for 2025. They selected a new menu for 2025 and made some early assignments. They will be on the gold course and we will provide 3 beverage holes and they will keep all the games again for the outing. For the food sponsor, Mark indicated it would not hurt to go to $400 and this will be considered. Jarrad asked about the goodies bags and Mark will investigate these for this outing. They already have golf balls and long drive & closest to the pin prizes in place. They will check with Dralles for the hole in one vehicle and need to work on several raffle items. Banners will be handled the same way, and they will start with some social media blasts in late February to hold the date using some pictures from last year’s outing.
The group discussed the discussion meet and young leaders conference. Currently the conference hit a date which is a conflict for many, but the discussion meet was being considered by Emma and Kandice. Ag Olympics is on the planning docket and will be talked about more in January. Mark said they would be able to meet the new manager at this meeting as the board hired Jackson Hogan. They will provide the animals for the fair again in 2025 and Emma has contacts with the sheep, Dakota with the calf and Kandice with the hogs, Jim Price with the goats and the office will take care of the baby chicks.
The next item was the election of officers for the 2025 fiscal year as RJ and Kevin were stepping down from the committee as they are now 35 years old and retired from the committee. The election went as follows:
Austin Brown, Chairman
Jarrad Mulderink, Vice Chairman
Kyle Johnston, Secretary\Treasurer
The group thanked RJ and Kevin for their years of service and set their next meeting for January 16th at 7 pm at Austin’s machine shed. The meeting was adjourned at 8 pm.