What is the CCYA Conference & Show

At the conference, the youth are given a chance to showcase their talents in a variety of areas:

Team Marketing – working with one or two teammates, participants must sell an animal or related product to a prospective buyer.

Individual Marketing – participants create a radio ad, magazine ad or webpage design to promote an animal, farm or sale, or they can individually sell an animal or related item.

Team Grooming – working with teammates from other age divisions, participants have an allotted period of time to prepare an animal for the show-ring.

Team Judging – working with a partner, one participant judges and another acts as ringman to conduct and judge a class of animals in a real-life setting, giving reasons over the microphone.

Individual Judging – Participants judge 3 classes - bull calves, yearling heifers, and steers – placing and giving written reasons for each.

Oral reasons – Participants give reasons on one or more of the above classes to a judge.

Keep & Cull – Participants evaluate a group of cattle with calves at foot, using EPDs, conformation and other information, to determine which animals they would keep in their herd and which they would cull.

Art – Artwork related to the charolais industry can be submitted at the beginning of the conference to be judged.

Photography – Pictures related to the charolais industry can be submitted at the beginning of the conference to be judged

Showmanship – A traditional showmanship competition is held amongst all competitors.

Cattle Conformation – Participants have the opportunity to bring animals from their farm (if able) to compete in a traditional conformation show.

Herdsman Competition – Participants are placed in herdsman groups at the beginning of the week, and judges observe how the group interacts and how well kept their stall area is.

Scott Rairdan Memorial Ambassador Award – Participants are evaluated on their friendliness, helpfulness with junior members, and general attitude by judges during the conference.

Aggregate Competition – Participants scores in a variety of competitions are accumulated to determine the score for this overall competition.

Education Awards – Senior participants only receive this award based on accumulated scores in a variety of competitions. Winners are able to apply the award towards a number of different education experiences.