Meet Sid...Your new local, neighbourhood History Spider



Our young volunteers with their recent creations. Coming to
a Geocache near you!



Is there a certain spider crawling up your long-forgotten memories in the attic? Has it crawled its way into new discoveries you thought long forgotten? In that case, it may just be Dorset Young Rememeber's eight-legged Geocache mascot, proudly named Sid by our young volunteer, Edward. As part of our diverse opportunities for this project, Geocaching is just one feature where people of all ages can engage with history within the local Dorset community. But, just so you may be warned now, if any of you decide to undertake our upcoming historic trails, you may not be alone when you find the capsule to log in your efforts. Who knows - he may just spring up when you least expect it...



"Nice to meet you." Sid happily posing for his close-up at
Routes.



Farmers of the Future

We visited an intriguing farmers group in Beaminster. Beaminster Young Farmers started in 1935 under the umbrella of the Dorset County Federation of Young Farmers Clubs, only recently came into association with Dorset Youth Association as dropping numbers of older young people led to a switch to welcoming those from 10 and up in 2006. Since then they have celebrated a 75 year anniversary in 2010 and a proud success of winning the Upton Oil Cup of various competitions and sports. So what has made this unusual youth club so successful for so long and why have so many young people joined in the club's diverse activities? Lorna Johnson, along with fellow DYR members Elizabeth and Rosie Silk, went to find out.

Meeting long-time associative of the club 'Uncle' Evered Way and his great niece, Helen Waybridge, they discussed just some of their fond memories when members of the youth club. Talking about their famous annual harvest suppers and competitions, in which it was always an important event for any member of the club, Uncle Evered said that people always dressed smartly and men turning out in suits and ties! Other competitions such as tractor ploughing, sheep shearing and bull rearing activities were designed to help young people in their future lives as farmers.  Evered, who helped raised and rear animal stock such as bull to sell at later farming markets, admitted that when the time came to sell his efforts to other buyers "it is a sort of a friend, isn't it." For women, dressmaking, fashion shows and jam making were more the order back in those days although women did take on ploughing etc.. The young farmers group also has the distinction of the title of a being a 'marriage bureau' in which members as young as 16 would meet their potential life partners and be married to other members of the club. Evered, who was the first in a long line of a generation of the group, met his wife at the club and has since descended from, eventually  Evered's sister giving birth to the father of Helen and she giving birth to a son when she was 23. With visits from Holland to New York to test out the latest tractor designs, this club doesn't just stay fixed in its one location and there are ongoing competitions to test young members' skills in debating, proving that this club has a wide range of activities.

Finally ending the interview, Beaminster Young Farmers turned out to be a great place to have fun and try fun activities.

Brenda Hobbs and her husband Ellis Hobbs remember Harman’s Cross Youth Club

Brenda and Ellis came and spoke to us about the history of Harman's Cross Youth Club. Harman's Cross Youth Club was run by Brenda's mum, Mrs Mitchell, from the early 1950's until 1968. It was run seven days a week, more or less as they held two club nights, entertainment evenings, Panto rehearsals and at the weekend Mr Mitchell would drive them down to Baggator Adventure Centre. The club would also go abroad once a year.

Ellis told us that Mrs Mitchell ran the youth club because 'she got a lot of enjoyment from the young people and felt that she was doing something really worthwhile.' A youngster in trouble would come to her door because they knew they could talk to her. Brenda said 'they all called her mum so I used to call her Mrs Mitchell if I needed attention.' She added that 'people came to youth club because they wanted to, it wasn't like school.'

The volunteer leaders and young people did everything themselves, they organised events and competitions. Brenda said 'we took on fundraising very enthusiastically by taking part in 50 mile sponsored walks and things.' 'It was the youth clubs hey day in the 50's and 60's because people didn't have TVs, the entertainment was at the club.'

Each club hosted a harvest supper with entertainment and the Director would come to judge and award certificates. The supper was cooked at home and bought in, which usually consisted of salads and cold meat.

The club was all about having fun, they would have rounders tournaments with four boys and four girls on a team and 'the boys would flirt with the girls to put them off and it worked.'

Craft work was of a high standard, taught by Mrs Mitchell and involved weaving baskets and making lobster pots good enough for fishing.

Brenda and Ellis Hobbs with two young volunteers

The project work for the exhibition is progressing rapidly and we have been very busy collecting archive material from the different decades to match our themes of Fun and Friendship, Activities, Sport and Leaders. We are in the process of creating comic book pages with fun speech bubbles and photos of activities as panels for the exhibition. We will also be making slide shows with music of any additional youth club photos to display on a screen in the exhibition.