World flavour to shearing at show

Press, 20 November 1981, Page 16

World flavour to shearing at show

There was quite an international flavour about the shearing at the Canterbury show last week. Two Peruvians, a West German and a young woman from France took part in the intermediate machine shearing. and according to Mr Ray Dunick, chief shearing instructor for the Wool Board in the South Island, all performed, well and particularly the French girl, Anne Bashet. The two Peruvians were Timoteo Arisaca and Felix Castillo. They were chosen by Mr Dunick as shearing instructors and are spending about three months in the South Island. Mr Dunick has been to Peru three time under a foreign aid project to start a shearing training scheme in the country and returned in June from his latest visit. The two instructors came out in September and will be returning home late next month. Because they shear fine wool sheep back home they are spending all of their time in the South Island attending courses and gaining practical shearing experience. They are also learning something about organising shearing competitions and judging competitive shearing and a little time is also being spent on shearing shed design. A catch is that neither can speak English, but Mr Dunick says that he can speak just enough Spanish to handle the situation. The West German was Klaus Kiefer, who has come to New Zealand under his own auspices to do a shearing course and also gain practical experience. He

does most of his shearing in the south of France. Klaus has been in New Zealand before, having shorn in the world championships at Masterton two years ago. Anne Bashet, from the south of France, had also come out under her own steam to do a shearing course and get practical shearing experience, Mr Dunick said. There is evidently a lot of overseas interest in New Zealand shearing courses, which results in people flying here from England, France and Australia. There have been inquiries, too, from places like Israel. Two blade shearers of long standing were honoured during the blade shearing day at the show last Friday. Master blade shearer awards were presented to Dick Perry (Rangiora) and Les Richards (Christchurch) by the field director of the Wool Board. Mr Godfrey Bowen.. According to Mr Bowen there are now about 30 master machine shearers and eight master blade men. These • awards are not lightly given. They are made for notable service to the

blade shearing industry and that includes, quite apart from being outstanding shearers themselves, creating an image for younger men to emulate and helping with the training of younger people. For the third time at the show Donny Hammond, from Timaru. who is aged 44 years, carried off the New Zealand blade shearing championships. It meant that for the first time a shearer has won not only the national championships but. also the Alexandra Merino fine wool championship and also the Waimate southern spring shears. His win in the latter event will take him to Australia next year to do exhibition shearing. Donny, who has been blade shearing for 26 years, said after the results were announced that this would be the last time he would be seen in Christchurch shearing competitively — he is really retiring although he has indicated such an intention before. If he is on the board at the show again it will be helping with the competitions but not shearing. Nineteen-year-old David Leach, also from Timaru, who works for Donny; in his second season of blade shearing won the New Zealand intermediate championships. People’s Day at the show was a striking demonstration of the popularity of shearing. In spite of the heat in the shearing pavilion, it was packed all day. Good commentaries on the shearing heightened the atmosphere and had supporters of some of the contestants crying out their words of encouragement.