MEDIA RELEASE
From Doug Lang, media officer, Shearing Sports New Zealand
January 4, 2014
Keeping shearing competitions alive in the North
The long-time organiser of the first of New Zealand’s northernmost shearing competitions of the summer is determined the
events will survive despite a shortage of shearers after the decline in the sheep population north of Auckand.
Richard Tylden runs the Kaikohe Agricultural, Pastoral and Hortcultural Society’s shearing competition which will be
held next Saturday at the Kaikohe Showgrounds and has a big stake in the history of the event.
He’s been involved since 1979 when he stepped into the breach at a day’s notice after an organiser’s relative was killed
in the Erebus disaster, but the family history dates back at least another 20 years to when his father and uncle built
the original facilities for the shearing competition when the show was held at the recreation ground in Kaikohe in the
late 1950s.
“We’ve got a top-class four-stand facility now,” he said. “We’ve been through the sheep-numbers thing, we’ve managed to
keep going, and we will keep going. I don’t see why not.”
In the peak years, about 500 sheep were being mustered for the competition, but he expects just 200 lambs will be needed
for next Saturday’s junior, intermediate, senior, open and veterans shearing events.
It still has the potential to present some top up-and-coming shearers, as it did in 2012 when Kaeo brothers Bevan, Bryce
and Charlie Guy won the Open, Intermediate and Junior events respectively, and 2001 when the Junior runner-up was Ruawai
youngster Rowland Smith, in his first final on a path which culminated in his crowning as World Champion last May.
The shows have some real stalwarts in veterans headed by 79-year-old Rusty Campbell, who has rarely missed a show in the
north over the last half-century.
Others are Ken Massey and Rex Salisbury, both now in their 70s, and who with Campbell will make another pilgrimage to
compete at the Golden Shears in Masterton in the first week of March.
Among others who’ve helped the contest survive is King Country veteran Digger Balme, who made the 400km-plus journey
last year for a family double in which he and son Josh won the Open and Junior titles respectively.
Fears for the future of Northland shearing competitions loomed with the demise of shearing at the Kumeu show. The only
Shearing Sports New Zealand A-graded show north of Auckland, it has been held in the second weekend of March in recent
years, attracting the stars from the Golden Shears a week earlier.
Next Saturday’s shears are scheduled to start at 10am.
The six northern shearing competitions this summer are: Jan 10, Kaikohe A.P. and H. Show, at Kaikohe Showgrounds; Jan
24, Warkworth A and P Lifestyle Show, at Warkworth; Feb 7, North Kaipara A and P Show, at Paparoa; Feb 14, Northern
Wairoa A and P Show, at Dargaville; Feb 21, North Hokianga A and P Show, at Broadwood; Apr 3-4, Northern Shears, at the
Easter Show, Auckland.
ENDS