Page 9 - Swaledale Flock Book

VII
PREFACE
Welcome to Volume 104 of the Swaledale Sheep Breeders Flock Book. Crowning
in 2023 took the form once again of members self-crowning rather than District
Secretaries attending on-farm. The sales of all classes of rams continued to be
strong, slightly less were sold, but averages of shearling rams increased on the
year to £1904 for 1339 sold. The shearling ram record price was broken after 21
years and equalled in consecutive days at the Kirkby Stephen sales when W
Richardson & Son, Ghyll House sold their Champion ram on the Thursday for
£105,000 followed by M/s Lightfoot, Gillside equalling that record the following
day. Congratulations to both families – this is what dreams are made of in the
pedigree sheep breeding world.
Newsletters were produced in the Autumn and Spring and distributed to all
members. District AGMs were consulted over preference of the format; electronic
to save postage costs or a paper version, members felt strongly that we should
continue with the paper version. Resulting from this, the membership fee was
raised at the Annual meeting to cover the increasing costs, £30 for Small Breeders
and £35 for Large Breeders (plus VAT).
A 200-page book to celebrate the Centenary of the Association was produced and
launched at Muker Show in early September. A grant of £5,000 was obtained
from the Yorkshire Dales National Park to go towards the cost of production; all
members received a complimentary copy with further copies available to buy at
retail outlets throughout the Dales.
The AGM was well attended at Middleton-in-Teesdale, which saw the retirement
from Council of three stalwarts of the breed, Malcolm Allison, Arthur Slack and
Randal Raine, they had represented their District’s for a cumulative 95 years!
Arthur was elected as Vice-President of the Association. The AGM announced
the result of the whole membership postal vote on the Crowning procedure for
the next 3-years, which resulted in 397 votes being cast, with 231 in favour of
self-Crowning and 166 for on-farm Crowning. Following the meeting, retired
Hawes Mart auctioneer, Raymond Lund addressed the membership with tales of
his life and highlights of his career.
Once again, I would like to thank the District Secretaries for their work and
support in organising their sales, and to you, the membership for your continued
commitment to the breed.
Kindest Regards
Rachel Buckle
14th June 2023