LEADERSHIP CONTEST

New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 506, 4 March 1949, Page 11

LEADERSHIP CONTEST

Young Farmers at the Microphone . BOUT 18 months ago a young South Australian farmer named Austin Ninnis spent six weeks in New Zealand looking at our farming districts and our farming methods, as the guest of the Australian Broadcasting Commission and the New Zealand Young Farmers’ | Clubs. Ninnis was something more than | just an ordinary farmer. For one thing /he was not yet 21 when he made his visit. He was also winner of the Australian Young Farmers’ Leadership Contest, a competition sponsored by the ABC to encourage young Australian farmers, and to help the Young Farmers’ Clubs which exist in every Australian State. From all over the country young men were selected for their qualities of leadership, personality, farming knowledge, and ability to give a good account of themselves before the microphone. The six State finalists attended the Sydney Royal Show in 1947, and from them the winner, Austin Ninnis, was selected. This year the scope of the contest has been extended, and it is now on an Australasian basis. One New Zealand representative will be chosen to contest the final in Sydney later in the year, and at present the NZBS is co-operat-ing with the Young Farmers’ Clubs in selecting that man. The Young Farmers’ Clubs have invited nominations from their districts throughout the country and the first stage of the elimination is being carried out on a district and regional basis. Although the initial stages are being conducted by the Young Farmers themselves, the four regional finals are being broadcast and the first of these broadcasts, when the Otago-Southland representative was selected, was heard from 4YA and 4YZ on March 2. A representative from the Canterbury-Westland-Nelson-Marlborough area will be selected on Tuesday, March 8, and the proceedings will be broadcast at 8.28 p.m. from 3YA, 3YZ, and 2XN. At 7.0 p.m. on Wednesday, March 9, Station 1YA will broadcast the selection of an Auckland and North Auckland representative, and on Friday, March 11, the represen- | tative for the rest of the North Island will be chosen. These proceedings will be broadcast at 7.5 p.m. from 2YA, 2YZ and 2XG, and at 8.3 p.m. from 2ZA and 2XP. The final selection of an all-New Zealand young farmer from the four regional winners will be broadcast in a link, of stations 1YA, 2YA, 3YA, 4YA, 2YZ, 4YZ, 2XG, 2XN, and 2XP at 7.5 p.m., and from 2ZA at 8.30 p.m. on Friday, March 18. The winner will be sent \to |. Sydney by the Young Farmers’ Clubs for one week as the guest of the ABC, | During that week he will contest the | Australasian finals, and if he wins them he will receive a cash prize. Last year the prize was a trip to any Australian State, and the year before that, of course, a trip to New Zealand. Recordings of tleis year’s Australasian finals may be broadcast later by the NZBS.