New Chair For Dairy Awards

New Chair For Dairy Awards

The new chair of the New Zealand Dairy Industry Awards, Matthew Richards, is a role model for the saying give a job to a busy person and it will get done.

Mr Richards has taken on the role with some strong ideas on how the awards may need to evolve over the next few years to remain relevant to the industry.

He also recognises he has huge boots to fill, following in the footsteps of Greg Maughan who has chaired the awards since 2007 and has been involved in the Sharemilker of the Year competition every year since first entering in 1997.

Mr Richards says his passion for the awards was ignited in 2003 when he and wife Vanessa won the Southland Sharemilker of the Year title.

“It was only our second year sharemilking and winning the regional title really set us up – all of a sudden we could almost do what we wanted.”

In 2004 he joined the Southland organising committee, before convening the Southland competition in 2005 and joining the national management committee in 2006.

Now he has the job to chair the voluntary team organising the 2010 New Zealand Dairy Industry Awards that will culminate in a national awards dinner in Rotorua in May next year.

Mr Richards says the awards format and structure needs to evolve and that is likely to mean there will be some changes for the 2010 competitions – New Zealand Sharemilker of the Year, New Zealand Farm Manager of the Year and New Zealand Dairy Trainee of the Year.

“There will need to be some changes to the competition as the current format has been outgrown. As the awards are being driven from a volunteer base – and we don’t want to lose sight of that – we want them to have input into our strategy going forward.”

He says the ideas he has will be discussed with the volunteer convenors from around the country at a conference in October. Then they will be confirmed and made public.

The New Zealand Dairy Industry Awards are supported by national sponsors Westpac, Honda, DairyNZ, Ecolab, Federated Farmers, Fonterra, LIC, Meridian Energy, Ravensdown and RD1, along with industry partner Agriculture ITO.

As well as chairing the awards, Mr Richards’ oversees a Southland farming business milking more than 2500 cows on three neighbouring properties in varying structures. He is also the sharemilkers representative for Southland Federated Farmers, the Chair of Southland Agriculture ITO and on the HR committee for the Southland demonstration farm.

Mr Maughan remains on the committee, as treasurer.

ENDS

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