05 Jan Inaugural Fitness Event Inspires Award Win
The pair are keen advocates for looking after your physical and mental wellbeing. Together they run their own Personal Training business called GJ Coaching, and were the inspiration and brains behind one of the most successful new events in the west region this year – West’s Fittest Young Farmer. The pair have both competed at the UK Fittest Farmer finals with Jacalyn achieving third place Nationally. And they wanted to use their experience to help promote the benefits for all members that training, and fitness could have to improve their health and wellbeing.
Speaking after their nomination, the pair had this to say:
“Our inspiration to create West Fittest Young Farmer was to promote health and fitness amongst SAYFC members. From our own personal experience, we know just how closely linked our physical and mental health are and our hope is that more and more SAYFC members will feel inspired by this event and get involved in fitness for more reasons than one. We have enjoyed many years of young farmers and benefited from it hugely, so we thought it was time to give something back.”
The pair’s hard work and enthusiasm made sure that the competition itself was a huge success with junior and senior members from all over the west region being cheered on by a huge crowd on the day. And for Grant and Jacalyn this is just the beginning:
“Our hope is that over the next few years the event goes from strength to strength and will allow us to introduce as many people as possible into the world of fitness. We all know that farming can be a lonely industry so we hope that this event will lead to friendships and help build a community to promote health and wellbeing.”
Speaking in a special video played on the awards night, west chair Colin McKinnon praised the pair for their efforts:
“Grant & Jacalyn approached us to bring a whole new competition to our syllabus, the west fittest farmer, something that they were so passionate about and something that they really wanted to drive home to young farmers throughout the West of Scotland. Bringing forward mental health issues and promoting better wellbeing to members. Everyone had a really enjoyable day, and it was a great turnout from everybody there.”
Alongside Colin, Competitor on the day- Edward Martin was highly impressed by the event:
“It was a great way to meet new likeminded people and it was a very well-run event. There was a big variation in the type of things you were doing so it didn’t matter whether you were better at one thing or the other, it was a really good demonstration of all-round fitness. It was great that they brought so many different types of people into it as well and different stalls, so that you could talk to people that are in the industry to try and get a better knowledge of it.”
All this led to the Five Star Awards and the pair being recognised for their efforts with the Safety and Wellbeing Award. After their big award win, Grant and Jacalyn have their eyes on the future:
“We were over the moon to win the Safety & Wellbeing award at SAYFC’s 5 star awards. Being nominated alongside 2 other very worthy nominees filled us with so much pride so to then go on and win was such a massive achievement for us.
It is a lovely way to be recognised for our efforts in creating & hosting the first ever functional fitness event for Young Farmers members.
We can’t wait to see what next year’s event will bring and what the future holds for this competition – we have big ideas!”