Page 87 - Hereford Magazine 2021

Posy with Australian Hereford Youth president Annie Pumpa and A lady on the lake steers the Lady of the Lake… Posy has a light-
Joyce and Geof Brown, Locharburn Herefords, Cromwell, during hearted moment on the TSS Earnslaw on its way to Walter Peak.
the conference field trip.

(trying to organise family and animals) we had a couple of was shortly followed by a call from Karen at AgriTravel saying
speakers who were instructed to pull out by their companies. that she had opted to leave the business. Both Christine and
This was the first time that we began to feel the effect of Covid, I had worked so closely with these companies over the past
however at that stage we had no idea how it would affect two years that we felt their pain. Two days later the Ministry of
our plans. On 28 February (one day before the pre pre-tour Health contacted me to discuss some more positive cases that
arrivals) having sought advice from Tourism NZ, I posted on they had identified as being associated with the conference.
the WHC website: ‘The media clearly has us all talking about the They asked who I felt had been in ‘close contact’ with the
coronavirus, however there are no confirmed cases of Covid-19 positive cases, to which my response was ‘everyone’. It was
in New Zealand to date.’ I spoke too soon. later that day (5.50pm to be precise) when they informed
Laden with hand sanitisers and Covid policies we started the me that they would make a media announcement to capture
North Island pre-tour. By the latter stages of the conference everyone. This left me 10 minutes to get a press officer to
week, several countries had requested personnel to return. represent the conference. While I have previously been a
Gradually the South Island post-conference tour got smaller press officer during a UN tour in Bosnia, the executive was in
and smaller as people were forced to return to their home agreement that I hadn’t had enough time to recover from the
countries. New Zealand was still only reporting two positive event to deal with the situation, so at two minutes before the
cases at that time, so the morale on the tour was high. We had start of the 6 o’clock news when were going to be mentioned,
just taken the Uruguayans on another shopping trip to PGG we were thrilled Kate Taylor agreed to accept the role. Being a
Wrightson, on our way to Orari Gorge, when Andrew Donoghue, highly regarded rural journalist, Kate was a perfect fit for the
general manager of Herefords Australia, phoned me to say, “hey job; she had also attended the conference as our magazine
mate, you might not be pleased to hear from me”. It was then we editor, experienced the cautionary steps taken, and enjoyed
heard of the first positive test associated with the conference. the successful event.
For me, the decision was easy: we could not risk adding any From there it’s history. Christine and I caught up on a
people to our current team of four coaches and should stay in little sleep while Colin and Kate fielded the calls. The positive
isolation at Orari Gorge until instructed otherwise. Our drivers numbers related to the conference continued to increase and
were due to be replaced as the current drivers had run out of the ‘cattle conference in Queenstown’ had a daily mention
hours, but we sought dispensation and turned them away. Orari during the government’s press conference. We were still flooded
Gorge stood down all their shepherds and wonderful volunteers with congratulatory emails, even from those who had tested
who were there to serve us dinner, but as hard as Robert and positive. While some of our members came under scrutiny from
I tried, we could not prevent Rosa and Graham from joining their local communities, overall, we had outstanding support
us! President Colin then made a phone call to the Ministry of for delivering a successful and fun conference and being ahead
Health helpline to report the known case and ask what to do of the Ministry of Health guidelines at the time.
next. Gray opened up the chiller, Christine looked after the For me, it confirmed that event management will always
guests, and I started to think of alternative plans. Within a throw you curve balls and what gets you through is being
couple of hours, the Ministry of Health determined the person part of a close-knit and trusting team. Fortunately, we breed a
who tested positive likely got it on return to his home country hardy bunch in the farming community and it appeared only
and therefore was deemed low risk. Our specific instructions a few people felt sick and no one was hospitalised who was
were to carry on as planned. We did, however, make changes to involved in the cluster (that we know of). I learnt NZ Herefords
the following day’s activities, and a smaller crew attended the is so much more than an association – it is a global family that
Kaikoura tour, with Robert Kane at the helm. Christine, Colin supports each other through the good and bad times. For Phil,
and I all flew home and went into voluntary self-isolation. Christine and I, however, we will always remember it as being
The following morning, I received a phone call to inform a fun conference with an incredible team and an incredibly
me of the sad news that Dinamics had gone into insolvency. It large twist.”

Year 2021 HEREFORD MAGAZINE 85
World Hereford
Conference 2020
Queenstown NZ