Recently, author and school sports expert, Gordon Paterson, reached out to our team to thank us for our professional service and our superb craftsmanship in creating a particularly special kiaat bench to honour Weston Old Boy, Vaughan Jones and his wife Ariel for over 60 years of outstanding international achievement in agriculture within New Zealand.
As an educator and Weston Old Boy himself, Gordon had the honour of being invited to speak at one of Weston Agricultural College’s annual prize giving’s, where he spoke about his life journey and the integral role that his beloved friends, Vaughan and Ariel, played in supporting him and his academic career in New Zealand. On occasion of his speech, Gordon presented the bench to Weston, with heartfelt sentiments attached to the belated couple.
Gordon is not only an accomplished author of two books, titled ‘There is Genius in Passion’ and ‘A Boy from Mooi River’ but is also an educator at heart.
The author has a long history and deep-seated passion in sports education. He has taught at Michaelhouse, where he introduced Human Kinetics as a replacement for Physical Education and has completed his doctoral thesis, focusing on coaching strategies conducive to enhancing self-esteem of participants in school sport, at Stellenbosch University.
When he immigrated to New Zealand in 1994 with his family, he went on to be appointed as CEO of Physical Education in New Zealand (the national association for Physical Educators), lectured sports and coaching at Waikato Institute of Technology and established an educational consultancy called Ad Rem, where he assists those with learning difficulties through physical movement strategies.
Homewood are extremely proud to have assisted this amazing man in some small way and would like to pay a special thanks to the Homewood Piggly Wiggly showroom for organising the commemorative bench project and to all the skilled workers in the Homewood Factory who all had a hand in crafting the bench. Lastly, we’d like to thank Gordon for choosing to purchase a handcrafted bench from us and, thus, supporting our local Lidgetton factory.
