Are Ploughing Matches Under Threat?

Roy Stokes · Apr 2, 2018

Howard150 said:
Not all Societies expect the winner to pay.

By the same token not many winners expect the Society to pay.

Regardless of who actually owns the history of any trophy, there is no finer accolade than having your name engraved amongst some of the best ploughmen who ever lived. It is there for posterity.

Worth the cost of a couple of pints any day of the week, plough your heart out only to leave the trophy because you are too tight to have it engraved, I've just about heard it all, it's surprising the amount of competitors who look at cups etc on the trophy table to see who has won them in the past, hopefully when I'm fertilising Tong Norton Farm, ( being burnt and having ashes applied by GPS to my farmed area

) the silverware or chrome plated with my name on it will live on !

Roy Stokes · Apr 2, 2018

Ley253 said:
blast from the past that is. When I started there were no matches for vintage, just working events, and I used to drive the tractor with the plough on a trailer behind. Then local matches gave in, and put classes in for us. here is the early kit, plough was one of five I was given I also had a four furrow cockshut. Tractor is International W4 GKX 626 if anyone knows where it is now.View attachment 654130 View attachment 654130

No offence intended Harry but you were either concentrating hard or you were a miserable bugger back then too

Ley253 · Apr 2, 2018

Roy Stokes said:
Worth the cost of a couple of pints any day of the week, plough your heart out only to leave the trophy because you are too tight to have it engraved, I've just about heard it all, it's surprising the amount of competitors who look at cups etc on the trophy table to see who has won them in the past, hopefully when I'm fertilising Tong Norton Farm, ( being burnt and having ashes applied by GPS to my farmed area ) the silverware or chrome plated with my name on it will live on !

Well, perhaps your right, though I have never seen that many reading the names, and of those that do, it is just a list of names.I suppose its a sort of antique facebook! I just dont believe the world cares who won or lost, the organising society may do, and if they do, they pick up the tab.
On a more serious note, I live alone and I dont want trophies lying about if a stranger comes in to clear the flat,
and at my age, that could happen at any time.

Roy Stokes said:
No offence intended Harry but you were either concentrating hard or you were a miserable bugger back then too

Probably the latter, showing emotion was frowned upon in my family!

fenhayman · Apr 3, 2018

Perhaps a bit more publicity as to location and time of events would lead to more interested spectators and maybe, in time, competitors.
Some printed information as to what, and where on the field, the classes are. Bit of information about the event, history etc.
Sometimes I get the feeling that as a spectator I'm not that welcome.
It's all a bit clubby.

Ley253 · Apr 3, 2018

fenhayman said:
Perhaps a bit more publicity as to location and time of events would lead to more interested spectators and maybe, in time, competitors.
Some printed information as to what, and where on the field, the classes are. Bit of information about the event, history etc.
Sometimes I get the feeling that as a spectator I'm not that welcome.
It's all a bit clubby.

Information boards at the carpark to field gate would go a long way, better still where the work style changes.

Sprayer · Apr 3, 2018

Ley253 said:
Information boards at the carpark to field gate would go a long way, better still where the work style changes.

all these ideas are wonderful we just need more volunteers to provide the materials, make the signs and put them up and then stay behind after the match or on the following day and collect all the plot number pegs and sort them into order, find the pegs that are missing, remove the secretaries tent/ trailer, collect the road direction signs, clear the site and pick any litter. Usually ends up with the usual two or three who spent hours sorting entries, erecting road signs, pegging out etc. prior to the match. Do you help at many matches Harry??.

Cordiale · Apr 3, 2018

Actually having read the above post. I would like to offer my heart felt thanks to all the people who organise our ploughing matches. With out their hard work, we would not have our enjoyment.

It is only when you stop and think about it, that you realise just how much work is involved.

12 bore · Apr 3, 2018

Cordiale said:
Actually having read the above post. I would like to offer my heart felt thanks to all the people who organise our ploughing matches. With out their hard work, we would not have our enjoyment.

It is only when you stop and think about it, that you realise just how much work is involved.

Agreed it is much appreciated

Ley253 · Apr 3, 2018

Sprayer said:
all these ideas are wonderful we just need more volunteers to provide the materials, make the signs and put them up and then stay behind after the match or on the following day and collect all the plot number pegs and sort them into order, find the pegs that are missing, remove the secretaries tent/ trailer, collect the road direction signs, clear the site and pick any litter. Usually ends up with the usual two or three who spent hours sorting entries, erecting road signs, pegging out etc. prior to the match. Do you help at many matches Harry??.

