Newsletter

The next meeting will be held on Tuesday the 4th December 2018 at 7pm East Court Chinese Restraunt 1st floor 144-148 Windsor Street Richmond. Please contact us if you will be attending for catering purposes

Please be reminded of the event to be held in Melbourne this weekend ( details on the events page) The MFANSW is sponsoring the apprentice competition at this event

We wish to congradulate Patrick Power on recieving apprentice of the year at Hawkesbury TAFE. Patrick is serving his apprenticeship under Kane Simpson at Randwick Racecourse.Patrick will recieve a $500 voucher from the association

We ask members to review the membership list and to let us know if there are farriers not on the list that should be.There have been many apprentices finish their time in recent years who we have no knowledge of.All apprentices who finish their time will be added as members at no charge.Please also review your own details to make sure they are correct and if you do not want your phone number on the site please contact us so we can remove it form view.

The national farrier registry is still in progress , we just need to contact a lot of farriers to verify their credentials and this is proving to be a very time consuming project but we will get there.

The association recentley renegotiated race day services with the Australian Turf Club for the next three years. We currentley service all city race and trial meetings , all provincial tracks and 5 country tracks and Inglis sale yards at Warwickfarm.Our ultimate aim is to service the majority of the remainder country NSW race meetings, this will give the association a constant passive income so we can run the association at no cost to members well into the future and fund future projects to further the industry

We wish all our members and families a safe and happy christmas 

Regards Jim Middleton secretary and the committee

At the recent MFA meeting it was decided there would be a new membership structure put in place.

As the association is now in a good financial position with the income from race day services the committee decided that we will drop all general membership fees to nil.

All known qualified tradesmen in NSW will be added to the list and will remain members free of charge.If you want your name removed from the list please contact us. If there is some one you know that should be on the list please contact us.

Please check the web site to make sure your details are correct.

We will still offer a premium membership of $330 p/annum for members who wish to attend seminars and the association will cover 50% of the fee

Any apprentice that finishes their time will automatically become a member free of charge

Any new member who upgrade their skills and has a CERT 111 certificate and/or trade  recognition papers ie Craft Certificate a one off joining fee of $330 will apply

We remind members that we are still actively pursueing country race meetings in NSW to service. The association will negotiate with race clubs to ensure the correct fee is being paid .If you are currentley servicing a country race meeting please contact us to make sure you are recieving the correct amount for your service .These race meetings also ensure the financial survival of the association.  

We are confident these measures will help the industry strive towards better self regulation of the farrier industry going forward and in the near future we will have a national registery of all qualified farriers in the country

The next meeting will be held on Friday 5th August 2022 at East Court Chinese Resteraunt 1st floor 144-148 Windsor Street Richmond at 4.30pm Please contact us if you will be attending for catering purposes 0418254950   

As there has been a lot of confusing information relating to the Farrier course at Hawkesbury TAFE we have organised a meeting with course mamager Rebecca Coventry to explain the current situation at the facility and what to expect moving forward. The meeting will be held in the A Block Conference room A Block is the administration building on campus.All employers of apprentices are strongly encouraged to attend.

Following the TAFE meeting we will be holding the association AGM (see details above)  It is important that you advice us of your attendance as we have to cater for this event.Please text secretary Jim Middleton 0418 254950  

We recentley sponsored the shoeing competition at the Tamworth cutting show to the value of $1500 for the apprentice competition. 

We also awarded $1500 at Hawkesbury TAFE.The apprentice of the year was Tristan McTavish $1000 voucher (apprenticed to James Watt Randwick ) and the winner of the shoeing comp was Robert Grey (apprenticed to Brad Porter) $500 voucher.

The two judges at the TAFE shoeing competition were Mark Colbran and Jim Middleton with president Malcolm Hunt in attendance to award the prizes , the skill and work quality was very good overall and the poiints were very close at the end. All apprentices and employers should be proud of where these young men are at this stage of their careers.

Regards Jim Middleton secretary

The next meeting will be held on Tuesday  May 24th 2022 at East Court Chinese Resteraunt 1st floor 144-148 Windsor Street Richmond at 6.00pm Please contact us if you will be attending for catering purposes 0418254950   The meeting above will be taking nominations for office for the next financial year.

We have been informed that the Hawkesbury TAFE Farrier course will continue as is. There was concerns that all horse based courses at Hawkesbury would cease in the near future however with some intervention and commion sense the Farrier course will remain. There are still ongoing concerns regarding having two courses and the cost and funding constraints relating to running two coiurses 

As the platform for our website is about to be unsupported we will be changing servers in the near future. As the format of the website has remained largely unchanged the question now is should we leave the format as is or do we change the presentation completley ? We would like some imput from members regarding this issue. We would also ask members to submit new photos for the new website

If you would like to have an input to the new site please send your submissions and or photos to mfansw@mfansw.com.au

The association will be sponsoring two apprentice divisions of the shoeing competition at the Tamworth Cutting Futurity in June 2022.

Due to increased fuel prices recentley we have subsidised all our race day farrier services by $50 each farrier per midweek meetings indefenitley.

The association continues our association with the Inglis Riverside Sale complex at Warwickfarm servicing three sales in the last two months.

Members should be reminded of the apprentice subsidies currentley on offer by state and federal governments.This is an ideal oppurtunity to put on an apprentice

Regards Jim Middleton secretary

The next meeting will be held on Thursday  March 24th 2022 at East Court Chinese Resteraunt 1st floor 144-148 Windsor Street Richmond at 6.00pm Please contact us if you will be attending for catering purposes 0418254950

With life getting back to somewhere near normal in 2022 (disregarding a potential world war) there should be some events coming up in the near future. Scone horse week is in May and there will be a shoeing competitsion if anyone is interested .The association will be sponsoring the apprentice events.There will be two divisions for apprentices 1-2 second years and 3-4th years.

There has been rumours of Hawkesbury TAFE farrier course discontinuing however this is not true.Some of the horse courses conducted at Hawkesbury may be discontinued however we have not had comformation of this.The TAFE is undergoing a restructure with horse courses as the Scone facility only has two more years as it was purchased by Racing NSW. TAFE will lease back some parts of the Scone campus so we are asuming that both farrier courses will remain or possibley be consolidated into one facility in the futuredepending on the numbers of students.

The association is continuing to service the Inglis sales in 2022 and along with the raceday services which puts us in a healthy financial position moving forward and enables us to have no membership fees 

Regards Jim Middleton secretary