My name is Sue Cameron and I am the TCSPSA Area Rep for Hawkes Bay & Wairarapa, and also the TCSPSA National President. This is my second full year as National President, having spent the 2 years prior as National Vice President and the previous 6 years as Area Rep on the National Committee. 

We have a hard working National Committee and there are Parents Assn Reps in most areas. We do have a few vacancies though, so if you are enthusiastic, and would consider coordinating families in your area, then let me know. We can fit you in! It is not necessary to have to travel out of your area, as in this age of email, we can communicate very effectively through that – but it is for various reasons a good thing for committee members to have the opportunity to meet at Conference or at Camps and School Days. 

I have 5 children all of whom went through the Correspondence School system for distance reasons as we live nearly an hours drive from the nearest school – in Martinborough. We live on the family farm which has been in my husbands family since 1840. It is a rugged sheep & beef station on the East Coast of the Wairarapa. You marry a Cameron, you marry Pahaoa!

The kids started off in Early Childhood and then went through their Primary years at TCS. But for secondary school I decided to send them off to Boarding School to give them the opportunity to develop social skills, as TCS in recent years has not considered this a priority for their distance students. 

Kyle is now 18 and is an apprentice electrician in Wellington and loving it – currently he is working on a new exhibit at Te Papa.

Melissa is 17 and in Year 13 and plans to go on to work in the Equestrian field.

James is 15 and in Year 11, so this will be his NCEA Level 1 year. He is excelling at both Maths and Science, and has been selected to be in the school’s extension classes in both subjects.

Crystal is 13 and has just finished her last year at TCS, and is now in Year 9 at Boarding School and finding it a bit of a challenge socially right now in the hostel. She is not used to having to jostle for position amongst a bunch of other girls.

Robbie is 12 and in Year 8 – the last of my kids on Correspondence after 14 years straight, teaching at home. So unless one of my secondary kids decides they want to come back on Correspondence, I am coming to the end of an era. 

My interests are many:

• I breed and break in Sport Horses and always have several horses as a work-in-progress at any one time. Both my girls compete on their ponies so we seem to spend quite a bit of time trekking in to town with the horse float to Pony Club and to compete at Gymkhanas, Sports Days and One Day Events. It’s a great training ground for young horses living on a beach at a river mouth.
• My boys are not interested in horses, instead preferring to be ‘petrol-heads’ racing around the station on their motorbikes.
• I breed and show French Bulldogs, and I am the Treasurer of the Wellington Bulldog Club, which covers the Lower North Island, so I do a bit of traveling around for that. Interestingly (as my budget is very tight) I only enter shows around the North Island where I have someone to stay with, as my budget does not stretch to staying in motels – and many of those people are Correspondence School people I have met over the years at Conference, Camps and School Days. We have a big network going on out there!
• I breed poultry at show level, and I keep 2 heavy breeds – Barred Plymouth Rocks and Silver Laced Wyandotte, both of which are American breeds. I also breed Frizzle Bantams, which are Chinese in origin. I am qualified to judge Heavy Breeds, and this year I will also be judging Light Breeds ‘Under Licence’.
• The kids and I enjoy archery and we go to the Archery Club in Masterton as often as we can manage it. Club night is a Friday which suits us well as this is the night I pick up the kids from Boarding School to come home for the weekend.
• I also enjoy whip cracking, but it has been a while since I have done it at competition level – just can’t seem to find the time right now!!!
• And in winter my whole family loves to go skiing at Whakapapa for a week, along with several other Correspondence School families. All the kids are much more competent than I am of course. Because I have an artificial foot, I ski with outriggers as a disabled skier. Outriggers are adapted crutches with little skis on the bottom which I can flip up to turn them into poles when I need to, and they make it possible for me to ski the whole mountain with the kids and the other Mums and Dads, which I love.
• We also attended a camp called Highland Home Camp at Ashhurst - Feb 2007