Te Awamutu College dairy farm to be sold as returns drop and costs rise

Noldy Rust, of Ray White Te Awamutu, is marketing the Rogers Charitable Trust Dairy Farm. Photo / Dean Taylor

Dr Lindsay Rogers was a Te Awamutu Walk of Fame inductee for his international recognition as the “Guerilla Surgeon” during World War II. For almost three decades, his legacy has been the Cambridge Rd farm he bequeathed to Te Awamutu College. Now that farm is set to be sold. Dean Taylor reports.

Dr Lindsay Rogers’ story, and the civil and legal battles to have his wishes enacted following both his tragic death in 1962 - aged only 61 - and the death of his wife Isobel in 1989, make for fascinating reading.

The Rogers Charitable Trust (RCT), which is made up of four Te Awamutu College Board of Trustees representatives and two community representatives and was formed in 1995, has moved to put the Cambridge Rd farm he bequeathed to Te Awamutu College on the market and utilise the proceeds to continue to honour Dr Rogers’ intentions, but in a different way.

Board chairman and RCT trustee Craig Yarndley says the decision to sell the farm has been four years in the making and was not made lightly.

He says in 2019, the board commissioned a wide-ranging review of the operation of the farm, with the original intentions of Rogers as the criteria for measuring the effectiveness of the venture.

When Rogers died in 1962, his will stated: “That when his youngest son turns 21 the residual estate to be paid to the ‘Board of Governors of the Te Awamutu College’ to erect a hostel(s) or boarding establishment to provide accommodation for pupils attending the college (Clause 4) and that the ‘Board of Governors’ may modify the conditions in his will as long as the ‘general intention thereof be observed’.”

Lindsay Rogers was regarded as a forward-thinking surgeon.

Rogers had travelled and worked extensively overseas post-World War II and was regarded as a forward-thinking surgeon.

When he returned to New Zealand, he became the district doctor for the Te Awamutu area, working predominantly in rural areas and the Kāwhia coast among Māori.

He was married to Isobel, but the couple had no children.

Despite having no children of his own, Rogers took an active interest in secondary education in Te Awamutu and served on the Te Awamutu College Board of Governors from 1957-1958.

He had a concern for secondary students whose educational opportunities might be disadvantaged because they lived some distance from school and travel was an issue.

His plan at the time was for the school to build a boarding hostel for these students, but it did not progress. This was the basis of his wishes for Te Awamutu College in his will.

This became more evident in 1960, when Lindsay and Isobel adopted two boys aged 6 and 7 who were of Māori descent.

Rogers was proud to be the boys’ father and encouraged them to make their own achievements, as he himself had done.

His death by drowning in 1962 was unexpected and added a complication to his will that came to light nearly 30 years later.

In 1989, following the death of their mother, the boys were to receive just $300 a year from their father’s estate. It was actually recorded as £150 because it had preceded New Zealand’s conversion to decimal currency.

The will was contested, and legal arguments were finally settled in 1994.

In 1962, the estate was worth about £50,000 ($100,000), but by 1994 it was over $1.5 million, so as Justice Anderson noted in his judgment, “it was no surprise the plaintiffs felt they were not being properly provided for with just $6 per week”.

Meanwhile, the Te Awamutu College management team and Board of Trustees had sought ways to honour Rogers’ wishes.

Investigations had been made into building a hostel and using the Rogers farm to provide agricultural courses for students with residential accommodation.

The final submission was that a hostel would be impractical and that the farm was close enough to the school to be used for student courses. Operating the farm would provide returns that could be used for other charitable purposes.

A final settlement was reached whereby the plaintiffs received an equal share of 51 per cent value of the farm, raised by mortgage, while the school Board of Trustees received the farm and buildings as its 49 per cent share.

A classroom was set up on the farm in 1996, and a teacher was employed as head of agricultural science.

This was further extended in 2002 with the establishment of the Agricultural Academy. The academy ran until 2016.

Te Awamutu College ran an Agricultural Academy from 2002-2016 headed by director Les Tuck, pictured in 2009 with the academy's top 2008 student Sarah McGough on the Te Awamutu College Rogers Trust farm.

Yarndley says the farm and the academy had benefited from excellent staff and volunteer help from the community and both board and farm trustees during that era, but by the mid-2010s diversification was being investigated.

“Our 2019 review was to determine if continuing to own and operate the farm was the best option for the school,” he says.

“We didn’t have the same commitment from the community and trustees to help with the operation so with the reduced community support and the changing legislations with regard to farming, it was becoming too hard,” he says.

Fellow trustee, and until recently chairman of the RCT, Jock Ellis, agrees running the farm was becoming complicated and the returns weren’t reflected in the value of the property and buildings.

Yarndley, a chartered accountant, says the property is valued at about $4 million, but the return (the funds provided to the school) had been less than 2 per cent, plus rising costs and a lower payout this year meant this might even be less.

He says several strategies had been tried over the years to improve the return, but the advice from experts was to sell.

Ellis says those returns had been used in ways that tried to ensure students weren’t disadvantaged — as per Rogers’ intentions.

RCT funding to the college has assisted with a car for the district attendance officer; redevelopment of the Horticulture Compound; hall chairs; a school van; a contribution to the Multi-Sports Turf project; and the sale of school uniforms at cost price.

College principal Tony Membery, also an RCT trustee for the past 16 years, says the school and its students are extremely grateful for the funding from the trust that has allowed for many “special extras” to be possible.

“The time, effort, skills and knowledge of the respective trustees over a long period is also greatly appreciated,” he says.

But now the trustees believe they can do better by selling the farm and making good use of the funds.

The intention is to maintain the charitable trust, and both protect and grow the base fund.

Yarndley believes the school community would still be better off financially and therefore able to help more students.

The new RCT chairman is Wade Bell. He has a background with DairyNZ and in rural banking and is now Pioneer Brand Products farm systems manager for Waikato, BoP and Northland.

Bell says he is passionate about the dairy industry, but he is also passionate about educational outcomes and achievement for students and doing the best for Te Awamutu College.

“I look forward to leading this new phase in the legacy that Lindsay Rogers has created for Te Awamutu College,” he says.

“Despite my passion for dairying, the rising cost of compliance and associated risks to the college are becoming disproportionate to the returns generated.”

Bell believes the future cash investment from the sale of the farm is the best way the trust can continue to make substantial and valuable financial contributions to benefit all students at Te Awamutu College.

The farm is being marketed by someone who has a long-standing relationship with the property.

Te Awamutu College Rogers Charitable Trust Dairy Farm is going on the market for the first time in about seven decades. Photo / Dean Taylor

Noldy Rust, of Ray White Te Awamutu, was on the Te Awamutu College Board of Trustees for two terms from 2008-14, and was also a trustee of the RCT during that time.

When he retired from the board, he became a community RCT trustee and chairman for a further six years from 2014-2020.

He says the Rogers farm is about 57.5ha, plus a section of 3376sq m has been subdivided and will also be for sale.

David and Wendy Warren have been the contract milkers since the start of the 2014 season, milking about 170 cows on what is described as a fully compliant and tidy farm.

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