Neil Edwards APM and Joan Edwards

For nearly fifty years, Neil and Joan Edwards were a familiar team in the woodchop competition at the Royal Melbourne Show. Neil first got involved as a competitor and soon found himself immersed in the woodchopping world. He was asked to join the Woodchop Committee of the Royal Agricultural Society of Victoria (RASV) and in 1977 he was approached to take on the role of announcer for the woodchop competition.

Joan joined soon after, stewarding for the competition from 1979. It was a complicated job involving a lot of organisation. Joan was responsible for writing up the competition draws, organising the log draws over 11 or 12 days of competition. After three decades, Joan was quite relieved with the introduction of a computerised system in 2012.

Last year the IT department became involved and they have been absolutely fabulous. It's amazing what computers do. So I've been replaced by a 16-year-old kid who presses a button on a machine - something I've been doing by hand for 30-40 years.

Neil was a member of the Woodchop Committee for 40 years. He took on the role of chairman for 15 years and, in honour of his longstanding contribution, was made a life councillor, the highest and most distinguished honour awarded by RASV. Neil and Joan worked at the Show every year for around 45 years: long days starting early and finishing late. ‘Even though we'd been to the Show for probably 45 years’, comments Neil, ‘you hardly see outside the woodchopping arena. And that's been some benefit since I've retired to look around and say 'oh that's great'’.

Neil and Joan’s husband-and-wife team exemplifies much of what woodchopping at the Royal Melbourne Show is all about – family. As Neil reflects:

Woodchopping itself is very family orientated. Over the years you've had families like the O'Toole family, you've had three maybe four generations of one family; the same with the Meyer family, the Williams family from Gippsland, the Caldwells from Gippsland. It's the sort of sport that when you're here over 40 or 50 years, you see these five or six-year-old kids with little tomahawks making a mess in the wood yard, whacking away… suddenly ten years go by and they're back here in open competition … That promoted the sport a lot, the family influence, it allowed the sport to continue.