Fund helps land skills training

Below are details made available by Lantra, the Sector Skills Council for landbased industries and SEEDA. The information is available from the BBC web site

Farmers, foresters and growers in South East England will be able to help pay for training courses during the winter from a £500,000 rural development fund.
The training programme, managed by LandSkills South East (Lantra), offers up to 70% funding for businesses.
Since it began in September 2008, more than 3,800 people have taken 8,000 courses as part of the £2.1m project.
"In times of recession, it's not every day you can announce there is money available," said boss Shelley Newton.
Technical training available includes agronomy, IT, first aid, marketing and working with other nationalities.
The winter programme also includes courses on rural tourism and sourcing local produce.
Lantra manages the scheme for the South East England Development Agency, which covers Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Kent, Oxfordshire, Surrey and East and West Sussex.

For full details of courses on offer in Buckinghamshire and information on level of funding available go to the Vale Training main web site, or from our office on 01296 612201

Summer 09

Tt seems only yesterday I wrote the last blog, but it was almost two months ago.

The recession still seems to be hitting businesses hard, but for us, June and July has been one of the busiest summer periods on record, with over 40 courses having been delivered. We would usually run 20-30 courses maximum. I find it very hard to give reason for this, but must be grateful for all the support we receive from customers, so a big thanks you to you all.

This year we have decided not to run any courses in August. This is to enable us to redecorate, regroup and prepare for the winter ahead. It will also allow us to finally get to grips with the new computer we installed last month, as well as giving us an opportunity to take a break!! We are already booking our winter programme and organising some new courses, so if there is something we are not currently offering, that you would like us to organise, please let us know. We are always looking for feed back on our services and we would particularly welcome comments from customers who have attended training courses with us.

We will be attending several shows this summer, so do please come and visit our stand. Among the events we will be at are the New Kimblewick Country Fair, the Thame Sheep Fair, the Bucks Show and Thame Show. We hope to have a new stand for the Bucks Show,watch this space.

The farm is just beginning to get busy, and many of our friends and Neighbours are about to start combining. We have not grow barley or oil seed rape this year, so will not be harvesting for a couple of weeks, however there is still plenty to do with pre-harvest cleaning, machinery preparation and planning for the coming year. We hope to start cutting Oats in a couple of weeks and then on with the wheat. Most of our Oats go for human consumption either for the biscuit trade or breakfast cereals. The wheat is used both in bread making and for cattle feed. So the next time you see a grain lorry rumble past don't complain about the farmer, remember it may be your breakfast he is sending for precessing.

I hope you have a good summer and do please visit us again, or even leave a blog. You could also listen for our new add on Mix 96, Aylesburys local radio station....

Best wishes

Kate Mason

Spring News From Vale Training

How time flies, it is almost a year since I last blogged.

We have had a very busy winter training, despite the current economic gloom, and the farm is looking relatively well following a very difficult Autumn. Lambing was fairly easy and successful, so all is well in the world.

We finally began delivering training under the Rural Development Programme for England (RDPE) in October 2008, after over a years waiting for the details to be sorted out. The training project we are delivering is in partnership with Lantra, the sector skills council for landbased industries, and is called Landskills South East. Similar projects are now being delivered throughout England. The projects, although slow to get off the ground, are now operating successfully despite a few back room issues. The project will run untill June 2011, with funding ranging from 40-70% of course cost. To be eligible you must spend 50% of your time working in agriculture, forestry or production horticulture

Our Fresh Start academy continues to meet. This winter they have covered employment law , legal issues and heath and safety. They are currently planning a farm walk for June, so if you are interest in coming a long just give me a call. Two of our founder members took their first Farm last Autumn, and we have just heard it is going very well for them. Congratulations to Peter and Katie Gregory and we all wish you well. We will also pilot an Open College Network qualification for those wishing to take the academy a step further.

The Arable Group also continues to flourish under the leadership of Ian Waller, who won the Farmers weekly environmental farm of the year in 2008-9. We have been nominated for the 2009-10 farm diversification award and are currently waiting to hear if we have got to the final. There arable group has this year taken the bull by the horns and six of its members are undertaking a benchmarking project. This is enabling the group to look at their business more fully, and it has already opened up some interesting issues. More on this later in the year.

Vale Training has also taken the bull by the horns and taken advantage of cheaper advertising. I have decided we should have an add on the local radio, which you can listen to by clicking on the link on our home page. It has received a good response and hopefully will encourage new customers. We will also be publishing our annual training programme in time for the Bucks Show, at the end of August. In the mean time we will have a stand at the Bucks Young Farmers Show at Milton Keynes on 30th May and at the Kimblewick Country fair on 1st August.

Enough for now, so hope to see you at one of the events we are attending or on a training course. Best Wishes. Kate Mason