The Rural Voice, 1979-06, Page 31Marritt, a sheep farmer from Turnberry
and member of the township Federation of
griculture executive, and Professor Wolfe
resented the groups' views and partic-
ated in a two day workshop on the design
'public programs.
Guinea pigs?
Centralia's first
swine workers
graduate
The 21 students who graduated from
Centralia College of Agricultural
Technology's first swine farm worker
training progr. ;n may have felt like
"guinea pigs" at times, but they were also
"pioneers", according to Doug Jamieson,
the program's administrator.
The program, created to provide ex-
perienced swine workers for farms in
southwestern Ontario, was jointly funded
by the Canada Employment Centres, the
Canada Farm Labour Pool and the Ontario
Ministry of Colleges and Universities to
provide a pool of trained people to work on
farms. The program is unique because it is
training students for jobs already known to
be in existence.
Doug Jamieson told the graduates that
"I have never seen red tape fall by the
wayside so fast" as in the creation of the
program. Only seven months ago, Mr.
Jamieson and Canada Manpower re-
presentatives met to discuss the feasiblility
of offering such a course. In mid-November
Doug McRae of R.R.1. Denfield was hired
to co-ordinate the program and the
students started classes in January.
Twenty-one of the 25 students who
started the 15 week program received their
graduation diplomas at Friday's banquet.
Mr. Jamieson said because students
were "guinea pigs" they developed a
special "esprit de corps" during their time
together, made valuable contacts within
the industry and rubbed shoulders with
some of the leading pork production
experts in the country.
The guest speaker at the banquet.
Howard Malcolm of Janetville, chairman of
the Ontario Pork Producers' Marketing
Board, said he felt involved with the
Mrs. Marritt summed up the conference
by saying, "It was a very constructive
experience. And we had ample opportunity
to present the views of our people to
agency personnel, academics, and politic-
ians. What people really wanted to hear
wasn't theory, but the experiences of
groups like ours. They wanted to know how
we organized our meetings, what we did,
what value they were. We need more
sharing like this if the public is ever going
to be able to make constructive input."
Doug Jamieson, administrator of Centralia College's swine farm
worker program presents graduation certificates to John
Johnston of Auburn and Robert Vanderpryt of Dublin as Howard
Malcolm, chairman of the Ontario Pork Producers' Marketing
Board extends his congratulations. The first class of the new
program were honored at graduation ceremonies and a banquet
at the college
Ruth Hastings of Wingham and Corrie LeRoy of Ripley visit with
Sam Glazema of Moorefield, one of the training farmers for
students in the swine farm workers training program at Centralia
College. This is the first time the course has been offered in the
province of Ontario and 21 of the 25 students successfully
completed the intensive training course.
THE RURAL VOICE/JUNE 1979 PG. 29