YOUNG FARMERS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXV, Issue 226, 23 August 1945, Page 8

YOUNG FARMERS

• REVIVAL OF CLUBS. Efforts being made to revive the Young Farmers’ Club movement throughout New Zealand, which suffered a severe depletion of membership due to war service, arc meeting with a good response and in numbers of cases the older club members have taken matters into their own hands without the aid of the Department of Agriculture and have set their organisation going again. One of the features most gratifying to those in executive positions for the whole movement is that particular attention is being paid to the younger members, and it is felt that if their interest is engendered and maintained the movement will continue strongly in future. Seventy-two clubs are now in operation in New Zealand and of these 50 have been revived in the courso of the past 12 months or so. The Feilding, Bunnythorpc and Rongotea clubs retained their entity throughout, although their activities were curtailed. Other clubs .which have recommenced are those at Oroua Downs, Pohangina Valley, Whakarongo, Kairanga, Halcombe, Rangiotu, Kimbolton, Rangiwahia and Apiti, and an entirely new club is well under way at Te Arakura. Petrol restrictions and other factors have forced those clubs to seek their own material for entertainment and study close at hand, and under this' pressure much has been found. Local farmers of repute have aided the clubs to a considerable extent, and this has been welcomed warmly as indicative of strong district support for the movement, the value of which was shown in many ways prior to the outbreak of war.