2007 REPORT
by Penny Lally

2007 has been a peculiar year both for all farmers and personally, with extreme weather conditions, Foot and Mouth and for me the loss of my husband, it is a year I shall not be sorry to see the back of.

Our AGM was held in November at the “Inn for all Seasons”. After the usual business we had the prize giving for our Herd Competition. The Judge, Mr. Hugh Lello awarded the prizes and said a few words on how much he had enjoyed the experience and visiting all the different members.

In February, Viv and Geoff Hall hosted an Open Day at Chegwidden Farm where Roger Pascoe, helped by David Nicholas, gave a demo on preparing animals for Shows. This proved interesting and helpful to the newer members who are keen to start showing. After a walk around their cattle we were treated by Viv and Geoff to a ‘feast of food’! A good day was had by all.

In March we had another skittle match against the South Devon Club. This sadly was my husband’s last outing before he died in April. He always organised the teams enthusiastically and enjoyed the evening, it will never be the same again.

In May the Devon County Show numbers were swelled by Viv Hall with a team of six with which she had great success and my bull Radium was Breed Champion.

Good show of heifers, Royal Cornwall Show

In June, the sun shone down with all its might in the first week, which happily coincided with the Royal Cornwall Show, many who were there thought they should have been making hay, and they were right as, after the show, the rains came and the summer went!!!

Record numbers of people flocked to the Show and we had a very good show of Simmentals, which was a relief as numbers had been getting low. Ivy Hair returned to the show circuit after a break and enjoyed success. He had persuaded the Hawkeys that showing was fun and this proved the case as they also had a successful show.

Jimmy Macmillan learned some Cornish and led one or two astray! but was a welcome visitor representing the Sterling herd and taking top honours judged by Ron Hodgkinson.

Gethin Lloyd and family thought that the Royal Cornwall was worth a second visit and I think they, and all the competitors enjoyed the friendly atmosphere of the Show.

Our stand again, was manned by Heather who, this year, even managed to cook a few breakfasts for the competitors (sponsored by Roger Pascoe & David Nicholas – the dynamic duo!). This was a great success even though facilities for cooking were a bit basic and rather ‘Heath Robinson’. However, I think it was much appreciated by those who ate it.

Again many thanks to Charlie Harris for looking after and delivering all our bits and pieces to the stand and also a huge thank you to Anthony Hart who was such a help to me and always there to lend a hand with anything that was required. Let’s hope he will have his own cattle there showing in 2008 along with some other keen newcomers.

In September we were due to have a farm walk at the Hawkeys of St. Wenn which had already been postponed because of Foot and Mouth, both this and our Herd Competition have been affected by the restrictions so we just have to wait for ‘things’ to get back to normal.

As last year we organised a trip to Scotland. We were to visit Strathisla, Woodhall, Innerwick and Mendick herds. We were all booked up with flights etc when the 2nd restrictions took affect, most of us decided to go anyway.

In conclusion, I would like to sincerely thank all my many Simmental friends for their kindness, sympathy and support which has been a great comfort in this difficult year.

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