The couple farm Glen Nui Station at Mangamingi in east Taranaki. The 2042-hectare (400ha effective) station runs 1800 ewes, 700 hoggets, 130 cows and manuka beehives.
Mathew is the third generation of the family to work the farm settled in the early 1900s. The oldest date on the shed walls is 1909.
“Legend has it that a farm woolshed was always built before the house. In the early days they would have cleared some scrub, built the woolshed and the house would have been built when there was some money coming in.”
The new, generator-powered, four-stand shed was needed because the old one was well past its use-by date and had deteriorated to the point it was inefficient.
Twelve years ago a large set of covered yards was built with a plan to attach a new woolshed to centralise the sheep-handling facilities.
The old shed was designed to hold 1200-1300 sheep overnight. The covered yards easily hold 2000 sheep and the farm now doesn’t need the shed’s capacity.
“Before, if we needed to dag half a dozen sheep we had to run them all the way to the old shed. It was half a morning’s work. I don’t know how we got away with using it for the last dozen years. We do eight-month shearing and often shear in August and need to dodge the rain when moving stock around,” Mathew says.
He had been dreaming of a new shed for over 20 years. He incorporated ideas from the time he worked in the the South Island and other regions.
The new shed adds efficiency with the entire sheep complex in one place.
The old shed required two shearers to pull from one pen holding 30-35 sheep. In the new shed each shearer has an individual pen of 15 sheep.
Foregoing tradition, Mathew installed steel gates and metal mesh floor grating rather than the traditional wooden grating. He also added a load-out race.
“I asked our shearers and wool handlers what they’d like in a shed and looked at sheds in the valley. If someone had a good idea I listened to them. Neil Gavin, a fencer, built the internals and Vaughn Woods, a shearer, built the gates. We often talked about it over a few beers. It was good getting their input.” Mathew says.
“Back in the day the woolshed was paid for by the first wool clip and three clips would almost pay off your farm. Shearing is now an animal health management task. This shed hasn’t been paid for by wool and never will. If you have sheep you have to shear them.”
About three-years ago when Mathew and Jackie began making plans to build the shed they decided to run a mental health awareness fundraiser at the opening.
They envisioned 40 or 50 people turning and raising $500 to $1500. They figured they would visit a few local businesses for sponsorship, run some raffles and a small auction.
But the donations began rolling in and the fundraiser created its own momentum.
It was only during the week of the opening that Mathew and Jackie realised they could now be raising upwards of $10,000 and had to decide who they were going to donate it to.
They contacted the Taranaki Rural Support Trust and offered it the money for grassroots work on suicide awareness and mental health.
“Everyone we talked to leading up to the fundraiser has in some way been affected by depression or other mental health issues.
“Mental health affects so many people in the rural community and seems to be becoming more prevalent. The donations demonstrated the relevance of that cause. We think that 200 people visited us and we fed over 120.” Jackie says.
They made a Facebook page and posted each donation. Once that momentum built it snowballed and created its own force.
“Our phone nearly rang off the hook during the week prior to the event. People buying a dinner for two costing $40 would give us $50 and donations came through the mail. We started off thinking that we’d need only a few veges and a bag of spuds but before we knew we had 120 people booked for dinner.” Mathew says.
Many of the donations were big dollar items as rural and related businesses got in behind the cause. The highest value item was 30 hours of excavator work. Others included luxury Lake Taupo waterfront and New Plymouth accommodation, half a tonne of grass seed and 30 hours of fencing,
The couple ran an ATV farm tour, a hangi and barbecue dinner and an auction.
But the most popular event was the shear a sheep, eat a pie and drink a pint relay.
The Francis’ stock agent Jeremy Newell ran the auction. The first item was a can of beer that fetched $100, which in Mathew’s words set the night alight.
Mathew and Jackie were astounded to learn the auction raised so much.
“Our son totalled up the funds and told us that we’d raised $21,600. I told him to check again because he must have pressed the wrong number. I rechecked it the following morning just to be sure,” Jackie says.
“We’re grateful and very overwhelmed that so many people came out here to support us. We had many helpers, generous donations and generous auction bids.”
