Eighteen-year old Emily Spencer, a third-generation shearer from Tasmania is the latest success story to emerge from Australian Wool Innovation (AWI)’s nationwide shearer training program.
Emily only picked up a handpiece eight months ago after completing a AWI novice shearing school after two years as a shed hand she is now shearing plenty of sheep and earning good money.
“The AWI novice wool harvesting course in July has given me the opportunity to learn and the support and encouragement to be the best you can be. I learnt how to shear in the sheds, but didn’t have the correct technique so it was important to be trained correctly, for me to improve my pace and the quality of my work. I just shore my first 200 and now setting a goal to reach 300 sheep in a day.”
When asked what are the best things about shearing she was quick to respond.
“Well, the money is good, I’m 18 and earning as much as my parents. What I also like is that you can set your own pace, you can have a real go, you are your own boss and that’s empowering! There are so many opportunities in the wool industry, it doesn’t stop in the shearing sheds, I want to travel, save my money, one day buy a farm and run livestock. This is my future!”
Emily has just completed an AWI improver shearing school at ‘Beaufront’ near Ross in Tasmania. “These five days of training really will fine tune my technique and improve my shearing ability in every possible way, thanks AWI. No doubt we will see and hear more from this impressive shearer congratulations on your achievements so far.
AWI Chairman Jock Laurie says Emily’s success should inspire more young men and women to take up shearing as a career.
“What a great story from shed hand to gun shearer in a matter of months. We need more shearers and that’s why we invest so much in training at learner and novice schools. As an industry we must continue to support, mentor and retain staff. AWI has numerous novice schools operating across the country for learner shearers and new entrants. These provide the necessary skills and knowledge for a learner shearer an also new entrant wool handlers to be confident to work in these roles amongst a working team.
AWI has and will continue to train learner shearers and there has never been a better time than now for learner shearers to take a stand. The AWI learner shearer toolkit is a new and important initiative where learner shearers are given a toolkit valued at $2000 to take with them to use and keep as tools for trade. This is part of an ongoing commitment we have to provide and support all we can to attract and retain staff.
AWI has provided this toolkit to 143 leaner shearers since July 1st last year. That means that there are 143 learners on stands that were not shearing a year ago.
We need more, we know that, and we are doing our best to attract and retain workers for the industry.
The learner shearer toolkit includes a new hand piece, 10 combs, 40 cutters, a brush, pendulum plus an AWI singlet.
Andy Duggan has a large contract run, based in Blayney NSW, he employs over 50 staff and shears more than half a million sheep per year. Andy is a great supporter of the training AWI offers, he sees value in the training and Andy has 5 learner shearers currently in his teams. All have had AWI novice training and in shed coaching, all have the AWI learner toolkit and we hope as an industry we can retain them. As part of this initiative, AWI will deliver ongoing in shed coaching plus provide improver schools for these learners.
“It is critical that we have the pathway from high school and leaving school to provide the support and training to get the young ones in working teams. I think we as an industry and AWI should do more to attract them, we will employ them, we need them”
