"It's just been a great community to live and grow up in and for our family as well.
"The community has given back to us as much as we’ve given to them, I guess.
"We’ve just enjoyed being part of the groups we’re in."
Nelson Hancox is referring to West Otago, where he and his wife Fiona have a strong community involvement alongside running a large-scale sheep and beef operation across three properties, comprising 27,000 ewes and 500 Angus cows.
The Hancox family have hosted three shear-a-thons; the first in 2020 to raise money for their stock manager Shaun Bradley to help him fight cancer.
He collapsed days after the arrival of his daughter Charlotte in 2019 and was diagnosed with stage four B-cell non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and later a brain tumour. The event raised about $50,000 and the community "just got right in behind that", Mr Hancox said.
At the next event, more than $200,000 was raised for the Southland Charity Hospital — again garnering huge community support, not just locally but also the wider South.
This year, a group of shearers raised money for their respective charities and about $140,000 was raised.
Nelson played down their involvement, saying event manager Jared Manihera had been the driving force, but supplying the woolshed and the sheep was a big exercise, and Fiona was also involved with catering.
It was a fundraiser that was "amazingly rewarding" and it was also wonderful to see Shaun — still working for them — benefit from the money.
"It’s just been a really fun thing to do and a great way to raise money in a short time," he said.
It also got their own shearing done in a short time and they had upgraded their facilities, spending $100,000 building an eight-stand woolshed.
It had been a win-win for the farm and the family and the community.
Despite a busy time on the farm earlier in the year, a group of Lincoln University’s diploma of agriculture class from 1984, which included Nelson, plus a few West Otago locals, headed to Hawke’s Bay to help two Cyclone Gabrielle-affected mates.
They divided into several crews, and Nelson was in charge of about 600ha, which did not have any stock-proof paddocks apart from the external boundaries. They did the internal subdivision over a week. Diggers were kept running from about 4am-5am, through to 10pm-11pm.
Nelson has been a Lions member for nearly 30 years, including two stints as president of the West Otago club.
The club co-runs the local hay and baleage competition with the West Otago A&P society, raising about $30,000 a year which was distributed to local organisations.
Lions members also helped out the Hancox family with tailing, along with the Heriot Rugby Club and gangs from Blue Mountain College as a fundraiser, with the money raised used for its sports tour. That was a great way to integrate young people into agriculture and some had taken up careers in the industry which had been a "real positive thing".
Nelson was grateful for a very supportive wife, who had also had significant community and governance involvement, including as a past director of Silver Fern Farms, plus long-term commitment from staff and great contractors.
The next generation taking over roles in the business over the last few years had also helped free him up a little.
— Sally Rae
