The Link

The meeting was cancelled and I hope that they all achieved something for their efforts as the next day we were again back to the interminable rain that has so characterised the past six months.

Maybe they would have been better saying "It's a good day I am going drilling - can you get someone to come in so we can do twice as much."

Although the weather has affected every member in some way our sympathy is extended most of all to those members who have been actually flooded. It is not so long ago that global warming, which is being blamed for the current situation, was also the reason for the drought that had water being tanked down the A1.

We can maybe take heart in that to the purists this year is the last of the old century and next year is the start of the new. Let us hope that in this new era common sense prevails in the factors that influence our livelihoods and that the countryside is appreciated for what it is and does rather than being seen as a political pawn and a playground for the masses.

Please take some time to review and update the services you have on offer. It is just as important to delete those that have gone as it is to record new acquisitions.

Your contact details are also important to us. Some York area postcodes have changed and people seem to be changing their mobile phone numbers more frequently than we get fine days.

At the end of April all mobile numbers will begin with either "077" , "078" or "079" digits and the old style numbers will not work. We have made the change on the computer for these but we have no means of knowing if you have a completely new number.

Please post amended forms back in the FREEPOST envelope provided. NB Freepost means no stamp is needed.

This time last year we looked forwards to a new year and a new millennium. Little did we know what lay ahead. We hoped that prices had reached rock bottom and could only improve but they didn't and in the second half of the year fuel prices soared and the weather turned against us leaving with the worst conditions to farm in 70 years.

In times like this we should all pull together. By pooling resources, we can cut costs by helping one another instead of trying to go it alone. Although some of our Labour Only members have.

Despite a hick-up with our electricity supplier we can still offer savings to members who purchase electricity, fuel oil, AI straws, bale wrap and twine and tyres and batteries through the RING.

I would like to thank you for your support over the last year and look forward to meeting some of you on my travels in the year 2001. Keep in touch we need one another in these hard times.

Ray Goodbold (Tel & Fax) 01751 432090

As a consequence of the increase the Board have co-opted Mark. We hope and believe that he will be able to make a contribution to the development of the Ring. As a co-opted Director, Mark will stand for election at the next AGM. He proved his commitment (or something!) on the night of his first meeting that was at the height of the recent floods. He lives in Dalton which was cut off from the rest of the world. He suggested that he would walk through the flood to be picked up by myself. The night was black and raining hard, never the less he set out. I lost my nerve and phoned him up to tell him to go home and was extremely thankful to get back to dry roads again.

I am a partner in Copperwheat Agriculture with my wife, Moira, our advisory, crop walking and vegetable growing business that specialises in organic farming based at Dalton near Thirsk. We have a five year old son Thomas.

Not from a farming family, my father runs his own specialist sprayer company. I started working on local farms from the age of ? (things were different then!) Following this I graduated from Reading in 1986 and started running a PYO farm near Oxford where my parents live. I then moved to Yorkshire with my wife, who's a local lass, to the Escrick Park Estate. After a couple of years at Escrick I moved on to manage the farm at Newby Hall. In 1998 changes at Newby gave us the opportunity to start our own business. I had been watching organic farming for a number of years as we had an organic neighbour at Nexwby. From this start I have developed advisory work helping farms convert and more recently an increasing role in certifying organic farms and a small hand in helping formulate UK organic standards.

I have been a supporter of the ring since its early years and was honoured to be asked to join the board. I hope I can be a useful member of the team. I see the role of the ring as very important in the future in helping farmers work together offering a wider range of services than it does at present.

It's in a corner and not enough to fetch the 6 row machine in for again even if it could travel. We think a single row might go at the end of the season. Location: between A19 and Malton.

Anything considered, even if it needed a bit of work doing on it. If you can help contact Peter at Thirsk.

Three years ago through a Machinery Ring Association conference I became aware of a company called TAMR Property Passports which specialised in marking plant, equipment and now ever household items in a covert and overt way. The details are recorded on a central data base readily accessible to police and trade organisations.

These things take time to get off the ground and over the past 3 years the systems of covert marking have improved and become more sophisticated. These range from microfilm dots laser etched with a unique serial number to very small transponders that are activated by scanners which are held by police and other agencies. The overt or open marking is generally by sandblasting the unique codes onto the plant or equipment.

If anyone is interested or wants more information please give Peter a call.

Twice in the past month we have received email from members that have contained a virus. These have been of the "Kakworm" type and are different in that they do not come in the form of an attachment but in the message itself and can start corrupting data as soon as the message is read.

A "patch" is available from Microsoft for users of Internet Explorer which alerts you as soon as you receive one of these worms. I strongly advise that you check your system immediately and upgrade if necessary. It is free. Also, if you do not have a virus detector, get one, and scan your files on a regular basis.

To upgrade your copy of Internet Explorer, first go to Internet Explorer "help", then "about" to determine which version of Internet Explorer you have.

Now go to http://www.msnbc.com/news/432208asp read the report and if necessary log on to the (American) web site to get the update. I would advise the full rather than the abridged version. Downloading can take some time but you can do it in small amounts as it "remembers" where it had got to.

Apologises to non computer users but I want to protect our systems.

Ironically the first time we caught it we traced it to a member well known for his belief in organic farming, presumably his computer operates on organic principles as well.

The report then continued:

"An Easingwold farmer at a meeting of the Young Farmers Club in Wales claimed that agriculture was being used as a political pawn, constantly being moved from the brink of disaster caused by beef mountains and wine lakes. He claimed that the main problem to be tackled was not so much successive governments treating the industry with a lack of interest but what farming would be left and who would be left to do it in the year 2000."

This set me wondering who this remarkably foresighted young man might be and had he fulfilled this early promise in later life.

The clue of cause was in the words "Young Farmers". It was indeed Ring Chairman Mike Blacker when he was Young Farmers National Chairman. With this newsletter in mind I thought I would try and close the year on a lighter note and see what if anything the National Federation of Young Farmers Clubs head office could turn up. An email was sent off and a reply received by return.

Not only did they supply the photograph reproduced here but also some useful blackmail material contained in a potted biography written when he took office.

Even more remarkably the person who replied knew Mike at that time. We have often said that one of Mike's major assets to the Ring is his wide circle of friends and contacts, we just didn't realise how wide they were and - maybe neither did he up to now.