GCA President’s Report, By Rodney Hilley

Now that Beef Month is behind us, it’s time to move on to other activities – and there are plenty of those to pay attention to. There were a lot of Beef activities around the state during May, but I can only talk about what happened in our local Mid-Georgia Chapter. One of the activities that we had was our annual Beef Day, where we cooked and served beef hamburgers and hotdogs. We held it in a different location this year, at Pike Depot in Zebulon, but it was a big hit as usual. We ran out of food, which was free to anyone who came by, so I would say that is a good thing! Our chapter also cooked and sold hamburgers and beef hotdogs at the annual Bull Riding; once again, we sold out of food on the second day, even after purchasing more meat earlier in the day.

I guess my point is that every local chapter needs to engage in activities such as this. If you aren’t currently doing so, please consider planning such activities; they are great promotions for Beef, but they can be effective fundraisers also. I know that there were many other events held around the state, and we appreciate all of your efforts.

By the time you read this, June will already have passed, but please keep in mind the many fathers we have in our industry; they play a major part in what this industry does. If your father is still with us, I hope that you took the opportunity to visit with him and let him know how much you appreciate all that he does.

The next big event for GCA is the Cattlemen’s Connection quarterly meeting, which will be held in Bartow County on July 22. This is the first of four quarterly meetings to be held around the state in place of the Summer Conference held in the past. This should be a highly beneficial event; it will feature a tour of Gaines Cattle Company, an educational session, a GCA and GBB update, as well as some committee meetings. The next one will be on Sept. 22, in Moultrie. Please put these important events on your calendar. These meetings will rotate around the state so that all GCA members will have an opportunity to attend. The Events Committee and GCA staff, who handle all these events, are working hard to make them successful and of value to you. Look for more information on these events in the Georgia Cattleman as well as on the GCA website.

Also, it is about time to start thinking about the process of nominating people from your chapter who you think are qualified to be good members of the Executive Committee and Region Vice President. This will be a big change in the way things are done, as the process will require more work for the local chapters. This was a major change for GCA that was included in the new bylaws adopted at the convention in Savannah earlier this year. However, it is an excellent opportunity to nominate someone from your chapter who would be good for GCA. You will hear more about this in the future.

If you have any questions, concerns or ideas, please let me or one of the Board of Directors know. In the meantime, if you have neighbors or friends who are not GCA members, please ask them to join!

Until next time, pray for rain! Rodney Hilley

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Cattle Sold in 2021: 56,744