No. none local enough, and am always ploughing! But info signs should not mean any more work, other than making them in the winter.You often find class marker signs, so an info board could be combined with that, and in fact should be.Another could be positioned at the pay point. To protect plot numbers, make it a rule No number=no points, you wont find many missing then! If plot numbers were painted different colours for one end, one could be used as the lunch voucher, that would make them "self collecting" and still leave a set at one end for the judges use.Some sort of plug board at the food tent could be used to park the returned plot markers in, cutting down the sequencing effort, similar thing on a trailer could be used for the collection of the remaining markers, they could stay in these till needed next year.

Kenham · Apr 3, 2018

Ah yes but when the judges are driving around in the discovery at the far end deciding who has won with the "overall appearance" they won't know who to give it to if there is no number. Thinking about it perhaps it will not make any difference.

Sprayer · Apr 3, 2018

Ley253 said:
No. none local enough, and am always ploughing! But info signs should not mean any more work, other than making them in the winter.You often find class marker signs, so an info board could be combined with that, and in fact should be.Another could be positioned at the pay point. To protect plot numbers, make it a rule No number=no points, you wont find many missing then! If plot numbers were painted different colours for one end, one could be used as the lunch voucher, that would make them "self collecting" and still leave a set at one end for the judges use.Some sort of plug board at the food tent could be used to park the returned plot markers in, cutting down the sequencing effort, similar thing on a trailer could be used for the collection of the remaining markers, they could stay in these till needed next year.

Perhaps you could make some up in your free time Harry and offer them out on loan or give them to match organisers, I'm sure some one would be able to collect them off you at a match somewhere and bring them up here. If you buy the timber posts and board we have 9 classes at our matches so only want 18 signs 1 for each end, won't take many minutes, oh don't forget to sign write the classes on. Oh when you've got a minute can you buy the paint and pop up and paint our 200 number pegs

Howard150 · Apr 4, 2018

Ley253 said:
No. none local enough, and am always ploughing! But info signs should not mean any more work, other than making them in the winter.You often find class marker signs, so an info board could be combined with that, and in fact should be.Another could be positioned at the pay point. To protect plot numbers, make it a rule No number=no points, you wont find many missing then! If plot numbers were painted different colours for one end, one could be used as the lunch voucher, that would make them "self collecting" and still leave a set at one end for the judges use.Some sort of plug board at the food tent could be used to park the returned plot markers in, cutting down the sequencing effort, similar thing on a trailer could be used for the collection of the remaining markers, they could stay in these till needed next year.

Well bugger me Aitch. Just when youv’e lulled us all into a sense of false security in thinking the Victor Meldrew within you had exhausted the pot full of inane remarks, off you go again with your innate capacity to jam both feet squarely and firmly in your mouth.

Too busy ploughing is not a defence for not organising. There are plenty of us in the same boat, many of us who also devote a fair proportion of time to judging as well. Shame on you Aitch for giving nothing back. Judging by your view of names engraved on trophies, It might well be a fairly well equated match for what you have taken out of it over the years. There are a couple of lads ploughing with us in a similar boat who are never likely to win a prize. Nonetheless they are always there to help.

There are 6 of us who stage our match. The same 6 year in year out. We have it down to a fine art. We used to get 120 entrants. This has dropped to round about 85. As I said earlier we need £500 prize money, £250 for a road sweeper. What I failed to mention was the £80 insurance that we need to protect ourselves from the ploughmen or the public - who just by way of chance we cannot charge for the very same reason. Our spent winters have all been done. We have all the kit. We have 120 yellow steel plot markers, 120 white steel plot markers for ‘tother end. We would not thank you for tossing them in a heap near the burger van. Better left where they are so that we can readily place them in their numbered slot in the covered trailer that 2 of our number so lovingly made. The very same trailer that summer days were spent making to keep them, the road signs, the tents and tables in.

Signage around the site? What need when we have a program which lists all the sponsors, all the competitors and the rules. These are available to ploughmen and public alike. Would the public understand the difference between vintage and classic. Would the ploughmen be bothered. We have site maps available as they book in. We are ready to explain to the many young affluent families in attendance what is going on and often do, but then again it’s all in the program. The local paper often has a full page on us. Do you not think we have enough to do?

You have alienated most of the people who organise matches with your thoughts. You are a minority group, very much likely to become an endangered species if you carry on in the same vein. Despite your endless list you have little or no idea what’s involved. Get real Aitch.

Pennine Ploughing · Apr 4, 2018

Ley253 said:
No. none local enough, and am always ploughing

if we all took this view, and did as you do,
there would be no ploughing matches to go to,

and don't knock them that do put on a match, entry is optional, not compulsory

Ley253 · Apr 4, 2018

Sprayer said:
Perhaps you could make some up in your free time Harry and offer them out on loan or give them to match organisers, I'm sure some one would be able to collect them off you at a match somewhere and bring them up here. If you buy the timber posts and board we have 9 classes at our matches so only want 18 signs 1 for each end, won't take many minutes, oh don't forget to sign write the classes on. Oh when you've got a minute can you buy the paint and pop up and paint our 200 number pegs

Never in the world of agrarian argument, have so many words been used to express"Our way, or no way". My words were ideas, not commands.
What do I do to help? Well,I just tried to help you, and look at the thanks I received!
Strangely, I too was thinking that I could take photographs of good work this year, and make up a set of information posters for societies to copy. I dont think I will bother, you would only use them for backside fodder.

