ALUMNI OFFICER’S REPORT FOR 2021 CHARLOT TE MERSON
It has been a busy year for Nuffield Farming and myself; my husband and I welcomed our daughter Elizabeth Rose in April and have thoroughly enjoyed adjusting to life as parents. Thank you for the kind wishes and for bearing with me during a few months of reduced working hours. With COVID continuing to restrict in-person events, virtual events have become the norm. These have continued to surpass expectations in terms of attendees and postevent views and engagement. These have enabled Nuffield Farming to connect to a far greater audience and reconnect with Alumni who have been unable to attend ‘in person’ in the past.
Following the conference series, we held the Nuffield Farming AGM and Public AGM. This was the first time the event has been open to members of the public; it was thoroughly well received.
Over the past year we have run the following events remotely: •
Mini conference series
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Nuffield Farming open evening
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Farm Walks
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Group events
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Application drop-in sessions
The mini conference series ran throughout October and November with 2019 Scholars presenting in groups of 4 or 5 with Q&A opportunities at the end of each presentation. I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate these Scholars on their exceptional presentations and express my thanks to them for their flexibility and commitment to rehearsals and understanding new technology ahead of the conference series. The series was very popular and really opened Nuffield Farming to a wider and more diverse audience with over 1,100 registering, the recordings were made available on YouTube and on Nuffield Farming’s social media and have received thousands of views.
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January was a busy start to the year; we hosted a virtual open evening for potential Scholars. This was very popular with 45 joining us on the night- reassuringly, most of whom went on to submit an application. Sarah Pick was the guest speaker and gave us a fabulous over-view of her Nuffield Farming experiences with a particular focus on the GFP. Thank you, Sarah for your inspiring words and answering all questions so openly and honestly. Nuffield Farming was generously awarded a grant from Garfield Weston which enabled us to work with the Farming Community Network (FCN) and Focussed Farmers (FF). We delivered a programme of support for Nuffield Scholars and the wider farming community encompassing both business resilience advice and a support system to aid mental wellbeing. With COVID having such an impact over both 2020 and 2021 both of these topics were welcomed by participants.
