The National Federation of Young Farmers’ Clubs (NFYFC) hopes its two new training awards will help boost the level of training being delivered to rural young people.
The County Training Awards and the Top Trainers Award will celebrate the high-quality training that is being delivered to young farmers and promote the opportunities for skills development available to them from NFYFC.
The County Training Awards recognise NFYFC’s 46 county federations who are delivering training at a bronze, silver or gold standard following a self-assessment that is verified by NFYFC.
Gold awards are given to YFC county federations that can prove they are delivering higher levels of training using internal and external trainers as well as regularly planning and reviewing their training requirements.
It is hoped that the awards will inspire more YFC counties to raise their training standards by aiming for gold status.
Individual trainer awards
As well as recognising county federations, NFYFC will also be praising individual trainers through its new Top Trainers Award.
This award has been set up to reward individuals who have demonstrated exceptional skills in training others throughout the membership year.
Nominations for this award are now open and a panel from NFYFC will choose a winner, who will be announced at the Annual General Meeting in 2019.
NFYFC has developed its own peer training programme called The Curve, which encourages clubs to deliver training during club sessions using certified trainers – these are often YFC members who have been on an NFYFC Train the Trainer course.
More than 2,500 given training so far
There are currently 19 Curve modules, which are aimed at supporting clubs to run more efficiently and safely as well as helping to develop young rural people’s skills.
NFYFC has already exceeded its 2017-18 membership year training target for at least 2,500 members to attend a Curve training session.
The most popular Curve module this year is the Farm Safety training. So far more than 100 clubs have delivered this essential course during a club session, equipping more than 1,600 members with potentially life-saving skills for when they are on the farm.
Charlotte Smith, NFYFC’s president and presenter on Farming Today, said: “Not a lot of people realise the amount of training and skills development work that Young Farmers’ Clubs are delivering on a weekly basis.
“These awards will go some way to recognising the hard work that YFC county federations and individual trainers put into developing rural young people’s skills and the positive impact they are having on the wider industry.”
