“It’s been a huge event, massive organisation and simply overwhelming support,” emcee Craig Harrison said.
“It’s been a tremendous effort from a very small and giving community to organise and run this with such huge success.
“At the end of the day we had tallied $90,000 and still counting. That’s way exceeded all expectation,” Harrison said.
More than 60 shearers, all over the age of 50, and a team of She Shears women banded together to shear 3000 sheep.
“The timeframe set to shear the 3000 was between 8am to 4pm but they ripped into it at the start. In fact, we had to slow them down and everything was shorn by 3.55pm – a massive effort from everyone involved.”
The line-up of shearers included many times world champion Sir David Fagan, his fellow world-stage competitors Alan McDonald from Te Kuiti, Darrin Ford, Southland, and Tom Wilson who made his name in shearing in Scotland.
Also fronting up was a team of women with world mother and daughter record holders Marg Bayne and Ingrid Smith from Wairoa and former world record holder Jillian Burney from Taupo among them.
The celebrity list included former All Blacks Sir Brian Lochore, Andy Earl, Tane Norton, Billy Bush, prostate cancer ambassador Buck Shelford and Ashburton’s own All Blacks Jock Ross and Grant Perry.
Harrison said the uniqueness of the event in brining such a line-up of shearers and celebrities along with their commitment to the event not only attracted the crowd but also the sponsors.
“We had very generous support from businesses who put their hands up and kept on giving.
“We targeted a few sponsors in the farming and agribusiness sector and it just snowballed.
“The unique way of raising funds certainly generated interest and attracted sponsorship way beyond what we thought at the start.
“And, of course, without the Ewing family who hosted the event in their woolshed we couldn’t have done it at all.”
Born over a couple of beers in an Aussie pub, Shear for Life was 12 months in the planning.
Ashburton shearer Rocky Bull said he and his mates Alan (Bimbo) Bramley and Steven (Dixy) Lynch were just having a couple after a day’s shearing when they chatted about getting a few old mates together.
“It seemed like a good idea to get a group of shearers together for a reunion, have a bit of fun, tell a few yarns and perhaps raise some money for charity.”
Very quickly it grew too much for a handful of blokes to handle.
“We are very grateful for the willingness of the experienced people who were approached to help pull all the strands together,” Harrison said.
While the three buddies thought it would be cool to target $10,000 that soon became very real and they looked out to $20,000.
The total funds raised came from sponsorship, an auction of items including signed All Black and Crusaders jerseys, a Makapua Station (Hawke’s Bay) hunting package, a Mt Aspiring (Wanaka) helicopter flight, a shearing handpiece and several accommodation packages around the country with visitors paying a gold coin entry donation and gold coin donations for food and beverages.
“It’s come close to $100,000. We couldn’t be happier.”
The money will be shared by the NZ prostate and breast cancer organisations and Ashburton Cancer Support.
“It could very well happen again but not next year,” Harrison said.
