A few weeks ago I wrote about Christmas coming in early May in Waikato. As expected, Santa delivered in spades. While the ducks were mostly safe, the duck hunting experience was fantastic. The opportunity to sit in a small, dilapidated hut for 48 hours with your best mates is something to cherish.
At one point during opening weekend when walking from the maimai to the ute (carefully hidden some distance from the pond), I reflected that part of the joy of duck shooting is the opportunity to share our family farm with others. It’s awesome to see how genuinely therapeutic a day in the countryside can be for urban people with increasingly busy lives. Sure, farming is hard work at times. But Kiwi farms, our workplace environments, are of the highest order. The green grass, the smattering of natives, cattle and sheep – they certainly leave open-plan offices and water coolers in the dust.
With duck hunting behind us, attention turns to more important, winter matters: kids’ sports.
Sport has long played a massive role in underpinning rural New Zealand. On winter Saturday mornings in the Weir house, three children go three different ways representing club or school in different sports, at different venues and at individual times that seem to be always a little too close together.
The juggle for parents and the co-opted grandparents is real, but when Saturday afternoon on a winter’s day comes around and children are proudly speaking of their participation, perspective hits.
Perspective hits because at that point, the conversion of a try into a meat pie, a goal into a Gatorade or over-zealous cheering into a Sally Lun inevitably overcomes all of the challenges of the week before or ahead. The overriding impulse in these moments is to stop and think “How good”.
Children’s sport often introduces the young ones to life as part of a club. Clubs come in many forms. Some of those most important to me are the Pirongia Junior Rugby Club, the Harapepe Field Sports Association (my duck shooting club) and Nuffield Alumni – the latter the spark for this column.
I love “clubs”. They bring people together. They form around a shared interest and are the foundational space where mahi happens together to achieve something.
There’s something else about clubs I love – something that both teaches kids more than a book ever can and humbles many an adult: clubs are underpinned by volunteers. The cleaning, the cooking, the reffing, the coaching is all given voluntarily.
When you see people participating at the club you realise how liberating the feeling of contributing is. It’s when the farm workers and truck drivers who are often directed all day become “the boss” or “the expert”, and those who are tired from giving directions all week happily pick up after others.
It is this contribution that often gives meaning to many and makes Aotearoa’s rural communities tick.
For most, volunteering comes at a cost, whether financial or with time. But it is this work by volunteers that makes our communities work. So hats off to those of you who volunteer your time in whatever form it may take.
Times may be tough throughout the economy, but your work is priceless and regardless of what the budget for the year ahead says, I won’t be skimping on the odd meat pie or Sally Lun on a Saturday.