Young shearer headed to New Zealand

Jack Lockyer with his employer Garry Mayled

17th Sep 2024

Guyra shearer Jack Lockyer is heading to New Zealand to learn how to encourage more young shearers to join the industry.
Jack and his employer, GA & A Mayled Shearing Contractor’s are participating in the Global Footprints Employer Supported Stream, a new pilot program that works in partnership between the scholar, their employer and Global Footprints.
Jack has already made his mark on the industry during his short career. He took up a school based shearing traineeship in 2022 and then progressed to a full-time traineeship at the end of year 10.
After just five months of full-time shearing he won the NSW State Sports Shear Intermediate title at Dubbo in May 2023.
This enabled me to travel to Jamestown SA in October 2023 with the state team to compete at the National Shearing titles where he was placed 5th.
Winning the scholarship will help Jack to broaden his knowledge of the shearing industry and gain an insight into how shearing contracting is run in different areas of the world.
Jack plans to travel to New Zealand where they have vibrant shearing and sheep industry and learn first-hand how to encourage other young people to join the industry.
In his scholarship application he identified this as an extremely important factor in the long term sustainability of the industry both in Australia and overseas.
“Just in our small area we have three contracting teams with only three shearers under 30 years of age and two shed staff under 35 years,” Jack said.
“It would be interesting to find out what systems they have in place in New Zealand to encourage young people to the shearing industry and if I could apply it, not only to our local area but around the district and the Sports Shear circuit.
“By building a network of contacts, I also hope to gain valuable workable knowledge into how you manage different personalities in various workplaces and encourage a new generation to take up work in shearing and wool handling.”

click for larger image

Going strong for 100 years

Phone	(02) 6779 2347
Email	Contact Us
Social

Young shearer headed to New Zealand

Menu

News

Contact