Like many organisations, The Melplash Agricultural Society AGM took place virtually using Zoom.   Hosted by the current President, Nigel Jones, and the Chairman, James Vickery.  Despite there being no annual Melplash Show in 2020, the audience was reminded of the Society’s charitable aims and what has been achieved during the last year to meet these objectives:

• 19 students aged 17 years and over and living within a 12-mile radius of Melplash village who are studying agriculture and related subjects, have received the Society’s Bursary.  A record £30,500 was awarded.  The Society will be making awards again in 2021 and applications will open on 1st April, please see our website for further information and application form.
• Discover Farming, the Society’s education programme, has created several online home learning modules for primary aged children, and to encourage young people to look at farming and agriculture as a future career option, is providing online career guidance and advice.  Further details can be found on the Discover Farming website
• A series of successful Zoom webinars were held during November and December covering such topics as Farming and Property with representatives from Greenslade Taylor Hunt and  Symonds & Sampson, and In the Garden with Charlie McCormick and guests.  More webinars are planned with the next online event being held in February and looking at Farm Diversification.  The webinars are free to attend and more details will be on our website soon.

The Chairman, James Vickery, gave special thanks to all the sponsors and members who have helped to make all of this possible by continuing to support the Society through these difficult times.  At the meeting it was confirmed that the current President, Nigel Jones, Chairman, James Vickery and Vice Chairman, Philip Hardwill would continue in their roles during 2021.

An update was given by the President about this year’s Melplash Show planned for Thursday 26 August 2021.  He said, ‘Although we, the Board of Directors, are committed to putting on an event we have, due to the uncertainty of future COVID-19 guidelines, decided to review the situation at the end of March.  It is hoped that by then we will have a better understanding of what can safely be run in August.   We are closely monitoring guidance and looking at ways that the showground can be modified to run a safe event with the aim of welcoming everyone back to our show in August’.