rurallife
40 Mahurangimatters April 17, 2019
Wellsford couple share their dairy dream Urgent need for fire brigade volunteers
Colin and Isabella Beazley took the 2019 top title after coming third last year.
miss out on time with us,” Isabella said. “Another strength is our family support. They are always there to help us out if and when we need it.” When they are not caring for the cows, the Beazleys enjoy tag rugby, hockey and visiting local beaches. “We just try to be a happy-go-lucky couple who always see the positives in everything,” Isabella added. Another Wellsford area dairyman who did well in the awards was Simon Robinson, who placed third in the Dairy Manager of the Year competition, winning just over $1500
and the Webb Ross McNab Kilpatrick Employee Engagement Award. He manages Tapora Trust’s 750-cow, 270 hectare property close to the Kaipara Harbour. He said he enjoyed the discipline and consistency of working with the cows, but loved getting off the farm to go fishing, too. And Kaiwaka trainee Tipene Hape came third in the Dairy Trainee of the Year section. The 23-year-old, who is a farm assistant on Kevin Sidwell’s 190 hectare farm, milking 425 cows, won $1,250 in prizes and the 2019 Northland DIA Communication & Engagement Award.
Matakana Volunteer Fire Brigade is once again seeking new recruits to ensure it has enough crew for local callouts. The brigade sometimes struggles to get to every emergency at present, simply because not enough members live within seven minutes’ drive of the Omaha Flats Road fire station. Volunteers’ support member Angela Gibbons says the main problem is that Matakana is a largely transient community. “There are a lot of people in Omaha and out to the edges of Whangateau, but a lot of them work away and are out from 5am to 7pm, and we need people during the day,” she says. “We’re not making a lot of callouts, because we just don’t have the people. For anyone that lives in this area, this is about our safety – we need someone there to answer the call.” The brigade will be holding its annual open day at Matakana Fire Station on Saturday, May 4 from 10am to 2pm, where the focus will be on education about how to provide medical support until emergency services arrive, since many callouts are for medical problems. There will also be a Wendy House smoke demonstration and the cooking oil kitchen fire trailer will be there. Anyone interested in learning more should contact Peter Guild on 0274 726 080 or visit fireandemergency.nz/ volunteering/with-us
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Wellsford husband and wife team Colin and Isabella Beazley have taken out the 2019 Northland Dairy Industry Awards Share Farmer of the Year title. The couple, who milk 330 cows on Neil Jones and Wendy Crow-Jones’ Shepherd Road property, took home almost $8000 in prizes and also won four merit awards – the Ecolab Farm Dairy Hygiene Award, the Honda Farm Safety, Health and Biosecurity Award, the LIC Recording and Productivity Award and the Westpac Business Performance Award. It was third time lucky for Colin and Isabella, who have entered the awards twice before and achieved third place last year. They said the awards process was a good learning platform and a great way to benchmark themselves against others in the dairy industry, as well as learn more about themselves and their business. Following the awards night last month, they recently held a field day at their property to show off their skills and share their knowledge. They believed one of their main strengths was the flexibility their splitcalving system provided. “This allows us to keep more control of our costs and ensure workload stability,” Colin said. It also helps the Beazleys to juggle their work-life balance and ensure they have plenty of time with children Erin, aged 7, and Dayton, aged 2. “They absolutely love it and they don’t
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