Hunter Valley Youth Workshop at Agnes Banks

Report from Lana Kuipers

Over the 7th and 8th of June, the Hunter Valley and District Lowline Promotion Group hosted a youth workshop at Agnes Banks. With about 20 kids in attendance ranging from the ages of 7-18, topics covered included show preparation, parading skills, junior judging, animal structure and basic meat primals.
Instructors included Emma and Jason Germany, Sarah Meszaros and Lana and Lucy Kuipers all of whom are youth members of the promotion group. Special guest instructors for the weekend were Luke Nurse and Graham Williams.We were fortunate enough to have the only weekend in June where it didn't pour down rain.

8:30am on the Saturday twenty eager and enthusiastic young faces were itching to get their hands dirty. We broke the kids into smaller groups and had rotational activities, washing; drying and ropes & knots. Groups and leaders were then allocated one animal, white squeeze on shoe polish and a diagram. Their mission for the next task was to label the animal they had been allocated as either skeletal structure or beef primals. Some groups were excited enough to tackle both, labeling one side of the animal with its structure, the other the primals.

Before breaking off for lunch, our young cattle enthusiasts were given their first taste of public speaking, an essential skill for Junior Judging competitions. In this activity, in either pairs or individually participants placed their hand into a bucket and pulled from its depths a random object. It was this object which they needed to give an impromptu speech for approximately one to two minutes. Every single participant gave this activity a try and they surprised all adults who served as a willing audience.

After lunch our enthusiastic group were given quick instructions on how to put everything they learnt in the morning sessions together, how to prepare an animal for the show ring. In their groups, within a specific timeframe they competed against each other to find out which group could get an animal into the ring the fastest. We discovered that our eager students had absorbed everything we could teach them, as the deciding factor in the Team Challenge was which animal had the driest belly!

Sunday morning and the same eager faces returned for a second day of learning and handling. The morning started with parading lessons. Graham was very thorough in his instruction and with the perfect bovine assistant proved that a well trained animal will allow its head to follow its handler’s fingers regardless of direction. The same bovine assistant also disproved Graham’s belief that led cattle do not turn sharply on the spot. With big grins, each participant led animals around the ring for practice before we held heats and finally our Grand Champion Parader.

Our Champion of Champion paraders class consisted of Ashleigh Kuipers, Adam Baldacchino and Angela Maranik. In her first attempt at parading, Angela Maranik was Grand Champion Parader for the June Workshop.

After lunch we moved onto Junior Judging, again some useful instruction from Graham and the kids were all set. Using a buddy system, our participants placed four young heifers in the order they thought best. Our first place winning team in Junior Judging was Aidan Green and Harrison Sarasola.
This brought an end to our workshop, and were confident that each participant had walked away with a lot more knowledge than they when they had arrived, they did however, leave with the same amount, if not more enthusiasm.

A very special thank you goes to Daryl Holder of the Cattle Shop who donated show canes, grooming combs, rope halters, soft brushes and curry combs as prizes for our participants. Another thank you also to the breeders who kindly allowed us to use their animals for this workshop, Ashleigh Kuipers of Wigram Lowlines, Shannon Lawler of Ausbred Lowlines, Sarah Meszaros of Meszline Stud, Gail Maranik of Marapark Lowlines and Lana & Lucy Kuipers of Elle Kay Stud. Thank you also to Julie Meszaros for assistance in organizing catering.