SHEARING AND WOOLHANDLING EVENTS

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29763, 5 March 1962, Page 18

SHEARING AND WOOLHANDLING EVENTS

THERE IS SOMETHING FASCINATING about a shearing ' shed with the hum of machines, the shearers in their black singlets and sacking moccasins bending over their victims and sweeping off the golden fleece with great blows, the wool handlers throwing the fleeces onto the table and the table hands skirting and deftly rolling the fleeces for pressing.

Something of this atmosphere will be recaptured in Canterbury Court at Addington Show Grounds on Wednesday when the Christchurch central committee for shearing and wooihandling stages the New Zealand blade shearing championships and the South Island final of both the open and young Farmers’ Club team shearing and woolhandling competitions.

The shearing and wool handling will go on all day from 9.30 a.m., starting with the preliminary runs from which the best blade shearers and shearing and wool handling teams will be selected to contest the final at an evening session when shearing and wool handling will be punctuated about every 25 minutes by mannequin parades portraying the latest fashions in wool.

Two sets of two shearing stands will be set on a platform about 3ft above floor level and there will be seat-

ing accommodation —mainly tiered—for some 1400 people. Blade shearing is still a highly important art in the South Island, where climatic conditions are too arduous for the closer cutting machines, but unhappily in recent years numbers of exponents of the art have been insufficient to shear all the sheep that should be shorn in this way. One of the objectives of the New Zealand blade shearing championships is. therefore, to stimulate interest in this sort of shearing in order to increase numbers of blade

shearers as well as raise the standard of blade shearing.

The event has attracted an entry of 27 shearers from Queenstown in the south to Blenheim. Among them are men who can shear well over 200 sheep a day with the blades and who claimed top honours at the Australasian blade shearing championships at Masterton last year. The blade men will compete for a first prize of £lOO and a gold medal, second prize of £5O. and third prize of £25. The Wool Board has given the gold medal and a donation of £l5 'to the prize money, and the Golden Shears International Shearing Championship Society, which did not have a blade event on its programme at Masterton at the week-end, has given £5O. Each of the competitors will shear during the day one trial sheep and then four sheep on which they will be judged. The six men who are judged to have done best during the day will go on to the final in

the evening when they will shear a trial sheep and then five competition sheep. Two expert judges will assess the work of the shearers from point of view of their workmanship on the board and the finished job. and account will of course also be taken of the time factor. The finals of the open and Young Farmers' Club team shearing and wool handling competitions will be the climax of preliminary competitions extending over many months in all parts of the island. These competitions are a realistic attempt to give a proper place to the importance of wool handling as well as shearing in the woolshed. and in particular to stimulate interest in and raise the standard of the less spectacular but highly important department of wool handling.

In both events teams will comprise two shearers and two woolhandlers—a board man and a table hand. The shearers will each shear a trial sheep and five competition sheep during the day and in the final at night when the two leading teams in each section will compete. Two shearing judges will judge ■the shearing skill of the teams and another two judges will assess the wool handling work on the board, the sorting of oddments, the work on the table, and teamwork. Points will be scored out of 100 for shearing, out of 100 for wool handling, and also out of 100 for time, with the first team to finish getting the possible for time.

There will be 10 teams in the open section. These come from Southland to Nelson. In the North and Mid-Can-terbury preliminary events were held at local shows with a district final being held in Christchurch in November for that area and Westland Five Young Farmers’ Club teams will also come forward from an equally wide area. The Christchurch district A team wmn its place in the

final by winning the area final for the district from the Rangitata to the Conway and Westland following club and inter-club contests after which teams were selected representing Westland, Ashburton, Christchurch and North Canterbury districts. The grand first prize for each of these two events is a trip to Australia for about 10 days at the expense of the Wool Board. This trip, which will probably involve some wool promotional activity, will be timed to coincide with the Sydney sheep show. In each section there will, also be second and third prizes of £lO and £5, and R. A. Lister and Company are giving a challenge cup and four silver tankards to the winners of the open section. A highlight of both afternoon and evening sessions will be demonstrations by Godfrey Bowen, field director of the Wool Board, who has an international reputation as a shearer and instructor.