Jane and Lynda are priceless

Jane Truscott and Lynda Bixley are two linchpin ladies in the volunteer headquarters. Both have been involved at the New Zealand Open for many years. While I always think of them as volunteers they are actually employed.

Truscott, who hails from Albert Town in Otago, works for Wireless Rentals which supplies all the walker scorers’ wireless kits to relay scores and advise of any on course requirements back to headquarters. Truscott outfits each scorer with their equipment before tee off time. Having done the work for 11 years we ask a probably silly question. Asked if she enjoys it she said: “People like you, volunteers make it. You guys make it fun, otherwise it would be a long day.''

Truscott was born in Christchurch and went to Avonside Girls' High School. Work experiences?

Caption: Jane Truscott (left) and Lynda Bixley have been long-time workers in the volunteer headquarters at the New Zealand Open.

“I loved snowboarding and used to work in snowboard shops for many years in Christchurch.”

In those younger days, when she was 19, she went to Canada for her first snowboard season and subsequently she did that all over Canada. Truscott has also experienced Japan and France.

“I probably did about eight overseas trips. Go away, come back and make some money, then go again.

“I met my partner Rowan 20 years ago at a rail jam in Christchurch we did through my shop, where they put down rails and snow and you could snowboard. Then after moving south in 2000, I was working for an Australian owned shop in Wanaka, which they decided to close.

“Then my partner Rowan’s dad came down and said do you want to do radio down here. I said what’s radio? So this is the business Wireless Rentals who had supplied the equipment for all the film crew on Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit. Fortunately I got to know Ben Tuohy who was originally involved with this event at The Hills. So that is how we started supplying this event.

“We have been here in Albert Town 13 years now but before that we had four years in Aussie at Byron Bay chasing summer weather. So we have been doing the radio job for 12 years and this New Zealand Open for 11 years.’'

Truscott is a bubbly, live wire personality with an unmistakeable and endearing laugh. She is priceless for this event.

We turn to Bixley now and see what ticks her boxes. Lynda Bixley is from Pukekohe.

“I manage the volunteer tent headquarters with everyone’s lunches, uniforms and unusual requests … and there are many. Sometimes I think I should change my name.”

Any examples? “Have I got a spare jacket, have I got an umbrella, do I know where their socks are, have I found their shoes. It is like I am a mother to 470 people for a week.”

But it doesn’t start there. Bixley actually spends two weeks at the venue.

“I come down on the Monday and we go through all the uniforms and put them into the different sizes for men and women. We count them all so we know exactly what we have got and that we have enough. The uniforms are actually ordered 18 months in advance.”

What was the attraction of the event?

“I first came to the open as a spectator so I could see the sculptures at The Hills. But we got talking to some volunteers and they talked me into coming … and I have been coming ever since. But I am lucky because we have a house here and we are going to live here. I have joined Arrowtown Golf Club and we expect to move sometime this year when our house sells. We bought the house in Arrowtown 30 years ago when the children were little as a retirement fund. It is the best thing we ever did.

“It is a historic cottage and we have just restored it.”

So do you spend much time here?

``We have actually been coming to Millbrook for a break for 25 years. We loved the place at first sight.”

Bixley is always attentive to any requests from the volunteers, and indeed is like a mother hen to the volunteers. Priceless.