YOUNG CANADIAN SIMMENTAL ASSOCIATION 2023 TEAM CONFERENCE

The National YCSA held their leadership conference May 5-7, 2023 in Calgary, AB. The conference is titled TEAM Conference for Together Everyone Achieves More. We were excited to have 24 engaged youth aged 14-25 participate in this year’s conference. The Conference was a great way for the youth to grow their leadership skills, network, and have some fun with like-minded fellow agriculture enthusiasts.

We started off the weekend with some great ice breakers and leadership building activities as well as learning with the Friends of the Canadian Simmental Foundation’s Carcass model. Friday evening, we attended the Jubilations Diner theater where we were fed and entertained for the evening. We were privileged to have 2 great speakers with us over the weekend in Chip Kemp with the American Simmental Assoc and Anne Burgess with CCIA.

Chip dove into the topics of what makes a great leader and how can we achieve being a leader in the agriculture world. He led us in workshops of what qualities we value in our lives and our mentors/leaders. We also had good discussions about the different markets for our seedstock operations and how we as producers can improve. Chip was able to spend the entire weekend with us for the youth to engage with.

Anne was able to teach us about CCIA and the roles in the agriculture industry as well as how us as producers can utilize CCIA to the fullest. She was very interactive with the youth and got a lot of conversation flowing.

As a group we were able to travel to Barr Ag Ltd at Olds where we were guided through a tour of the plant. Evo the plant manager gave us a great tour explain how everything operates as well as how they got to be where they are today. He touched on topics that we had been discussing earlier in the weekend. This was a very interesting operation that most of the kids enjoyed and interacted. We stopped at Irvine’s Tack and Western Wear on our way back into the city for a bit of shopping and for them to see the largest western store in Canada. We were privileged that Scott and Leanne purchased pizza for us to have supper while there.

All the youth attending the TEAM Conference said they would recommend to a friend and attend again. We cannot wait to host the TEAM Conference again making it bigger and better. Thank you to all the participants and sponsors that made this year’s TEAM Conference a success.