Women’s course accentuates the positive

It is unbelievable how negative the ‘‘news’’ has been recently. I wonder why the news media considers so many private details of murder trials need to be fed daily to the public.

My heart bleeds for the family of the victim. Imagine the heartbreak they are enduring. I can’t see any benefit in reporting gruesome ‘‘facts’’ when compared with causing relived hurt to families.

It is a sad situation that this is so callously over-reported and yet so much positive news is carelessly overlooked.

So I will share a happy event I had the pleasure to be part of last week celebrating women and positive choices. A special ceremony when 14 special rural women graduated from a programme called ‘‘Understanding Your Farm Business’’. The course is set up and run by Agri-women’s Development Trust which is funded by 11 organisations, including banks, MPI, Beef and Lamb, and insurance companies, who see the value of supporting rural communities.

Women make up 50 per cent of farm businesses in varied roles, contributing physically, financially, socially, emotionally as well as often being the stereotypical cuppa tea and scone makers. The vision of AWDT is ‘‘women as vital partners in world-leading NZ primary industries’’ and the UYFB course increases skills and confidence to deal with the multiple challenges faced.

The programme is a full day a month over three months plus work at home between facilitated sessions.

Now a confession from me. I do seriously endeavour to see a commitment through but for this one I am officially a ‘‘drop-out’’ because I only managed to attend the first day back in August.

That actually makes the achievement of the rest of the team even more significant as they put aside farm jobs and family life to work ‘‘on’’ their business not ‘‘in’’ it . Not easy to do over spring time, especially when every scheduled day was fine and sunny.

Farm businesses are complex and often confusing things with so many aspects to work on and usually include being accountable for a large debt.

Many women end up part of a farm business because they fell in love with the boss’ son or have a personal relationship with the chief executive.

In this Takaka course, some participants did grow up on farms while others came from a background of teaching, beauty therapy, travel industry, nursing, and even an amazing young woman who lived in a city of 12 million people in Brazil whose home is now a beautiful but isolated farm at Golden Bay.

So to understand farm business, a broad range of subjects were discussed from feed budgets, financial management and reporting, stock reconciliation, to more relationship oriented topics.

Issues like having hard conversations, farm succession, planning together with your ‘‘significant other’’ and, importantly, recognising who is your trusted team.

The Golden Bay UYFB was a diverse, interesting and wonderfully positive group of women with a range of ages.

There was differing experience and knowledge, some dairy and others sheep or beef, varying roles from managing, helping out, leasing or owning properties. One participant is part of an inspiring family initiative building a pasture-toplate business growing animals and marketing meat.

Apart from learning facts and figures and gaining confidence, the big plus for most participants was meeting other local rural women, the camaraderie, laughter and friendships built.

So the final event was a formal evening where work clothes and boots were swapped for fancy attire and high heels.

Even though I wasn’t officially part of proceedings, Jock and I joined the festivities celebrating the dedication and achievements of these wonderful women and hearing their stories of what each one gained over the time.

Confidence in administration, skills in relationships, more understanding of the ‘‘paper side’’, increased knowledge of how to support a partner, and courage to try new things. And for me an extra joy was that I have had the privilege and pleasure of standing with four of these lovely women in another celebration in their lives, as they married that ‘‘significant other’’ person.

Apparently what the media provides is ‘‘what the public want to hear’’. Sure I can cancel the paper and turn the TV off to remove myself from this negative stuff but that carries a risk of becoming isolated and out of touch.

As one small part of that great nebulous crowd of people who make up ‘‘the public’’, I long for more positivity in papers and constructive coverage in media.