Ag Skills Day

Gilgandra High joined the usual suspects of Coona High, Baradine, Binnaway and St Lawrence’s Central Schools at our Ag Skills Day held on Thursday 2nd July.  The idea of the day is to introduce students to, and promote awareness and practise some of the diverse range of skills in the agriculture industry.  Ag students from participating schools rotate through nine of the twenty seven different interactive workshop sessions on offer.

The diversity and standard of skills and knowledge this year was noteworthy, especially as nearly all presenters live in, or are directly associated with, our district. 

Students this year, took the next step in AI to have the opportunity to work with live animals, can now use GPS to sow a crop thanks to Sam Clifton, they can keep animals out of the crop with the fencing training they received from Max Harris and Barry his off-sider, and can control any plant and animal pests under John Ward’s guidance.  Students were involved in some of our important, regular workshops of first aid (thankyou to Pieter Bouwsema and Deb Korff for fitting us in amongst night duty), fire safety with Andrew Young and Joan Redfern, firearm safety with Kevin Barrington and Bruce Breckinridge, welding with Richard Fleming and Greg Larkin from TAFE, ropemaking with Ed Ford, knot tying with Kerry Birrell, horse handling with Mick Cox and grafting with Gianni Standing.  Shane Fitzpatrick, David Partridge and Sam Williams generously taught motorbike safety.  Richard Cole, who donated Vicki "The Best Sow in the World" to our school, shared some of his vast pig knowledge with students.  Mark Tully of rare poultry and pig fame came back this year with more poultry and some incredibly large, Large Black sows.  He also showed ducks brought in by Matt Frith, and some rare bantams which Jim Peters lent us for the day.  We thank them for their generosity.  All Marty Wilkin’s students have become expert pipe fitters.  Clinton Baglee taught them all to maintain their motorbikes.  Chris Korff shared his experience with steer assessment.  Meg Leathart and Brenda Grant had every student totally engaged in their session on biodiversity, and Greg Jerry was a welcome addition to our presenters with his enthralling workshop on shearing and woolclassing.  Lee Paterson and his twelve year old daughter, Shania, have remarkable sheepdog training skills and remarkable dogs.  We were lucky once again this year to have ABC Radio journalists running a workshop for our students.  We can now put faces to the voices of Aimee Volkofsky and Justin Huntsdale, and will know what Georgia looks like when she ends up with her own show.  They did a great job teaching interviewing and editing skills so students could complete an interview in their workshop time.  Shannon McConnaughty and Liz Barker combined so students could experience the thrill of leading large animals in show conditions.

Including Liz, we had five ex-students of the school presenting workshops this year.  Nicola Brookhouse brought aquaculture to the Day for the first time this year.  Dan Korff combined with Tony Elton to present sheep AI.  Jacki Barker involved students in worm egg counts in sheep, and Craig Young helped students identify internal parasites.  Their passion for, and belief in, agriculture make them wonderful models for present students to follow.

Thankyou to everyone involved in the day, through the donation of equipment or animals, and especially through the donation of time and expertise.  Thankyou also to everyone who stayed late and came very early on Thursday morning to help set up.  Dan Korff and present students gave generously of their time to help us prepare for the day. Our Ag Skills Day is invaluable to the learning of agriculture in schools.  The presenters are an inspiration to the people involved.

This year is possibly the last year St Lawrence’s will participate in this experience.  We would like to thank all the St Lawrence’s students for their involvement over the last four years.  They have always contributed to the success of the day.  Mark Heaney and Sue McGoldrick have been great supporters by presenting workshops and by their own attitude to the experiences available to the students.  We wish them all the best, and will miss the significant contributions made by St Lawrence’s.