ALUMNI OFFICER’S REPORT FOR 2020 CHARLOT TE MERSON
What a year it has been since the 2019 conference! We started the year with a truly fantastic line up of shows, events, open days and study tours only to see the vast majority being cancelled. However, this provided Nuffield Farming with a valuable opportunity to build its online presence through webinars, virtual open days, Facebook live posts, virtual farm walks and an online introduction to Nuffield Farming/drop-in sessions for applicants. If we start by looking back to the start of 2020; in January the Northern and Welsh Regions ran open days for potential Nuffield Scholars, both were new ventures for Nuffield Farming and were a resounding success and something we will definitely look forwards to repeating. The potential Scholars enjoyed listening to the presentations at both events; the Northern event took place on an evening with three recent Nuffield Scholars (Neil Eastham, Caroline Mitchell and Angela Kirkwood) presenting before a question and answer session. This event was kindly sponsored by the Yorkshire Agricultural Society. The Welsh event had a different format with more guest speakers in different rooms so potential candidates could choose who to visit depending on their chosen subject. Spring and summer were set to be very busy with a number of first-time events including attending Grassland and Muck, a farm walk hosted by Ed Barnston and Charlie Steer (West Midlands) as well as all of the expected shows and tours. Unfortunately, these were unable to go ahead due to COVID 19 pandemic but hopefully these will return in 2021. This interesting year has also opened the door for Nuffield Farming to work collaboratively with other organisations; including The Farming Community Network (FCN) through Jude McCann. This collaboration led to a series of short videos, which we hope to expand on with and work more with FCN over the coming months. The impact of COVID 19 provided Nuffield farming with an opportunity to engage with a wider audience alongside building the online presence. We have been joined by a number of knowledgeable speakers including Holly Beckett, Barbara Bray, Wyn Owen, Matt Swain and of course culminating with the Nuffield Lecture by Professor Andrew Fearne. The webinar series took a small break during August before commencing in the Autumn.
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