January 2022 President’s Report

The second year of my serving as President has continued much as the first year ended, without us meeting in person.

The uncertainty of closures and emergency measures are impacting our day-to-day activities and planning into the future, and no community or sector is immune.

While some have seen this as a disservice, some greater good has to come from this. One is the ability to attend more outside meetings (virtually) without the need for travel.

Social Media

Social media has been expanded with the addition of LinkedIn profiles for the LFA and Locally Lambton, and an addition of a YouTube Channel for hosting the many video that we’ve had the opportunity to produce ourselves along with partnerships with other organizations. This in addition to the standard Facebook and Twitter accounts.

If you check out our YouTube account, you will see the segments from our last big meeting, the Lambton OFA Regional Meeting. One is a great video of a slide show created and presented by Brooke talking about all that we had done up to that point in the year. Also, our guest speaker Mark Robinson – the Storm Hunter, our Scholarship presentations, and a presentation from our Director Crispin Colvin.

You will also see upcoming segments from our Local Helping Local video series co-produced with SLEP and our videographers Frameworks Media.

Make sure to subscribe to our YouTube Channel to receive notifications when new videos are uploaded.

Of course, all of this takes a greater understanding of the technology, and the realization that there are still lots of areas in Lambton County where the technology is not available to participate fully in our discussions.

Online Meetings via Zoom

Since we made the move to online monthly meetings via our newly acquired Zoom license, there hasn’t been one meeting cancelled due to the lack of quorum. A few meetings have started late as directors rolled in off their tractors or in from barns and not have to worry about cleaning up and travelling to Petrolia to participate in the meetings. Before the change, we regularly had to cancel 2-3 (or more) meetings a year.

With the focus to online, we’ve had the chance to participate in more outside meetings than ever before, and forge partnerships across the county, and into the surrounding counties.

Collaborating with Lambton Farm Safety allowed us to leverage our Zoom license for special Farm Safety meetings. I’ve had Meetings with the OFA President Peggy Brekveld, PAC Meetings, and many committee meetings with the Airport Action Working Group, Sarnia-Lambton Chamber of Commerce, SLEP, Middlesex Economic Development, and Lambton College on a regular basis.

It will be different, fingers crossed, going into the coming year, and we hope that we can have a big barbeque this summer, celebrating our 80th Anniversary in a proper manner. In anniversaries past, they’ve even organized a dance to celebrate. That would be something…

80th Anniversary Project

Speaking of our 80th Anniversary, last winter, after going through the items we had in storage, I realized that March 1941 was the date of the first meeting of the Lambton County Farmers Association, (changed to the Lambton Federation of Agriculture, after joining the OFA).

In 1981, the LFA celebrated their 40th anniversary with a commemorative book. In 2001 the LFA also created a book of memories of the previous years as an addendum to the first book.

For our 80th anniversary, we thought we would like to do something similar, however a book would be too difficult to produce, and honestly, probably wouldn’t be read by many people. Since there was so much electronic content already available (the LFA started its first website in 2002), we thought we’d present the retrospective all online.

An index of all of this new/old information is located at lambtonfederation.ca/Archives

Donations

I’d like to bring attention to the Notes section of our Financial Statements (included in this booklet) where it lists all the donations we’ve made to various organizations over the last fiscal year (up to September 30, 2021) – Note 4 specifically.

We have made the decision to help those in need while we see some cost savings from not holding in- person events. The OFA in turn has done so as well with their sponsorship of certain donations we’ve made towards HandsToTable.ca, as well as a generous sponsorship towards the London Children’s Museum, which is developing and will be building an agricultural exhibit. The Exhibit will hopefully be completed when the lockdowns end.

Other donations I’d like to highlight are the Food Bank donations (there’s a video on our YouTube account), and the donation to the Beef Farmers of Ontario to help move Hay West to drought-stricken areas of northwestern Ontario.

Other Events of Note (not mentioned specifically in Brooke’s August Report):

We hosted 2 all candidates meetings in September, organized on short notice. One for the Sarnia- Lambton riding at the Brigden Fairgrounds, and one for the Lambton-Kent-Middlesex riding at the Alvinston Fairground’s new pavilion. We had a bit of a rain storm at Brigden, but luckily we were safe. The rain storm held off long enough at the Alvinston one for us to clear out before we got soaked.

Other communication products:

Lambton “Aglink” Newsletter

• The Lambton Ag Link was created to fill that void in communicating agricultural news and events between Lambton County Commodity and Agricultural Groups and the community.
• We would like to help promote your event or announcement.
• Past issues are available at https://lambtonfederation.ca/aglink/

Monthly Radio Broadcast

• The latest in Lambton County’s agricultural news and events are reported on CFCO (630 AM and 92.9 FM) every 3rd Wednesday and CHOK (103.9 FM & 1070 AM) every 4th Wednesday.
• Let us know if you’d like a mention on either radio station.
• Past episodes are at: https://lambtonfederation.ca/tag/blackburn-radio/

A busy year was had by the Lambton Federation of Agriculture, despite the lockdowns, and we expect a busy year to come in 2022.

Keep in touch and let us know what is going on and if you need help. Especially if your event includes pie.

Thanks,

~Gary Martin~
President, Lambton Federation of Agriculture

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