Your voice matters!

You can help spread positive food, farming, rural and YFC messages in so many ways.  Be proud of your YFC activity, achievements and make sure you champion your views and news.  If everyone shares their positive, well-informed messages, think how many more people will understand the benefits of YFC, their rural community and the countryside.

Download a copy of the How to Make a Difference guide that was produced with the NFU.  

What can you do?

• Continue to use social media and printed media to share events, opportunities, opinions and industry messages.  Find out and add all relevant tags for complementary organisations and campaigns to spread your news further.
• Taking part in your own or other relevant organisations’ campaigns. The more people that support key messages, the more powerful the campaign.
• Activity in the rural community: using local amenities like village and church halls, joining your parish, local or even district council or, as many of you already do, take an active role with your county agricultural society.
• Join in with industry-supported events such as LEAF’s Farmer Time or Open Farm Sunday or use NFYFC and LEAF Education resources to help plan a school visit.
• Invite your local MP to meetings, shows, rallies or discussions and raise your ideas, concerns or just start a conversation to make sure that you know who your MP is, and most importantly, he or she knows who you are.  This a really powerful way of making sure there’s a clear understanding of what’s happening in rural communities, the food and farming industries and of course your YFC.

How do I find my local MP?

The UK Parliament website gives you step-by-step instructions and information to help you find and contact your MP. It is helpful to consider your aims and objectives for getting in touch and outline these to ensure an appropriate response or course of action.

This link gives a guide to all the different ways of contacting your MP and how to find out if MPs have special interests.

It also explains that if you are interested in a particular Bill that is going through Parliament, you could use the Bills before Parliament pages to look at which MPs have spoken at its Second reading debate and which have been selected to serve on its Public Bill Committee. You can also send in your views on a Bill to the committee as a whole while it is sitting.

With so much change happening, you may want to get more involved at any level of your choice. If you need further help or advice, contact your YFC AGRI representative or sarah.palmer@nfyfc.org.uk.