yma Annual General Meeting

On Friday 27th January we held the YMA AGM in the Maldron Hotel in Port Laois. We had a fantastic turnout and a very productive meeting. The future is looking bright for our Young Members with lots of new ideas being put forward and plenty of positive changes suggested for our current calendar of events. Both our National Co-Ordinator, Kane Boal and National Chairperson, Doireann Mulhall gave a run down of the previous year of events and it was very much in agreement that YMA had a hugely successful 2022 from Events at home to Overseas. We had 3 different Teams of our Young Members sent to compete in the HYB Rally in England, European Young Breeders School in Belgium and the Open Junior Show in Italy where each and every one of our members excelled in their individual areas and most certainly done Ireland proud.

We had a very informative talk from Laura Cornthwaite, WWS Ireland, Marketing Manager. She left our members with lots of inspiration to take away. She gave an insight into the Marketing World and some great pointers on how you can promote your own herd.

the last number of years in my term as both Co-Ordinator & Chairperson. Thank you to Donal, Georgia & all of IHFA for giving me the opportunity to be in this role & the continued support. I have taken a lot form the position that will help me in many aspects of my career. I wish the incoming officer the best of luck for the year ahead. No doubt another fantastic year in store.

Co-Ordinator Kane commented “I would like to thank our YMA chairperson Doireann Mulhall. Doireann’s dedication and commitment to YMA over the past number of years has been admirable. Her ideas and attention to detail must be commended and striving to do the best she could for the benefit of the young members. She is the perfect role model for any young person in YMA and I have no doubt, she will continue to support YMA in the future. Thank you Doireann for all your help and guidance during my first year as National Co-ordinator. Finally, I would like to thank you all again for making 2022 a successful year for YMA and hopefully 2023 will be just as enjoyable for everyone. Thanks very much”

It was also time to bid farewell to our YMA Chairperson, Doireann Mulhall who has devoted a great amount of her time to YMA in her role over the past few years. Doireann said “A quick mention must go to my fellow officers and to Georgia for their help and support over the past year. It was great to be back planning events and to see our very keen young members back in the show ring. Everything we do is to encourage and support the young members in all our clubs. Seeing them come back after a number of years away even more keen than ever really makes the work and planning of events worthwhile. Finally, I would like to thank everyone who has helped and supported me in any way over

Following on from the AGM we had our Election of Officers at our first Committee Meeting of 2023, on Friday 24th February. We bid Doireann farewell as Chairperson and Sinead O’Sullivan from the Cork Club was elected as our incoming Chairperson. Kane Boal was re-elected as Co-Ordinator for the coming year, we are glad to have Kane on board and we are sure his experience within the National Committee will help our newcomers. Lastly, both Hannah Healy and Rachel McNamara stood down as National PRO’s. Jane Hannan from the Limerick/Clare club was elected as the new PRO. We are looking forward to the year ahead with lots of events to be planned for 2023.