Page 11 - Demo

Leadership and Communities
This year we have grown our important Leadership and Communities initiatives, expanding them and introducing new activities. All are aimed at helping individuals thrive within our sector, reaching their personal goals, and forming supportive networks to strengthen our industry.
The Young Viticulturist and Winemaker of the Year competitions highlight how many passionate and talented young leaders we have coming through. Following the highly impressive speeches the participants delivered in their finals last year,
we held a Young Leaders’ Forum
in November. Twenty winegrowers under thirty five, from different roles and regions around the country,
came together to learn from some of New Zealand’s top agricultural and horticultural leaders, as well as work together on ideas for the future to share with the NZW Board. We hope to provide further opportunities to develop these ideas.
The continuing success of the Women in Wine mentoring program led to many requests for a general NZW mentoring programme, open to all. This was launched in November 2019 and we plan to continue running this each year.
The Women in Wine initiative continues to gain momentum and membership throughout our regions, with women winegrowers gaining confidence and opportunities
to further their careers through networking and support. The inaugural
International Forum of Women in Wine in Italy sponsored our Women
in Wine NZ Chair and national coordinator to attend. They proudly shared the story of our successful mentoring programme and other initiatives, and gathered useful ideas for new activities from other countries.
Early in the year we surveyed members to build a better understanding of “Our People”.
One finding of note was that 7% of members said they had suffered from mental health issues. COVID-19 will only have increased these pressures, so NZW is planning workshops and materials to help ensure members feel supported and are more alert to when colleagues may need extra support. u
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YOUNG VITICULTURIST OF THE YEAR