Magazine Article 1979 – Hawke’s Bay fruitgrowers annual general meeting

Hawke’s Bay fruitgrowers annual general meeting

THE annual general meeting of the Hawke’s Bay Fruitgrowers’ Association was one of the best attended for some years – it appears that the answer is not to hold the meeting during the school holidays!

It was a good meeting with the highlight being the address by guest speaker Professor Richard Rowe who was recently appointed to the Chair of Horticulture at Lincoln College. Professor Rowe made it clear that he has many ideas which he is anxious to test with a view to improving the role of horticulture in this country.

The main change on the Association was the decision of Graeme Wake to stand down from the office of Vice-President, a position he has held for the past six years. Before that he was a member of the Executive for approximately 12 years.

Apart from his national interests concerned mainly with the Employers’ Union, Graeme devoted himself to the interests of his fellow growers and furthering the stability of the Association. Among projects on which he worked particularly hard was the Omahu Road property. He was a member of the property committee at the time of the purchase of the land and the erection of two buildings on the property, which today stands in the Association books at $141,300.

More recently Graeme worked on the idea of the Association building a controlled atmosphere store for leasing to the Apple and Pear Board, and in the course of his investigations he visited the USA at his own expense to learn the latest on construction of these stores.

In the event, and for reasons of economy, it was decided to leave this project to the Board, but it is felt that the work done by Graeme and his committee was the spur to the Board proceeding when it did with its first full-sized CA store, and with having it built in Hastings.

The new Vice-President, elected unopposed, is Cor Dames, a fruit and glasshouse grower on Havelock Road. Cor needs little introduction to his fellow growers throughout the country, being well known and highly regarded as a regular Hawke’s Bay delegate to Dominion Conferences.

Under a rule of the Association which stipulates that a member of the Executive must, after 10 consecutive years in office, stand down for at least one year, David Mardon was not eligible for re-election. He will be missed on the Executive where he has done particularly fine work in many fields and has always been a good ambassador for the district. He worked especially hard on the stone-fruit advertising committee, and in helping young people seeking to take up fruitgrowing.

The new Executive (including those not up for re-election) for the coming year is:-

President: Keith Spackman; Vice-President: Cor Dames; Committee: Raymond Cartwright, David Cooper, Brian D’Ath, Bryan Dillon, Rex Graham, Stewart Horn, Robin Osborne, Colin Wake; Secretary: Barclay McLaren.