Young hands learn the craft of shearing

Ian Elkers has proved the rule, having taken his craft to a whole new level. 

Between clipper care and shearing techniques, there's plenty of life advice from the once Boorowa man.

When he’s not travelling the world with his shearing career, he’s working with the Australian Wool Industry to prove young hands with the opportunity to learn the ‘tricks of the trade’.

“This is an AWI shearing school and I have worked part-time for them for around 14 years,” he said. “We run the school for free in areas like Yass, Cooma, Boorowa and harden.”

“It is hard to know where to learn this trade, so it’s great that we can get the funding to give a new generation training in the industry…I know some High School Agriculture school does classes, but TAFE is the only other place to learn the trade.”

With only 4000 shearers in Australia, Ian is fearful of the craft depleting through the next generation. 

“Yet when I take classes like this and see how eager some of these students are I’m not concerned at all,” he said. 

This week 14 students, aged 14 to 50, showed up at Cavan Station on Wee Jasper road to take part in the shearing and wool-care class.

Ian is the winner of 110 open shearing competitions, including an International event in 1994 at Denver, Colorado USA.  He has won the Australian Championship in 1992, 1994, 1996 and 2000 and has been Australian Shearer of the year 6 times.

In 2014 the Royals – William and Kate – were in attendance at the Sydney Royal Show, and asked to meet Ian.

In 2015 Ian was inducted into Shearer’s Hall of Fame. Later in 2015, a call went out from the RSPCA for a Shearer, to shear a sheep that had escaped from its flock and hadn’t been shorn for several years. 

Ian was chosen as the shearer for ‘Chris the Sheep’ – the fleece was a world record weight of 40.5 kgs.

“I've really been lucky in my career,” he said. “I can't believe half the experiences I've been a part of … I even even got to carry the Olympic torch.”