How Well Do We Know People in our Community?

Alister Shennan

After 7 years in Western Australia running the TAB, and surmounting the challenges in the racing industry, Alister returned to NZ in 2015. Having revitalised the TAB retail networks, improved the customer service, and call centres, developed a mobile app and significantly increased the company revenue, he realised it was time for a change. 

Back to Wellington, then a hop, skip and a jump over the hill to the Wairarapa with its warmer climate, and open spaces.

“I wanted to do something entirely different. My background was in media and marketing, but what could I do if I was starting from scratch? Then I discovered a gap in the agricultural training industry. Traditional learning was no longer the answer. Students were more attuned to videos and U Tube. I realised that Visual learning offered a way forward. 

Questions surfaced. How could you encourage young people to upskill if they were already working in the sector? What would be the best way to explain and promote jobs to boost participation. What would be the best way to prevent workers leaving because the job was not what they had expected? What would be the best way to keep them engaged?”

Agricademy, (www.agricademy.co.nz) an online educational portal, began to take shape. It launched in 2020, with its first courses for the wool harvesting sector. Womolife (www.womolife.co.nz) won a competitive bid against three other existing providers. Built on a well-being model it was designed to deliver not only vocational training, but information on nutrition, movement, well-being and even how to understand your payslip. Results were encouraging. There were gains in productivity and injury rates were lower.”

 “A large part of its success,” says Alister, “is that it builds on students’ experiences either already attained or in the process of learning. Full and short courses are offered. Bite sized training videos hosted by expert presenters demonstrate the Why’s and How’s. We have now built up an extensive library of content showing how to gain high quality wool production.

 Online training is supported by practical training days in the wool shed. Courses for wool handling, shearing, crutching, wool pressing and shed hands are all part of the portfolio. A major advantage is that both employer and employee benefit.” 

“www.getmilking.co.nz followed as the second offering targeting dairy assistants. This was exciting to produce as the majority of the content was filmed here in the Wairarapa, supported by great local farmers.

Where do I see myself going? I believe that we could have a world class educational offering for agriculture, fishing, forestry, horticulture, based right here in Martinborough. Many of our highly skilled staff are Martinborough based.” 

One of the most rewarding features of this business is seeing the tributes of students commenting on Facebook about their experiences. Some of these students are now succeeding for the first time in their lives. They are learning to believe in themselves. That is very gratifying.”

Lyle Griffiths 

Photo with