This week we’ve seen 15-year-old Cori Gauff reach the fourth round of the Wimbledon Championships with inspiring performances against former Wimbledon Champion Venus Williams and Polona Hercog. She was knocked out of the tournament by Simona Halep but her performances in the earlier rounds were enough to inspire us to encourage all our youngsters to take on a new challenge! Inspired by Cori’s performances, our very own YDP workshops are the perfect opportunity for youngsters from all breeds to come and to learn new skills and to take on new challenges – take a look at our workshop schedule to find out more!

It’s been a busy few weeks here at Pedigree House and out and about, particularly with the Great Yorkshire Show taking place. Take a look at what’s been happening in and around the Society over the last 14 days!

News Roundup

We look forward to sharing with you all the report from The Great Yorkshire Show – keep your eyes peeled on Facebook and the show and sale section of our website!

Entries are now open for the Southern Autumn Show and Sale of Pedigree and Commercial Aberdeen-Angus which will be taking place at Worcester Livestock Market on Saturday 28th September, with entries closing on 9th August 2019.

We would like to extend a big thank you to Paul, Kirsty and Ellie Westaway for hosting the Mid Counties YDP workshop on Saturday 6th July at their Melview Herd. Thanks must also go to the Walker family who kindly held the event at Easter Galcantray on Saturday 11^th May.

The Stirling Bull Sales on October 21^st is becoming a major breed event this year. As well as a top-end selection of bulls, the sale will also feature a number of herd draft sales with Cow and Calf units and heifers of tremendous quality, not forgetting the total herd sales on behalf of Ben Marsden’s Liley Aberdeen-Angus herd and Andrew Shufflebotham’s established Cheerbrook Aberdeen-Angus herd. Make sure to be there if you want to procure some of the best bred cattle in the breed from the drafts and dispersals on offer! Don’t forget to tell all your bull commercial producers that the Aberdeen-Angus females are a force to be reckoned with from a suckler beef enterprise point of view!

We’ve also recently brought you show reports from the Omagh Championships and the Southfield Show – you can keep up to date with all show and sale news on our website, along with all other news from the Society.

News and features: http://aberdeen-angus.co.uk/news/

Show and Sales news: http://aberdeen-angus.co.uk/news/show-and-sales/

News and Notices from the CEO

• A visit was made to Andrew and Sarah Shufflebotham of the Cheerbrook Herd with Raymond Kennedy to look through the herd prior to the dispersal. This revealed the full extent of Andrew’s extensive breeding programme and decisions prior to the dispersal sale in Stirling in October
• A meeting to tie up the remaining loose ends took place at CCM Auctions before the second female sale following on from last year’s successful event. We have some consignees already and on discussion with Ted and Jeremy, the interest in pedigree Aberdeen-Angus in the area will stand some more
• A huge thank you to John and Sean McEnroe and Niall for putting on the first workshop in Ireland this year for the YDP. A great day for all involved – excellent trainers, good halter led cattle facilities and most of all, willing and enthusiastic participants. This is the first YDP event I have managed to attend this year and it was a reminder of the importance of the work we do with the YDP to the breed and the industry in general. Below is some of the Juniors on a well-earned break, all brilliant characters!

• The trip to Ireland also offered the opportunity to go to the Open Day and Herd Walk at Malachy Tighe’s Tara Herd at Batterstown in Co Meath. What a farm, herd and welcome we received, and as always in the Republic, plenty of refreshments! Thank you to the Tighe Family for their efforts.

• A couple of welcome days in the office followed, catching up after the travels. The holiday season is now upon us where we become a little stretched on resources over the next 6 weeks, but please bear with us if enquiries just take a little longer to deal with
• A meeting with Denvir took place, finalising the next edition of the Cud which will be with you shortly after the August Council Meeting and also making more use of social media with a mini project to evaluate return on spend on some sponsored social media campaigns which will be kicking off in the coming weeks
• Monday saw the setting up of the stand at the Great Yorkshire Show in Harrogate and the arrival of the cattle to the lines. Tuesday arrived and came with an early start with the CEO arriving after a two-and-a-half hour journey that would normally take 45 mins, on a “just in time basis” to see the first class going out of the ring!
• Big thanks go to Alan Lawson from the Hallington Herd in the North East of England for casting his eye across the assembled exhibits, and to the exhibitors and stock attendants for showcasing their cattle and the breed as expertly as they did
• It was great to have Senior Vice President Alan Cheney at the first day to be present at the judging of the classes at the Great Yorkshire Show to meet and greet the visitors to the stand and also meet the exhibitors and offer support to them with their efforts on the day
• A steady stream of visitors arrived on to the stand on all three days where they were offered tea, coffee and cakes provided so kindly by Juliet Swiers, great job as always Juliet! A great deal of interest was shown in a strong livestock area in the breed and the brand
• A bit of a covert celebration followed the judging in the ring, where all present celebrated the 50^th (sorry, my mistake, 40^th) Birthday of Rob Bishop, and in the evening the club made use of the facilities by hosting a buffet supper for the exhibitors
• The interbreed teams were on the Wednesday in the show ring under the watchful and experienced eye of John Elliot Snr, where a huge amount of cattle went through the ring – congratulations to him for a job well done!
• Next week sees a welcome return to the office where meetings are in the diary covering everything from Zootechnic certification, to CAAB trademark moving on with progression on all matters related to the Society
• Next Sunday will see the set up for the Royal Welsh Show at Builth Wells which is our Summer National this year – we’re looking forward to showcasing the breed in an area where the national trend is not reflected in terms of numbers and market share
• An AHDB course will be taking place on meat science for the CEO with topics such as “what is meat quality” and ‘’what affects it’’, including on-farm factors, handling, transport and marketing, abattoir and processing factors, packaging, colour and microbiology

