DATE FOR YOUR DIARIES:
Christmas Lunch
Tuesday 2nd December 12noon
with Guest Speaker Bernard Liddle
VISIT TO HERBS UNLIMITED SAND HUTTON
​Wednesday 4th June
On a lovely sunny evening we met up at the Herb Farm to be shown round by Philip Dodds, the son of the original founder, Alison Dodd.
In 1993 Alison Dodd started growing herbs for her own restaurant, this soon progressed to supplying other establishments, and onto larger premises at Northallerton Prison. In 2002 in partnership with Trevor Bosamworth, Sandhutton Growers Ltd was formed , with expansion into packing, greenhouses and in 2013 and 2016 solar PV.
In 2017 herbs had been produced for 25 years.
In 2018 Philip Dodds joined the company as MD.
We heard about the journey that this business has taken over the years, and the passion and enthusiasm was easily apparent in all that Philip explained to us about the growing of the herbs to supplying customers. Inside Polytunnels and greenhouses to outside in the fields, even down to the dozen different types of mint that they grow some on a trial basis only as well as commercially. We learnt how the herbs are cultivated for best results, and about the potential waste on some products for example chives, along with the potential pitfalls of supplying flowers for the more decerning chef.
​
Luckily, we made it just in time to the The Kings Arms at Sand Hutton, for a supper of Lasagna and Salad, followed by Easton Mess.
A very enjoyable visit, and our grateful thanks to Phillip Dodd at Herbs Unlimited and Alex at The Kings Arms.
Thank you to everyone who attended.
​
Beautiful weather for our visit to Yorkshire Heart Vineyard on 22nd April
It was a showery day - but the sun shone whilst we were outdoors! We visited the brewery first and sampled the beer and Tim taught us about how the micro brewery works and how the business has grown, with direct sales and a big internet sales business.
We moved onto the Vineyard which is in a lovely setting, with its own cafe. We learnt all about how the vines are grown and managed and then how the grapes are harvested and processed right through to bottling. The weather pays such a huge part in the wine production, this warm spring should hopefully lead to a bumper production year.
We finally went into the onsite cafe and had homemade steak pie, followed by Sticky toffee pudding, served with Yorkshire Heart Wine - where we got to sample a red/white or Rose wine.
A very enjoyable afternoon visit, thank you very much Tim and Family for having us.
Post Budget IHT meeting on 11th February was well attended
We were privileged to have 2 guest speakers at our February meeting - Rod Cordingley of Stephensons Rural and Terry Ogden from Walter Dawson & Son Accountants.
​
Rod opened the meeting addressing issues of Valuation and when is a farmhouse not a farmhouse for tax purposes - which the reasons were surprising. Terry follwed on taking us through the implications of IHT changes, options which might work for your farm with some good examples of the impact on the family farm in the future.
​
We had almost 50 people attend this meeting who all enjoyed a lovely 2 course meal at the parsonage before the presentations.
​
The AGM followed on, for those able to stay. Andrew Harrison has been appointed our New Chairman and our retiring Chairman Grant Burton has taken on the role of Vice Chair for this year. We thank them for taking on these roles and taking the club through into 2026.
​
2025 Dates for your Diaries
We have lots planned for 2025 - so we hope you will come and support these events and please tell friends or old members what is going on and invite them along - we need to increase our membership numbers in order to make meetings viable and enable the club to continue.
​
Tuesday 11th February - Post Budget Inheritance Tax changes and how they may affect us
Followed by the AGM
​
Rod Cordingley (Bsc FRICS FAAV) of Stephensons Rural -
Rod is a YAA committee member and will be advising us on aspects of Valuation for IHT
and
Richard Hall (Equity Partner/Director) and Terry Ogden (Senior Tax Manager) from Walter Dawson & Son Accountants - will guide us through the Tax implications of these changes for the family farm
​
This will be held at The Parsonage with a 2 course lunch and coffee
​
Booking for this event will go live next week, members are allowed to bring guests.
​
​
Tuesday 22nd April (late afternoon time TBC)
Visit to Yorkshire Heart Vineyard and Brewery
​
We will have a tour of the Yorkshire Heart Brewery and Vineyard, at Nun Monkton
(between York and Harrogate) including wine and beer tasting, followed with an evening meal.
​
​
Wednesday 4th June @4pm followed by a pub supper.
Visit to Sand Hutton Growers T/A Herbs unlimited
​
​By kind permission of Philip Dodd we will be taken on a tour of the herb farm operation, then go for supper at a local pub - full details to follow
​
​
​
Wednesday17th September,
A full day visit to Longley Farm and Tyers Hall Farm
​
We are invited by Jimmy Dickinson to visit the Longly Farm Dairy in the morning, then after lunch move on to Tyres Hall Farm, Ardsley in the Afternoon
More details to follow
​
​​​​​​​​​
​
November/ December a Christmas Lunch with Guest Speaker
​
Details to follow
​​
​
Happy New Year and best wishes for 2025
HECK Visit - 9th October 2024
​
On a Wet and windy Wednesday our group met up at Kirklington for a very interesting and entertaining tour of the Heck Sausage Factory.
