WOOL BOARD CONTEST

Press, Volume C, Issue 29468, 21 March 1961, Page 20

WOOL BOARD CONTEST

Shearing And Handling

A week in Australia at the Sydney Show will be offered as first prize in a shearing and wool handling competition to be conducted by, the New Zealand Wool Board next season. The field director of the Wool Board (Mr G. Bowen) advised members of the meat and wool section of Mid-Can-terbury Federated Farmers of this at a meeting in Ashburton.

it was proposed to run a shearing and wool handling competition from which would be selected four champion teams—two from each island—to meet in the New Zealand final, he said. One from each island would be a Young Farmers’ Club team and the other would be an open one, said Mr Bowen. In each case the team would have four members, two shearers and two wool handlers, and the two teams which won the New Zealand finals, one open and one representing the Young Farmers’ Clubs, would go to Australia. By holding the competition, it was hoped the standard not only of shearing, but of wool handling throughout the country would be improved, said Mr Bowen. More would be done through such a competition than would be achieved purely by demonstrations by professionals. However, demonstrations were not superfluous because they sedved as "window dressing’ ’to catch the eye, and to create interest. Diversion Sought “We want everybody interested to take part, and we want the interest diverted from one shearer to a smoothly and efficiently working team of four men, who do the complete operation from A to Z,” he said. Meetings were to be called in every wool selling community throughout the country to discuss the competition. Organisations which would be represented at the meetings would be the New Zealand Woolbrokers’ Association, Federated Farmers, Young Farmers’ Clubs, the agricultural and pastoral associations, the Shearers’ Union, the Department of Agriculture’s wool officers, and, in the North Island, the Shearing Contractors’ Association, Mr Bowen said.

In each district where the competition was to be held he suggested a committee should be set up to arrange selection of the one team in each category to go to the New Zealand finals. Letters announcing the Wool Board’s scheme for the competition were being sent to all interested bodies throughout the country, and an official announcement would be made shortly from Wellington, he added. ■