Wha¯ nau strong in shearing
The first shearing competition cancelled because of the Covid-19 crisis last year has marked the anniversary with a successful launching of a te reo Ma¯ ori strategy as a step to help ensure its future.
The launch came on Saturday at the Waimarino Shears in small central North Island town Raetihi, where youthful president Turi Edmonds, a 30-year-old shearer who also reached the semi-final of the day’s Open championship, has just the heritage needed for the job.
He’s the fifth generation Edmonds in the chair since the Shears was first held in 1979.
“If you’re an Edmonds around Raetihi, not being involved is not an option,” said cousin and committee member Elijah Pue.
“We are all family. We don’t have a choice. There are no excuses.”
But it’s not like anyone being forced into something they might not want to do.
It’s more about being second nature, in an area in enhancing proximity to the wonders of nature, with Ruapehu only a good fleece-throw away.
Mãori have historically been over 60 per cent of the shearing industry workforce, and shearing is the main employer in Raetihi, perhaps second only in the area to the tourism industry.
Another significant player is iwi organisation Ngati Rangi Inc, with 44 staff in Ohakune, a direct supporter of the Shears with personnel and technology services.
Uniquely, the Waimarino Shears has not had to resort to “pokie money” to help fund its operation, drawing instead on partnerships which have an interest in being involved, from the local shearing contractors, trucking firms and tourism fraternity, to majors such as huge landowning operation Atihau-Whanganui Inc, Government Mãori development agency Te Puni Kokiri, and Ngati Rangi.
The Shears started as part of the Raetihi A and P Show, and now runs in conjunction with the two-day Waimarino Rodeo, held on the same weekend at the Raetihi Showgrounds, signs of innovation and hard work over the years are obvious.
Its four-stand shearing stand is one thing, a structure of some tonnage in front of a grandstand, mounted on rails so it can be wheeled aside to open the view to the local rugby matches in the winter.
In 2021, the latest innovations include what Pue calls “the flash TVs”, the screens displaying the names of each competitor on each stand, with committee hopes of progressing to times and points from the points-scoring technology of the future.
Special attention was made to displaying where the competitors are from, with bi-lingual appropriation such as Whakaror iMasterton, as appears for two competitors in each of three of the finals.
Arena commentators were soon using Mãori in starting each event: Kaiwhakawã, Kaiwhakataetae, and ‘kia rite — tukua’, for judges, competitors and ‘get set — go’.
Edmonds, who became president after the death of predecessor Rodney Frew in a motorbike crash in January last year, said shearing competitions had declining entry numbers over several years, and a reo strategy was one idea that came from discussions after the cancellation of last year’s competition at just a few days’ notice.
The weeks after the Golden Shears, held annually in the first week of March but cancelled this year because of the remergence of Covid-19 alert level 2, are always difficult, he said.
The committee wants to “embed a te reo Mãori strategy in the Waimarino Shears that provides a sustainable direction with relevance as our point of difference”, but it wants other shows aboard the waka in making sure they get it right in such things as use of people’s names and home areas.
“We encourage other shows within Aotearoa to consider the normalising of te reo Mãori and the value and credibility it will bring to the profile of the entire shearing industry,” its strategy says.
During a prizegiving ceremony later and expressing his love for returning to Raetihi each season, champion shearer Rowland Smith, of Maraekakaho, in the rohe of Te Matau-a-Mã ui (Hawke’s Bay), said: “Every time I come here there’s something new, and cool.”
Smith was one of the things that wasn’t a lot different, winning the four-stand Open final of 20 sheep each for an 8th time since 2013.
Fellow former Golden Shears and World champion Gavin Mutch, a Scotland international now farming near Dannevirke, or Tãmaki-nui-a-rua, and who disrupted Smith’s sequence by winning in 2018, made the pace to finish 20 seconds clear, in 17min 31sec.
But Mutch ultimately had to settle for third place as Smith’s superior quality ballooned a winning margin to 4.15pts from eventual runner-up Jack Fagan, of Te Kuiti, in possibly Fagan’s best A-grade show result in New Zealand, despite having to mix the competition with arena commentating alongside fellow Open shearer Jimmy Samuels and champion woolhandler Joel Henare.
National rankings leader David Buick, of Pongaroa, missed a place in the final but won the Plate, while Masterton shearers Chris Dickson and Kyle Mita were first and second in the Senior final.
Welsh teenager Aled Llyr Evans, of Aberystwyth, staved off Masterton brothers Joseph and Adam Gordon to claim Intermediate honours, and Henry Stewart, of Aorangi-Feilding, won the Junior final by 1.65pts from English shearer Sam Green, from Bude, Cornwall.
The Novice final provided a tangata whenua tahi-rua finish for Cameron Artz and Zach Doolan.
The New Zealand Shears is in Te Kuiti on April 10.
If you’re an Edmonds around Raetihi, not being involved is not an option.
Elijah Pue