Wales YFC News

It is a tradition in Carmarthenshire that the County Chair and County Ambassadors set themselves a challenge to raise money for their chosen charities, and this year was no exception.

I, Caryl Jones am this year’s Chair of Carmarthenshire Young Farmers’ Clubs and the 2024 – 25 Ambassador team is Fiona Phillips as Ambassador, Elgan Thomas as Ambassador followed by Jack Davies, Siriol Howells, Daniel O’Callaghan and Katie Sauro as deputies, and after several discussions we decided to set our challenge for this year which was Tenyfan! Walk Penyfan 10 times in 24 hours.

After several months of organising, meetings with the Brecon Beacons National Park team and of course several long walks to strengthen the legs, we started the challenge on Friday the 11th of April. We were very fortunate to have the support of many members and friends to start the first walk with us and that was to get to the summit before the sun went down. The weather was perfect, and we saw a beautiful sunset!

Back down we went. A number of our friends had to go home, but we as a team had to continue all night, number 2, 3, 4, 5… Everyone was looking forward to number 6 as a number of members and friends were coming back to join us in order to get to the summit for dawn! And wow, what a sunrise! The weather remained as clear as ever, and everyone was able to enjoy the magnificent views while watching it dawn, ticking off a bucket list moment for many including me!

By this time it was the morning of Saturday 12th of April, it was important that we ate a good breakfast which was going to give us enough energy to keep us going throughout the day. Several members and friends flocked over to Penyfan to support us once again during the day, and this definitely helped us as a team to continue.

During the challenge over 80 members and friends of the organisation came together to walk part of the challenge with us and we as a team really appreciate everyone’s support! The challenge was completed in 21 hours at 4pm on Saturday afternoon, and as a team we walked over 400,000 steps!

A big thank you to Tir Dewi, Hywel Dda and Stiwdio Lowri for the kit for the day, to Brecon Carreg for the water, Sioned Page Jones for assisting with first aid and to everyone who was in the gazebo keeping us going with food and drink throughout the challenge!

Although our legs were tired by the end of the challenge, we were all so grateful to have been able to complete such a challenge to raise money for very special charities. This year’s Ambassadors’ charity was Tir Dewi, a charity that supports people in rural areas with mental health problems, and my charity of choice as County Chair this year was the Glangwili Chemotherapy Unit. A charity that is very close to me but also to a large number of members of the County as we recently lost a valued member who was receiving treatment at the Unit in Glangwili.

We are very grateful to everyone for their generous donations towards our charities. There is still an opportunity to donate via this link – https://gofund.me/c2db4665

I wonder what challenge the next team will set for themselves next year?