Shearing Sports New Zealand’s new chairman Warren Parker takes over from Sir David Fagan

Warren Parker, of Raglan, is the new chairman of Shearing Sports New Zealand. Photo / SSNZ

Shearing Sports New Zealand has a new chairman after the retirement from the position of former shearing great Sir David Fagan.

The new leader is Raglan farmer and shearing contractor Warren Parker, who had been chairman of the organisation’s North Island committee for the past 10 years and a northern delegate to Shearing Sports New Zealand for more than two decades.

Parker was elected to the national position ahead of two other nominees at the Shearing Sports New Zealand annual meeting held in Te Kūiti on Sunday and Monday.

Fagan was chairman for nine years and took on the role soon after the last open final in his more than 30 years at the top of global shearing competition.

During his career, he won more than 640 titles, including multiple world, Golden Shears and New Zealand Shears wins.

Parker came from a contrasting background.

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“I was just an average shearer and never entered competitions,” he said.

Parker became involved in the shearing industry when he left school.

After more than 10 years working abroad, in the UK, the US and Australia, he returned to Raglan and was approached to help organise the local shearing competition, the Western Shears, which incorporated the New Zealand lamb shearing championships.

Despite the end of the competition, a victim of dwindling support amid the decline in sheep numbers and shearers in Waikato when it was last held in 2013, Parker remained involved at a North Island and national level.

He became part of the organising committee for the 2017 Golden Shears World Shearing and Woolhandling Championships in Invercargill, an operator of the shearing sports North Island electronic scoring system, and chairman of its committee, and has helped upgrade the system.

He has also been a Raglan Junior Rugby chairman and a chairman of the Waitetuna School Board of Trustees.