“Where you are is where you are meant to be,” is the encouragement given by Mordecai to his cousin Queen Esther, wife of King Xerxes during a crisis in Persia around the year 750 BCE.
Those words seemed to epitomise the various stages in the life of Trish Lindsay ONZM, as she related them to a gathering of around fifty women, including a group of secondary students, as the NCWNZ Southland Branch celebrated 131 years of women’s suffrage. Trish said, “I’ve called my talk This Looks like Fun because that’s what I thought every time I was invited to be part of a new opportunity that looked different and interesting.”
Those gathered here for NCWNZ Southland Branch’s Suffrage Day breakfast, held on Thursday 19 September at the Ascot Park Hotel Invercargill, interacted socially and listened to this inspirational speaker.
Trish was a country girl, growing up in Aparima at the foot of the Takitimu Hills. From primary school there she went on to St Philomena’s Secondary School in Dunedin, where the teachers encouraged their students to be open to the issues in the wider community. This was followed by University of Otago, Auckland University and Auckland Teachers’ College. Trish returned south to a position at the then James Hargest High School, followed by marriage to a local farmer/stock agent and living in Waianawa.
“This is where I cut my teeth on community involvement while bringing up four children, working on the farm, doing part-time teaching and running a little music school teaching piano to local children,” said Trish. She added, “This community involvement scenario fits in well with Malcolm Gladwell’s theory about doing 10,000 hours practising for future roles.” During this time things happened that caused Trish to do two pieces of research. The first was Rural Children’s Access to Libraries. After much exploration and lobbying the outcome was the creation for the Southland District Council’s Bookbus, which still runs today.
The second was completely different for which Trish was awarded the Rural Women’s Bursary from the Alliance Freezing Works. The topic was Lamb on the Local Market because as Trish said, “I was concerned that our beautiful lamb that we had worked so hard to produce was not available in high quality lamb cuts for local sale at that time.” Trish related one moment in the course of this research when the Alliance marketing team wanted to name her “Mrs W D Lindsay” in a media release. Trish demurred saying this was not correct because they were her husband’s initials. After quite some discussion they were persuaded to allow her to retain her own initials of PEC Lindsay. A quite pertinent tale on Suffrage Day! Trish added a footnote saying, “I’m not sure if my research helped but you can buy a good selection of lamb cuts now.”
When Trish received her award from the Governor General, the citation which was read out, included a significant number of organisations and agencies with which she has been and for some still is involved. On the occasion of this Suffrage Breakfast Trish chose to highlight just four more of those credentials. During the recession in the late 1980s, like many rural women at that time she moved partially out of the sheep yards and lambing paddocks and back into more formal employment. Described by her as a lucky break, she was appointed to assist with the Department of Education Open-Tech “Challenges of Change” project for Southland women. This very successful initiative was delivered from the main base at Southland Polytechnic to 300 women at 20 teleconference centres across Southland -- in community halls, schools, homes and woolsheds -- via teleconferencing, videotapes, audiotapes and printed material. It was similar to connecting via webconferencing today but a bit clunkier from a technical perspective. The project was a stimulating, unforgettable experience hugely appreciated by women in the many remote rural areas of Southland. This experience proved to be a stepping stone for Trish to join the Southland Polytechnic staff where she has now worked for over thirty years in various roles.
Trish spoke again of the recession in the late 1980s and 1990s when farming and businesses declined with many collapsing, the Ocean Beach Freezing works closed, unemployment increased, house values fell and people started leaving Southland in droves. It was estimated that a busload of people were leaving Southland permanently every week. “But,” said Trish, “our Southland leaders didn’t lie down and give in – they came up with innovative ideas to turn our region around and I was lucky to be part of some of these.”
One was the Zero Fees Scheme (ZFS). Being involved in this was a huge highlight for Trish. It was part of the overall community strategy to rejuvenate Southland. The scheme was devised by then Chief Executive Penny Simmonds. In 1999 Penny approached Southland community leaders including the major Southland funders, for their support. Fortunately, they were all very receptive to this innovative idea. Trish’s part in the project, which she loved, was approaching the medium to large businesses to see if they were willing to support the scheme financially as well. Even though it was not a good time for them either, Trish gained immediate positive responses of support, as they said, for the good of the community. Trish reported, “In total we received the massive amount of $7.25 million from the trusts and businesses to help us get through the first 3 years of the scheme.”
Those present were reminded of the great success of ZFS, how it grew the economy and our population, with one major achievement being the opening up of career opportunities for Southlanders, especially women, who were able to complete NZQA qualifications for very little debt. Hand in hand with the ZFS was the desire of the Polytech to grow its offering of degrees available from the then number of one, being the Bachelor of Nursing. Trish was asked to spearhead this development. To do so she liaised with New Zealand and Australian universities and polytechnics, to negotiate the use of their academic material, and then gain NZQA approval for the degrees. These very obliging academics from other institutes provided the material needed. They also became colleagues, joined advisory groups, and became monitors for the subsequent degrees.
“These were heady days,” Trish enthused. “Within nine years we developed eight Bachelor's degrees and one postgraduate, setting a sound foundation for our current portfolio of undergraduate, postgraduate and Master’s qualifications which continue to be very popular with women – consistently year after year with about 57% of our students being female.”
Trish continued, “At the same time another brilliant idea to rejuvenate Invercargill and Southland was being nurtured. This was the development of our iconic stadium which the Invercargill Licensing Trust (ILT) started working on in the late 1990s.Following the publication of a feasibility study which recommended a 2-court elite stadium to be located in Invercargill’s CBD, a Project Team led by the ILT was formed to work on the design and build for this facility. The Project Team had commenced work when they received a letter from a local female sports teacher expressing concern that there were no women in the group. When I received a phone call from the Chair Ray Harper to see if I would be willing to join the group, I was pretty astounded but thought it sounded like fun, and an outstanding opportunity to collaborate with others on a major project, so I accepted the invitation.” What could have been an issue was that Trish had a different perspective about the design and location of the stadium.”
Once again, her research skills, collaborative approach plus this time her experience as a Netball Mum and School Netball Manager came to the fore. She even researched our rainfall for the previous twenty years, noting the increasingly bad weather patterns causing many sports to postpone or cancel competitions especially netball. She found allies around the Project Team table for covered community courts a concept which was finally accepted by all. And of course, now we have an amazing facility which includes those community courts, event courts, seating for over 4000 people, entertainment facilities, office spaces, hospitality spaces, squash courts, climbing walls, all together under one roof. “Lesson learnt here: Locals know more than consultants, so don’t be afraid to have different opinions and stick to your convictions,” advised Trish. Trish was then appointed as a Founding Director of the new ILT Stadium Southland Board and was thrilled to be part of the team managing the brand-new stadium plus the development and build of the then only covered Velodrome in New Zealand from start to finish.
The third innovative idea, one that captured the imagination of Southlanders was the establishment of the legendary Southern Sting netball team. These are Trish’s words:
I became involved because my friend the late Robyn Broughton who was the Sting coach knew that I wrote funding applications for SIT, and asked me to write the application for a Southland team to be accepted into the new Coca Cola elite professional netball competition. When I checked out the criteria in the application, I told Rob that it may be difficult because we didn’t meet it:
- We didn’t have sufficient registered netball players
- We didn’t have a stadium that would seat 2000 people
- We didn’t even have an existing sprung wooden floor!
However, what we did have was the largest fan base in New Zealand and the generous support of the Invercargill Licensing Trust. We explained our difficulty to the ILT and after consideration- to get us started and hopefully in the franchise they approved $45k to buy a sprung wooden floor in sections from a builder in Palmerston North and have them shipped to Invercargill, painted in the Southern Sting colours and fitted into the Centennial Hall in Victoria Avenue. So I prepared an application to NNZ based on the new floor, and the promised new ILT indoor stadium and our huge fan base and Netball NZ accepted our proposal.
The Southern Team Co Board invited Trish to join them. According to Trish all they did at the time was get on steadfastly, in a solid Southland way, doing our work behind the scenes, while still enjoying the hype. And what hype it was: the crowds queuing for hours, filling the stadium with 4,500 ecstatic fans, 30,000 rolls of ticker tape at street parades, even a book written about this phenomenon, the legendary Southern Sting. And as Trish said, “You can boast about the economic benefits of the Stadium and the Sting, but it’s the intangible benefits that were massive for a region which had been depressed for over a decade. There is no way you can measure the pride, the excitement, the confidence, the national publicity, and the national promotion of our region in which our community revelled during those amazing times.”
On closing Trish commented. “I haven’t done any incredible things, but I’ve been part of Southland’s incredible community culture spending my life involved in family, farming, education and community activities. I feel privileged to have worked with so many committed, wonderful Southland volunteers on innovative projects that have brought success for our region. I know without any doubt that the saying “Southlanders get the job done!” was true then and is just as true now.”
Those listening also felt privileged to have been taken on her journey through such a variety of exciting and challenging situations, acknowledging that for her she was where she was meant to be, and it seemed it had indeed been fun.
NCWNZ Southland Branch’s new banner with member Vanya Bailey (left) and President Lynn-Marie Devery.
To read more articles from The Circular (September-October 2024) issue 649, click on the tag below.