‘Strong community interest’ in show

Press, 13 March 1987, Page 22

‘Strong community interest’ in show

Mr lan Whillans, at the age of 39, continues a run of Mayfield Agricultural and Pastoral Association presidents who have been under 40. He farms 182.7 hectares of Lismore stony soil on the outskirts of Ruapuna, south of Mayfield. It is a property which his father bought into in 1951 and which Mr Whillans took over in 1971.

There he lives in idyllic surrounds with his wife Joan and three children, Jan, aged 11, David nine and Mark seven. The children attend nearby Ruapuna primary school. Mr Whillans started life the son of a Wanganui storekeeper, but came to Ruapuna for his early education. He later went on to attend Christchurch Boys’ High School. His wife, Mrs Joan Whillans, to whom falls the lot of caring for an eextensive rock garden on the spacious home grounds, is from a Dunedin family. The garden shrubs provide the ideal break between the home and trees which have always been a feature of the property.

A Mr John Ballantyne, part of the Christchurch drapery family, planted trees extensively in the pioneer days when the property was part of an

original 1791.1 hectares. In 1921, that was subdivided into 14 farms, and Mr Whillans is the fourth owner of his 182.7 hectares.

The property still features a lane lined with conifers planted by Mr Ballantyne. It also features an accommodation block which was produced from the purchase of the cabin and deck fittings of the ship Elginshire which foundered on the South Canterbury coast in 1896. While he was t only about 21 when he took over the farm, Mr Whillans was not short of ideas. He later joined a development group of 17 farmers whose central flock of Romneys are managed at Orari Gorge by lan Dent. The purpose of the group was to allow members to breed their own rams. ' About half the group came from Ashburton county, many of them renowned in the breed. All made an annual contribution to the management costs.

Currently, he is aiming to lift the stocking of Romney ewes to around 2000 this year. Formerly, about 202.35 hectares was retained for wheat, barley and peas, Mr Whillans said.

Like many others, he

found time to make a contribution to the community in which he lives. A former lieutenant with the Territorial Army, he is a Lions Club member, a former chairman of the Ruapuna Reserves Board — one of the better funded in Ashburton — and treasurer of the school committee. Asked about the unusual spelling of his name, he said it was believed he descended from a Scottish family of wheelwrights. The Whillans was probably an inadvertent misspelling of Whelans, but that was only speculation. His was one of only two families bearing his name in New Zealand, the other being in Auckland.

Referring to the show tomorrow, he said Mayfield benefited in many ways from the strong community interest. It reflected in the strong membership the association enjoyed and very few families were not represented on the list, which took up four pages of the catalogue.

While there were instances in Mid-Canterbury of farms being merged in the current economic downturn, it was not significant in the MayfieldRuapuna area. As such, it did nothing to explain the drop in entries, which at

3142 excluding school classes, were down on the 3361 last year and the 1978 record of 4769. Rather, he felt the figures had to be balanced against the record and near records maintained over very good farming years. In spite of that, Mr Whillans said, stock in the flock sheep competition had been excellent. Crops and other produce would also be of reasonable standard in spite of the difficult season. The show itself had a few innovations this year, and one should be warmly welcomed in Mayfield. Two of the three police dog handlers, Geoff Bryant and Brian Franks, left the area to join the police, and they would form part of the team putting on a police dog display. Country music would be provided live near the booth area, and the make-and-model competition would be on again. There would be a wine trail mounted by seven Canterbury vineyards which Mr Whillans expected to prove very popular.

It would be near the produce shed, which was always a feature of Mayfield shows. New to the axemen’s ring would be competitive chain saw racing, there would be a motorcross circuit and shearing would use the electronic timing equipment purchased last year in conjunction with other shows on the shearing circuit.

Mr Whillans paid tribute to the work of his secretary, Mr Allan Bean, who was acting in the position for his twentyfourth annual show. By his willingness to work and high standards of organisation, he had made it easy for presidents of the Mayfield A. and P. Association, Mr Whillans said.