Great result from the Teen Ag Team.

On the Saturday, 2 April six boys from the St Bedes College TeenAg club competed in the Tasman regional final at the Oxford show. They competed in teams of 2: Mac Williams and Nic O’Connor, Sam Robb and Harry Robb, and Joe Anderson and Peter O’Conner.

Some of the tasks they had to complete in were; Hazard Identification, safely tie down a loaded trailer, identify the nutrient content of different dairy products and identify different classes/breeds of sheep’s wool.

After the preliminary rounds the top 5 teams moved into the final. The Year 13 team of Joe Anderson and Peter O’Connor finished the top qualifier and had to complete a furniture building challenge. They came out top in this challenge, also finished in first place and booked themselves a spot in the National TeenAg final.

The national final was held in Timaru on the Friday, 8 July and Joe and Peter competed very well finishing 6th overall after some demanding challenges.

This competition was made up of 4 sections; Written exam, Speech, Practical modules and a Farmlet challenge. In the Farmlet challenge the boys had to build a fence, swing a gate and construct a mailbox. The practical modules consisted of many different challenges including: Identification of fertilisers, crops and weeds; Showing how to prep for doing artificial insemination, riding a quad bike and reversing a trailer, weighing livestock, showing how to set up a stock truck, and a task on biofuels. For the speech the competitors had to choose between 3 options and Joe and Peter choose to talk about the benefit of farming to NZ. Lastly was the written exam and essay in which Joe and Peter wrote about the current issues in the dairy industry and the impact of farming on the environment. They showed an in depth knowledge in these topics and won the theory/exam part of the competition.

Joe and Peter have also been the leaders of the TeenAg club for 2016 and through their leadership the club is heading in a positive direction with many Yr 9 and 10 students showing great interest in being actively involved with TeenAg.

If any students are interest in joining TeenAg, see Joe Anderson or Peter O’Connor at school or see Mr McPhail in room M101 or email jmcphail@stbedes.school.nz