Despite the name, Jay County Farm Bureau’s Family Farming Fun Night is more than just fun and games.

While one of the event’s goals is to offer an entertaining, family-friendly, no-cost event to both members and non-members in the farming community, it also has a more serious purpose, and that is to attract new members. Last year’s event was specifically focused on young farmers and young ag professionals.

“Four new members signed up that night and eight more signed up later on,” said Connie Muhlenkamp, Jay County education and outreach coordinator. In addition, Muhlenkamp explained, a direct result of the event was the formation of a new Young Farmers & Ag Professionals group in Jay County.

“They held their first meeting a month after the event and their first YF&AP county event four months later,” Muhlenkamp added.

For this program, the Jay County Farm Bureau received one of Indiana Farm Bureau’s 2023 County Activities of Excellence awards in the “Innovating and Growing” category.

The program is now in its third year and averages around 150 attendees. The agenda is very simple, consisting of food – pizza, salads and the like – and games such as bingo, a raffle and farm trivia.

“We remind them about the benefits of being a Farm Bureau member, but we don’t do a lot of talking,” Muhlenkamp said. “We just give them a meal and let them enjoy themselves.”

The county uses email invitations and social media posts to promote the program, but Muhlenkamp said their most effective technique so far has been calling someone up with a personal invitation.

“It seems like when they get a personal invitation, they are more likely to come,” she explained.

A toolkit providing specific information about how to organize a similar event can be found on INFB’s website, www.infb.org/toolkits.  

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Event name: Family Farming Fun Night.

County Farm Bureau: Jay County.

Strategic goal addressed by the event: “Innovating and Growing.”

Event goals:

• To host an evening event to which members and non-members in the farming community can bring their families for a fun evening at no cost to them.
• To attract a target audience and get them involved in the county Farm Bureau. The specific goal was to increase membership among younger farmers and ag professionals.

Budget: About $1,000 for food, entertainment and the rental of a fellowship hall.

Attendance: About 150 people attended, resulting in 12 new members.

Bonus: The event was instrumental in Jay County’s effort to start a Young Farmers & Ag Professionals committee in the county.