Ley253 · Apr 4, 2018

Howard150 said:
Well bugger me Aitch. Just when youv’e lulled us all into a sense of false security in thinking the Victor Meldrew within you had exhausted the pot full of inane remarks, off you go again with your innate capacity to jam both feet squarely and firmly in your mouth.

Too busy ploughing is not a defence for not organising. There are plenty of us in the same boat, many of us who also devote a fair proportion of time to judging as well. Shame on you Aitch for giving nothing back. Judging by your view of names engraved on trophies, It might well be a fairly well equated match for what you have taken out of it over the years. There are a couple of lads ploughing with us in a similar boat who are never likely to win a prize. Nonetheless they are always there to help.

There are 6 of us who stage our match. The same 6 year in year out. We have it down to a fine art. We used to get 120 entrants. This has dropped to round about 85. As I said earlier we need £500 prize money, £250 for a road sweeper. What I failed to mention was the £80 insurance that we need to protect ourselves from the ploughmen or the public - who just by way of chance we cannot charge for the very same reason. Our spent winters have all been done. We have all the kit. We have 120 yellow steel plot markers, 120 white steel plot markers for ‘tother end. We would not thank you for tossing them in a heap near the burger van. Better left where they are so that we can readily place them in their numbered slot in the covered trailer that 2 of our number so lovingly made. The very same trailer that summer days were spent making to keep them, the road signs, the tents and tables in.

Signage around the site? What need when we have a program which lists all the sponsors, all the competitors and the rules. These are available to ploughmen and public alike. Would the public understand the difference between vintage and classic. Would the ploughmen be bothered. We have site maps available as they book in. We are ready to explain to the many young affluent families in attendance what is going on and often do, but then again it’s all in the program. The local paper often has a full page on us. Do you not think we have enough to do?

You have alienated most of the people who organise matchess with your thoughts. You are a minority group, very much likely to become an endangered species if you carry on in the same vein. Despite your endless list you have little or no idea what’s involved. Get real Aitch.

Another Yorkshire diatribe. To answer one of your points, where did I mention throwing the markers in a pile nr the burger van? If you read it again, I think you will find I suggested a type of peg board, that they fitted into, which would keep them in order. I also suggested a similar idea for collecting the markers left in the plots.An idea with no merit it seems, but, its the way you admit to doing the job!
Would the public recognise the difference between any classes? Not without information, they wont.! A friend, made up such a sheet and puts it at the end of his plot, he has to change it almost every match it gets so worn by people taking hold of it and reading it. That, tells me that there is a void that needs filling.

Ley253 · Apr 4, 2018

Pennine Ploughing said:
if we all took this view, and did as you do,
there would be no ploughing matches to go to,

and don't knock them that do put on a match, entry is optional, not compulsory

Different areas, different crops! Down here, matches are run by the remnants of the "landed gentry". and there is no place for a ploughman on their committee, less so for one who is a retired mechanic!

arcobob · Apr 4, 2018

No hope of educating the public in many parts of the country regarding different classes because the organisers don't have much idea. The Norfolk Ploughing society ran a vintage qualifier in 2016 with a judge and his sidekick judging the entire class from one end. The said judge is a non ploughing director of the SOP and he asked a certain competitor what the difference was between vintage and classic. He had a right to enquire as vintage had a 135 in its midst, the driver of which finished the wrong way without penalty. When the ploughing was finished it took these two clowns over an hour to produce one single scoresheet. There were no stewards.
Ploughing matches in Norfolk were the envy of surrounding counties but in two short years it developed into a complete shambles.

arcobob · Apr 4, 2018

Ley253 said:
Different areas, different crops! Down here, matches are run by the remnants of the "landed gentry". and there is no place for a ploughman on their committee, less so for one who is a retired mechanic!

I don't think you are convincing anyone with your feeble excuses for not doing anything. You are clearly a taker and not a giver and you are far from being alone.

Sprayer · Apr 4, 2018

there is always room on committees for workers not shirkers. Every rural organisation from the big shows to the small garden fete is suffering with a lack of voluntary, practical organising support to run them. Plenty of people turn up at meetings and tell everyone how it should be done but not many turn up to do the work at ploughing matches and local shows.

nuffield1060 · Apr 4, 2018

The amount of bitching and sniping on this thread and others in this section of the forum it's no wonder young lads aren't interested.

Are Ploughing Matches Under Threat?

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100% I’ve had enough of farming!

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