SHOW PRESIDENT

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31195, 20 October 1966, Page 24

SHOW PRESIDENT

President for the centennial show is Mr J. S. T. McGiffert, who farms a 280 acres property at Sefton. The property includes the original block taken up by his grandfather in 1873 after coming put from Ireland and working the Otago gold fields. Mr McGiffert took over the property from his father. Two other brothers are farming in the Sefton district also. They are Mr A. S. McGiffert and Mr E. J. McGiffert.

Educated at the Mount Grey Downs primary school and the Rangiora High School, Mr McGiffert worked on the family farm after leaving school.

Although never an exhibitor at the Northern A. and P. Association’s shows, Mr McGiffert took an interest from an early age and as a schoolboy helped the Wyllie family of Sefton with their exhibits of draft horses for the shows. Mr McGiffert has a record of having missed attending only one show since 1919 and that was in 1947 when an illness prevented him from

going. A committee member for the show since 1950, Mr McGiffert has served on several sub-committees and been a regular attender at working bees organised by the association.

A past president of the North Canterbury Ploughing Match Association, an offshoot of the show association, Mr McGiffert has been prominent in ploughing events and has judged two New Zealand championship finals. Mr McGiffert started competition ploughing using horses in 1930, when he won a youths’ class.

Mr McGiffert started driving teams of draught horses on his father’s farm in 1928 and continued to do so regularly for 28 years until the first tractor was bought for the farm in 1954. A team of horses was kept until 1959, because Mr McGiffert preferred them for drilling as they could get on to wet ground much sooner than was possible with the tractor.

Other district organisations have claimed Mr McGiffert’s

attention too. For 10 years he has been chairman of the Sefton Public Hall committee, including a period in which a modern concrete block structure has been erected to re place an outdated wooden building. He has been president of the Kowai Sports Club which promotes an annual gala sports meeting at the Sefton domain.