Thursday, 15 October 2015 07:00

Dairy women celebrate success, hard work

Written by 
Chief executive Zelda de Villiers. Chief executive Zelda de Villiers.

Dairy Womens Network will hold its annual meeting this week with the theme celebrating success and reward for hard work.

Chief executive Zelda de Villiers says there is plenty to celebrate: higher membership and event numbers, new commercial partners, financial stability and innovative ways of working.

"Looking back at the last 12 months, we have achieved a lot," she says. "It has been a year of growth and change and developing pilots -- in particular with the modified Dairy Modules in place of Dairy Days." The modules have drawn bigger numbers, she says.

"DairyNZ was instrumental in the development and funding of the module concept and we are grateful for their ongoing support."

Some 991 people attended the Dairy Modules in the last financial year, half of them non-DWN members. Membership rose from 5000 to 8100 in that time, and event numbers from 134 to 214.

"We... are committed to offering and facilitating quality connections for our members that make positive differences to their personal lives and businesses," says de Villiers.

"An organisation that connects like-minded, successful people is necessary at the best of times and crucial in the current climate.

"With our commercial partners we have been able to offer a wide range of opportunities for our members to connect, learn and upskill in the business of dairying."

The network signed up commercial partners LIC, Whatever Marketing and FMG during the 2014-2015 financial year. MSD Animal Health and Farmsource increased their support, and "a very generous donation" came from gold partner ASB.

The network has re-established inactive regional groups, recruited new regional convenors and increased the regional group count from 26 to 33.

"We have developed and centralised our database so we have a much better understanding of the demographic and profile of our members.

"Justine Kidd also signed on as our board chair.... She is doing a wonderful job, as are the rest of our dynamic team."

The network held a conference in Invercargill in March, with trade stands and "inspiring" key speakers.

de Villiers says the network is stable financially, its first audit showing it to be on track to keep growing its balance sheet year on year.

Its next conference will be in Hamilton in May, themed 'United to succeed'.

"And upcoming modules 'Taking care of your cash' and 'Step up to safety' are relevant to the climate."

The network has set up a group at Lincoln University for young women entering farming.

More like this

Strong uptake of good wintering practices

DairyNZ has seen a significant increase in the number of farmers improving their wintering practices, which results in a higher standard of animal care and environmental protection.

Better animal genetic gain system

A governance group has been formed, following extensive sector consultation, to implement the recommendations from the Industry Working Group's (IWG) final report and is said to be forming a 'road map' for improving New Zealand's animal genetic gain system.

OSPRI's costly software upgrade

Animal disease management agency OSPRI has announced sweeping governance changes as it seeks to recover from the expensive failure of a major software project.

Musical chairs

OPINION: DairyNZ's director elections has seen scientist Jacqueline Rowarth re-elected for another three-year term.

Featured

Massey Research Field Day attracts huge interest

More than 200 people turned out on Thursday, November 21 to see what progress has been made on one of NZ's biggest and most comprehensive agriculture research programmes on regenerative agriculture.

Expo set to wow again

Stellar speakers, top-notch trade sites, innovation, technology and connections are all on offer at the 2025 East Coast Farming Expo being once again hosted in Wairoa in February.

A year of global challenges

As a guest of the Italian Trade Association, Rural News Group Machinery Editor Mark Daniel took the opportunity to make an early November dash to Bologna to the 46th EIMA exhibition.

National

OSPRI's costly software upgrade

Animal disease management agency OSPRI has announced sweeping governance changes as it seeks to recover from the expensive failure of…

Machinery & Products

BA Pumps expand

Cambridge based BA Pumps & Sprayers, specialists in New Zealand-made spraying equipment, has acquired Tokoroa Engineering’s product range, including the…

Entries open for innovation award

Fieldays and its renowned Innovation Awards are celebrating their 57th year, marking a longstanding tradition in the agricultural calendar, with…

» Latest Print Issues Online

Milking It

Chinese strategy

OPINION: Fonterra may have sold its dairy farms in China but the appetite for collaboration with the country remains strong.

Not fair

OPINION: The Listener's latest piece on winter grazing among Southland dairy farmers leaves much to be desired.

» Connect with Dairy News

» eNewsletter

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter