Relief milker offers services for holiday season

Farm owners or workers needing an extra pair of hands this holiday season can look no further than a fundraiser being held by Turua Playcentre.
Mother-of-three and experienced dairy farmer Briana Joynt has offered to relief milk on December 31 and January 1 – with the money raised from raffle sales going towards some “much-needed” play equipment for the Raratuna St centre.
“I offered it up because fundraisers can sometimes be quite a lot of work for not a lot of gain, so I was hoping I could go work a weekend and get a few ticket sales and get decent money,” Briana said. “I wanted to do something to help, and I thought if I raffled off myself, there would hopefully be some interest.”
Briana relief milks across properties throughout the Hauraki-Thames Valley, and has 17 years of farming experience. She had her start in Whangarei before she worked in Hikuai, Opoutere, and Kaitaia.
She said the relief milker fundraiser could be a big help over the Christmas period.
“Time off for anyone is important, and for those who are business owners, I know how hard it is to find someone to [relief milk], let alone pay for someone to do it,” she said.
“I was also trying to put it across to any workers that, if their boss was happy for me to come in and milk, they could maybe get the New Year’s off. It wasn’t just open to self-employed people in any sense.”
The raffle is drawn on November 15 but only if the ticket sale goal is reached. Briana said uptake was slow so far.
“I’ve been a little disappointed with the response, in all honesty, so at this point, it’s not being drawn,” she said. “We’d love to boost the sales.”
Turua Playcentre committee member Natasha Cairns said the raffles could make good Christmas presents for a farm owner or worker.
“It is a bit of a unique fundraiser in that, while we have a big farming community, there aren’t heaps and heaps of farms for the number of sales,” she said.
“It is a big ask for Briana to do this – she’s got three little ones – and so to have her give up her time over the New Year and do this for our small playcentre is really appreciated.”
DETAILS: To purchase your $15 raffle ticket to support Turua Playcentre, email turua.playcentre@gmail.com