Dairy Women's Network hits 8000 members

The 'official' figure presented at the annual meeting in Hamilton was 7186 but that was based on financial year-end figures at May 31, 2015. The membership database shows that at least 79% of members are onfarm dairy women.

"Our network has grown to over 8000 members today, we have piloted new programmes, actively used social media to support and respond to our members' needs and welcomed new partners supporting Dairy Women's Network (DWN)," Kidd told the meeting.

All activity was delivered with "strong commercial discipline" that achieved a financial surplus.

"I want to acknowledge the outstanding performance in these challenging times," Kidd said. The delivery of modules had exceeded key performance indicators in the number of participants and in evaluations with exceptional scores being achieved.

"This success cements the vision of the Dairy Women's Network module method to deliver needs based training."

Chief executive Zelda de Villiers said there was no doubt this season has been and will be a tough one – probably the toughest one the New Zealand dairy industry has faced in years.

When it gets tough it gets a little hard to remember how good we had it in the past -- for example what a record year we had recently, she said.

The night was a celebration of success. During the past year DWN had established five new groups and piloted a hub. A hub was established in Northland and three new groups were established in Far North, Whangarei and Kaipara.

Megan McCracken was appointed as hub leader with a focus on coordinating regions with relatively low dairy farming density and a number of smaller groups.

In the South Island a new group was started at Lincoln University (a pilot aimed at female ag students) and, due to demand, a new group in North Otago. "We believe there is scope to establish a number of other groups this year as well as a second hub in Southland," de Villiers said.

Last year DWN developed and piloted the dairy module concept with DairyNZ. Five modules were presented this year in 40 locations and attended by 991 attendees. Regional convenors facilitated 150 regional days – social days, moo moans (getting off farm during calving), fun days like "cheese making" and many other creative grassroots learning events.

Partner days included 'Breed them, weigh them, track them', 'More than just a number' and 'Successful calf rearing'.

Two new modules will be launched from the end of this month: 'Stepping up safely' – a collaboration with DairyNZ and WorkSafe with assistance from FarmSource and HazardCo to 20 locations. The finance module, 'Tracking your cash', will be collaborations with DairyNZ assisted by ASB and Ballance.

The annual conference next year will take place in Hamilton on May 4 and 5 themed 'United to succeed'. MSD animal health marketing manager Sam Higgins said his contribution to 2106 Dairy Womens Network conference will be to bring well known Victoria dairy vet Gemma Chuck over from Australia. Chuck holds a PhD in calf health. She will hold two workshops during the conference.

Sponsorship is a dead duck

Sponsorship dead; in most cases it is a weak marketing discipline, Sam Higgins, marketing manager for MSD Animal Health told the Dairy Women's Network agm.

"It really isn't measurable. When you hear it said... 'from an organisation that is taking sponsorship' or 'we can make your logo bigger', it's game over," he told DWN which has a 'partnership' with MSD.

"A lot of organisations we have sponsored [had the mindset that] we were an income stream. That is why I never use the word sponsorship. I see us as a partner because partnering is all about value; it is a discipline you can prove and defend, a discipline you can measure.

"As economic times become tougher this becomes more important. We have been a DWN partner for six years; we intend to carry on that partnership into the future. Why? Because we see value; the value is not in our logo."