Your attendance is requested - but please, don't be late | Rural Notebook

A new president will take the reins following the death of long-time stalwart Warwick Larnach and the association faces a future that looks quite different to its previous few years.

Sheep and wool producers are urged to attend this meeting and to support a new president and his committee.

From the association's formation in 1993, the president's term was practised as two years, and this gave surety of a person knowing when their term was up.

Maybe that policy could be revived.

MID-JULY in the midst of a typical freezing tablelands winter, we see the real success of the Bathurst Winter Festival across Kings Parade and Machattie Park.

When this event was first mooted some years ago, it seemed that only a genuine loonie would go ice-skating outdoors in Bathurst in July.

The thousands of visitors and their local friends turn out in droves to enjoy every facet of the festival and I hope that they buy their puffer coats and woolly beanies from our local shops.

Congratulations to everyone involved in this event and thank you for staging one of Bathurst's finest. It makes us proud to live here.

RECENT RURAL NOTEBOOK COLUMNS:

THE financial downturn is now worldwide and the "recession" word is being used often as consumers are forced to tighten their belts.

In the marketplace, we see lamb skins going to landfill as they have little to no commercial value. Beef cattle skins are almost facing the same fate.

It would be easy to criticise incumbent governments for their lack of action in easing cost-of-living pressures for families and businesses, but this column has mentioned before that these were very good elections to lose as we all experience the financial pressure.

THE serious downturn in lamb, beef and mutton prices is starting to filter into retail outlets and there are some genuine meat specials being featured in shops.

Demand for store stock has slowed as economic conditions and herd and flock rebuilds have brought supply and demand fairly close together.

Several pens of joined Angus heifers were passed in without a bid at a recent store cattle sale at Euroa and this tells us all to discuss market conditions with your trusted agent before making selling plans.

To pay $50 a head for cartage of small lots of cheap cattle, fail to get a bid and pay another $50 each to get them home again will destroy your love of farming and its way of life.

REPORTS of several woolshed workshops that are catering for high school students are telling of a fair bit of interest in the wool industry.

During the five days of woolshed work, the students are shown how to pen up the sheep, service and load a handpiece, see how sheep are shorn, crutched, the wool prepared and pressed.

After a week it will be obvious which students are punctual, good listeners and willing workers.

Shearing contractors may offer full-time work to the keenest students who are looking for a way out of year 10 school.

From my corner, the best workers in the wool harvesting game are always the ones who left school at 15 and got on with life.

COUNTRY people value their firearms licences and generally are proud of the guns and rifles that are a vital part of farm life.

We must be extra careful that firearms are stored correctly in locked gun safes, bolts stored separately along with ammunition.

Please make sure that licences and firearm registration forms are in order as mistakes can result in criminal charges.

I'm assured that a sawn-off 410 shotgun is a dangerous weapon and kicks like a mule when fired.

KATHRYN Bancroft and the team at Books Plus in Bathurst saved me a copy of the very new coffee table book Bathurst; 60 Years Of The Great Race.

This is a great summary of every Great Race since 1963 and features many glossy photos of the folklore of our very own Mount Panorama.

If your family and friends are lovers of The Mount and its racing history, they will love this $40 book.

The background in some of the lovely photos is a reminder of how our district looked when the world was young.

FOLLOWING weeks of negative sentiment and a dropping market, some wool growers decided that they were not happy to take the current market levels and we saw nearly 9000 bales withdrawn from sale Australia-wide, most of which was merino wool.

This extended into nearly 25 per cent of the total merino offering for the week.

This very unexpected supply "squeeze" ultimately forced buyers to quickly rethink their buying strategy for this sale in order to get what wool they needed for their requirements.

Initially, a large Chinese operator led the pace. However, others soon followed to see the market up to 30ac/kg dearer on the first day in the fleece wool types and an excellent selection of spinner and best topmaking types on the second day of sales were very well sought after.

By the end of the week, the market had finished up 36ac/kg to an EMI (Eastern Market Indicator) of 1162ac/kg.

Reports of follow-up business have been limited; we will see what happens in week two with an estimated offering of 45,000 bales again.

As we all know, a weekend can be a very long time in the wool industry and anything can happen!

This sale will be the last prior to the three-week break.

THE middle-aged sheep cockie and his wife had joined a gym and were energised after a workout.

"Let's commit to doing it three times a week," she said.

Dad was pleased. "Absolutely, a minimum three times a week," he said.

"And on my late night, we'll meet here at the gym," she said.

Dad was downcast. "I thought we were talking about romance," he said.

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OUR agent had dental problems and had a pain-killing injection to go with a costly tooth crown.

The girl at the desk had trouble following his speech.

"Sorry, love," he said, "it's hard to talk with six grand in me mouth."

SONG for the week: Annie's Song.