We are sorry but there is going to be no Field Day this summer. Not even a bus trip around the forests.
The reason is that the idea we have been pursuing of having a field day at a sawmill just didn’t come off and now it is too late to organise something else.
We have thought for some years that a sawmill visit would give investors a valuable insight into what happens to a log at harvest time. At Taupo there is the Tenon Mill concentrating on pruned logs and producing high quality mouldings for the USA market and at Rotorua the Red Stag Mill is producing framing timber.
Of course locally here in Te Kuiti we have two mills both milling for the export market so there are plenty of mills but organising a field day at one of these is more difficult. For a start they don’t all work weekends but some do work Saturdays. Some of them are used to having visitors such as groups of foresters or trade people. They are our most likely hosts.
This summer we found also that a couple of these mills were engaged in big expansion and upgrades which meant they didn’t want visitors as well. So all in all we didn’t manage to put a Field Day together and it is rather too late to make other arrangements.
We will try again next summer.