Farmer's diverse community work recognised

Katrina Thomas.

Southland woman Katrina Thomas has received the Dairy Women's Network Dairy Community Leadership award.

The award recognises the voluntary role dairy farming women have in leading their communities and sharing their time and skills beyond the farm gate.

It was presented at the Dairy Women's Network conference in Queenstown last week, which Ms Thomas was involved in organising, and receiving it was ''still sinking in''.

''There are just over 300 people here at conference; I think I must have hugged every single one of them. It's amazing to just be acknowledged in front of your peers for what you are doing,'' she said.

Her prize was a scholarship for the Community Enterprise Leadership Foundation leadership programme, delivered in conjunction with the University of Waikato's management school.

Brought up on a sheep farm in Tuatapere, Ms Thomas spent many years working in tourism marketing, including in Los Angeles, working for the New Zealand Tourism Board.
Returning to Southland, she met her sheep farmer husband, James Dixon, and the couple converted from sheep to dairy in 2011.

Despite knowing nothing about cows, she took over as Dairy Women's Network regional group convener that same year. The couple milk 840 cows at Wreys Bush.

She received the award for her active participation and leadership within her community. She is DWN's Invercargill regional convener and helped set up a regional hub for the network for the Otago and Southland regions.

Ms Thomas got a lot out of seeing newcomers settle in and enjoy rural living. ''It's great being able to work with all the new people I meet and help them settle in and see for themselves how great our community is.''

In addition to her volunteer roles with DWN, she was also president of the Takitimu Primary School's parent teacher association and the Western Tennis Association.

Each month, she produced the Takitimu community newsletter and ran its Facebook page. She was also working with Southland Hospice and Winton FarmSource to establish a calf-rearing scheme for this season.

Ms Thomas said she had some ''amazing'' teams around her and, without them, she would not be able to do what she did.

She has been nominated for a position on the Dairy Women's Network board, which would be a great opportunity to step up into that governance realm, she said.

The DWN conference had been three years in the planning and, now that it was over, she hoped to have more time to get back into her vegetable garden.