News and Notices from Laura Stewart the Office Manager

• The last couple of weeks has seen the final arrangements for the show stands at the Great Yorkshire Show, the Summer National Show at the Royal Welsh Show and the new stand for this year at the Pembrokeshire County Show
• Preparation of the Committee and Council agendas is a priority along with the usual day to day business required for the smooth running of the office
• Work continues with arrangements in place for staff training on the new phone system on Tuesday 16th July, with the roll out of the new phone system a week or two afterwards once the trial phase has taken place to ensure there are no hiccups
• Improvements have been made to the rear garden at Pedigree House with the removal of the giant conifer trees which had overgrown over a number of years
• The computer servers have been re-sited to their permanent home in the office which has completed the mail room project
• The PCS office improvements are nearing completion with the arrival of the additional furniture which should be in place within the next week
• We welcomed Jane Allen, the Breed Manager from Angus New Zealand to the office on Tuesday 9^th August and it was good to hear about here role with breed in New Zealand

News and Notices from Angela Cumming in the Finance Department

• Statements were posted out at the start of July. If you have any outstanding invoices, prompt payment would be very much appreciated.  You can pay by cheque, internet banking or credit card
• FINAL REMINDER – ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION JANUARY 2019

If you have not yet paid your annual membership, can you please do so by return as this was due on the 1st January 2019.  If we do not receive payment by the 31st July 2019, we will presume that you no longer wish to be members

News and Notices from the Registrations Department

• Can members please contact the registrations department with an updated list of animals on farm, in your ownership. We need an accurate record of live animals, registered in the Society
• There will shortly be an update in how late fees are applied, this will be automatically done by the registrations system. Please ensure all your registrations are up to date to ensure none will be applied to you. Watch our bi-weekly update for more information on this

News and Notices from the Pedigree Cattle Services Department

• Please ensure that all scanning Is up to date and sent into the office by the end of August for going forward to September and October sales. Upcoming Shows & Sales:
  • Stirling Female Sale – 9^TH of September 2019 – United Auctions
  • Carlisle Show & Sale of bulls & females – 4^th October 2019 – Harrison & Hetherington
  • Stirling Bull Sales – 20^th-22^nd October 2019 – United Auctions
  • Borderway Agri Expo – 1^st November 2019 – Harrison & Hetherington, Carlisle
  • Skipton Female Sale – 6^th November 2019 – Skipton Auction Mart
• If anyone wants to start on the performance recording please contact Barbara, Helena or Amy in the Breedplan office. This makes data available that you can use to develop your enterprise and breeding programme. It helps monitor your herd and individual animals’ performance and benchmarks against breed average, which is a very worthwhile thing to be part of

News and Notices from the YDP National Co-ordinator, Tina Russell

• The end of June saw our first workshop in Southern Ireland. Niall Lynch did a grand job organising his event at John McEnroe’s Liss herd. Here we saw strong competition between the Seniors. Attendance was an enthusiastic 13 young folk, who all got stuck in and particularly found the demonstration from Cathal McCormack very educational.  Well done and thank you to all who attended and helped
• The beginning of July saw Ruth Perry’s workshop at Melview herd, hosted by Kirsty and Paul Westaway, a small number of participants, mainly juniors who benefited from having plenty of time given by trainer Neil Lloyd, who kindly stepped in to cover for the absence of two trainers due to illness
• I supported the seconded Multi Breed event, co-hosted by other beef breed societies, at the Great Yorkshire Show. We had a great turnout of young people to stock judge a 6 ring interbreed competition on the Wednesday afternoon following parade. Thanks must go out to the handlers who brought out the 6 cattle and to master stock judge Stephen O’Kane, plus the sponsor of prizes Agrilloyd. These events are gaining momentum with young people from all breeds getting involved. We would hope to see more events are future shows and sales.
• Final preparations are being done for the next workshop on 14th July at Mr and Mrs Poads Red Devon Herd in Exmoor. Attendees are already signed up and we look forward to this final workshop for the Southern region

Shows, Sales and Events

Key upcoming events are shown below:

• Royal Welsh Show – Monday 22^nd – Thursday 25^th July 2019
• Southern Ireland (West) YDP workshop – Friday 26^th July 2019
• Southern Ireland YDP workshop, Branner Herd, Saturday 27^th July
• Scottish Borders YDP workshop – Sunday 4^th August 2019
• Mid Counties YDP workshop – Tuesday 6^th August 2019

The Review back copies

As mentioned in our news recently, we have a large bank of Review back copies that would make brilliant keepsakes or gifts! If there was a particular year that stands out to you or any friends or loved ones, get in touch and we can let you know if we have that year available for purchase.

From all at the Society, have a great weekend!