NOVICE and improver shearers will have a chance to learn from two of Western Australia's best competition shearers at free shearing and wool handling schools at Rylington Park near Boyup Brook.
Australian Wool Innovation (AWI) has signed up Damien Boyle and Luke Harding, who will assist regular AWI shearer trainer Paul 'Pope' Hick, for eight one-week schools at Rylington Park this financial year, starting in October.
Mr Boyle - from a competition and record-breaking shearing family at Broomehill and whose father, Don, was involved in shearer training - and Mr Harding, a Boyup Brook local, have both successfully represented Australia as team-mates in trans-Tasman shearing competitions.
Mr Boyle has won the New Zealand Merino Shearing Championship Open section eight times in 10 years and been the main Open winner for nearly 25 years at Perth Royal Show's annual shearing competition.
Mr Harding has won the Senior class in Perth Royal Show's shearing competition and won the Open shearing class at Wagin Woolorama earlier this year for the third year in a row.
Mr Boyle is also a shearing contractor and novice and improver shearers who impress at Rylington Park schools could find their way straight onto a learner's stand with, as reported previously in Farm Weekly, WA expected to be short of shearers, wool handlers and shearing shed staff again this spring and possibly through to autumn next year.
AWI fully funds the schools, including accommodation, food and equipment for the week.
The Rylington Park schools are in addition to intermittent shearing and wool handling schools throughout WA that AWI has been running in conjunction with the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD) and the Western Australian Shearing Industry Association (WASIA) since last year.
"Rylington Park has been delivering these schools for the past 30 years in our purpose-built six-stand shearing shed and with our accommodation facilities," said shearing and wool handling schools co-ordinator at Rylington Park, Erlanda Deas.
Ms Deas and her husband Marc manage the Rylington Park property for owners, the Boyup Brook Shire.
"We were fortunate not to have had to cancel (because of COVID-19) any of the eight schools in the previous financial year which were attended by 116 students, of which around 85 per cent are working in the industry and the rest were mostly made up of agricultural college students," Ms Deas said.
"We cater for novice learners as well as for the shearer and wool handler who wants to improve themselves and go to the next level.
"Rylington Park is unique in the sense that it is a working farm and uses a split-shearing system to be able to use our own sheep for the schools," she said.
The first of the shearing and wool handling schools at Rylington Park this financial year will be from Monday, October 4 to Friday, October 8.
Other schools will run Monday-to-Friday, October 25-29, November 15-19 and December 6-10.
The other four schools will be hosted from January to April next year.
AWI program manager for wool harvesting training and development, Craig French, said AWI was "committed to delivering the best possible shearing and wool handling training possible and therefore has continued support with the training at Rylington Park".
"The demand for shearing and shed staff will be enormous this year, we will be expected to have very good (schools) outcomes to assist in this demand and support local woolgrowers and shearing contractors," Mr French said.
"The one-week schools provide a pathway for new entrants and for industry staff to learn the skills of all that is expected with working in a shearing shed and in a team environment," he said.
Boyup Brook Shire president and local farmer Richard Walker said the shire was very pleased to continue hosting shearing and wool handling schools at Rylington Park.
"It (training) is a very important part of the purposes for which Rylington Park was originally gifted to the shire (in 1985) by Eric Farleigh," Mr Walker said.
"The schools are even more crucial given the times we are in," he said.
To book a place at a Rylington Park shearing and wool handling school or to enquire, contact Erlanda Deas on 9765 3012, 0429 375 609 or rylington@activ8.net.au.
As an incentive to encourage learner shearers to continue in the industry after they have completed an AWI shearing school at Rylington Park or one of the schools run in conjunction with DPIRD and WASIA, learners can become eligible to be presented with an AWI 'learners kit'.
The kit, with a retail value of more than $2000, includes a Heiniger handpiece, combs, cutters, brushes and a pendulum to aid sharpening.
To be eligible, AWI shearing school graduates must gain a learner's stand with a contractor, enrol in a TAFE Certificate II shearing course, be visited by AWI trainers at work and achieve a speed of 75 sheep a day by the time they have completed the three-month course.
- More information: Call 1800 shears.