Heck is a family company founded in 2013 by Debbie and Andrew Keeble which now has a £25 million turnover supplying all the multiple retailers. This was an amazing opportunity to visit the modern £3.5 million factory to see how these wonderful sausages are made, and to hear their story to success.
​
Andrew Keeble was a very congenial and informative host, and our gracious thanks go our to all the staff at heck who could not have been more helpful to us.
We were welcomed into the boardroom for an introduction to the facts and figures of the sausage industry which demonstrated Heck’s dominance of the premium sausage market in the UK. Once we were all appropriately suited and booted, for hygiene and health and safety, it was off to the factory for a full tour. We were able to see the ingredients at the start of the process, and the speed at which the sausages are made, cut and packed is mesmerizing. The production machines mix, fill the sausage casings, cut the sausages, pack them, and get them ready to send to customers.
After the tour we all met up in the tasting kitchen. Heck products are tested every day. We were all given a comment sheet and three products, the 97% port sausage, the chicken Rasher, and the Halloween sausage, presented for our scrutiny – everyone enjoyed this part! Each member left with a very generous gift of Heck sausages to take home.
Afterwards we had lunch at Thirsk Auction Market café, Jackie and her team had very kindly reserved us a table, members chose their own lunch – which it was agreed was all very tasty, especially the treacle tart.
A very successful mornings work.
​
​
By Heck the YAA are off to ...
See the Events page and Members check your emails for more information.
or contact Sarah on sarah@jhmcc.co.uk
​
Visit Wednesday 9th October 9.30am at HECK
Advance booking of your place is essential​
Charity Donation August 2024
In August we sent a donation to RABI(Yorkshire Region) and the Farming Community Network of £750 each to help support farming families in our region.
.png)
New Committee Members 2024
We would like to announce that the following members have joined the YAA committee to help us keep the club alive and organise future events:
Rod Cordingley
Andrew Harrison
Richard Burniston
Stephen Prest
We are delighted to have them join the committee and there are many plans being made, first for an October outing, hopefully followed by a Christmas lunch in December and more visits in 2025. Keep an eye on your emails and on the website Events Page
YAA PROGRAMME 2023
​
The Yorkshire Agricultural Adventurers January Lunch - CANCELLED
Tuesday 17th January 2023
The Parsonage Hotel, Escrick, York, YO19 6LF
Guest Speaker Innes Thompson - CEO - ADA
Booking now open - See events page
----------***----------
​
The Yorkshire Agricultural Adventurers AGM and Lunch
Tuesday February 21st
The Parsonage Hotel, Escrick, York, YO19 6LF
Guest Speaker Sally Conor - RABI - Regional Manager for the North East
------------***-----------
​
The Yorkshire Agricultural Adventurers Summer Visit
TBC
Summer Visit Success June 2022
We had a very successful summer visit, it was a beautiful sunny day and we headed off to an Albonwise Farm at Low Mowthorpe where the Farm Manager Will Jones showed us around the Potato Storage facilities for their seed potatoes, which were very impressive, with various build adaptations put in to ensure the very sensitive and rare chalk stream that runs past the farm is not put at risk from any pollutants or surface run off from the Yard.
​
We followed this with a lovely lunch at Sledmere House.
​
After lunch James Fenwick, the Sledmere Farm Manager took us out on Tractors and Trailers into the Deer Park, where we were able to get up close and personal with the Deer, it was Calving season and the park was full of Hinds and their Calves, it was a really lovely afternoon and the glorious weather made it even better.
​
Many thanks go to our hosts who gave up their time to show us round, Will Jones at Low Mowthorpe and James Fenwick at Sledmere.
Supporting Norton College School Farm
In the summer we were approached by Norton College and asked for a donation to assist them to open the school farm again. This was closed in 2014 and the new Head Teacher is wishing to re-open this facility to benefit all of the children, those from Farms and those from the Town who don't get access to animals.
We felt this was a very worthy cause, which meets our aims to promote agriculture, and we agreed to send a £500 donation.
We received a lovely response from the Assistant Head Mr Stones
On Monday 27th June we received notification from Yorkshire Agricultural Adventurers (YAA) that we had been awarded a £500 grant to support our farm re-opening. Thank you to the YAA as well as many other businesses and individuals for supporting this very worthwhile project.
Mr Stones.
We donated £1000 to Yorkshire RABI in January 2022 to help support the local farming community
GREETINGS
ADD A WARM MESSAGE TO WELCOME VISITORS