Good Sorts - Joy McIvor

The most rewarding part of volunteering for the Waimate community, according to volunteer Joy McIvor (76), has been seeing the outcomes volunteer groups have achieved and the benefits they have provided for the Waimate community.

Joy was born in Timaru and spent the first nine years of her life in the Maungati District, which at the time was part of Waimate County (now Waimate District), and attended Timaunga Primary School.

In 1959, her family moved to St Andrews, and she continued her schooling at St Andrews Primary School until 1964, when she attended Timaru Technical College.

As a child, Joy said her mother was always involved in community organisations, so at the age of 15, when the local St Andrews Ladies Hockey Club she played for needed a secretary, she got her first real taste of volunteering.

“Volunteering was just a natural progression for me,” she said.

At the end of her schooling, Joy went on to work for the Timaru branch of the Social Security Department in 1967, until she married in 1971, moved to Springbrook, had three children, and became a stay-at-home mum.

Then, when her eldest child was 12, she separated from her husband and moved back to St Andrews.

Before this, she had been a Teacher Aid at Springbrook and was volunteering at the Pareora Playcentre, which enabled her to study and gain her National Playcentre Certificate.

Once completed, Joy started her first job as an Early Childhood Teacher at Lyalldale Playcentre, which moved from Lyalldale to the old Esk Valley School site.

From there, she became the Head Early Childhood Teacher for the Timaru branch of the Crippled Children's Society (CCS) and through this, she became engaged in Early Intervention, becoming an Early Intervention Teacher.

While living in the St Andrews area, Joy not only volunteered at the Pareora Playcentre but also at Plunket, served on school committees, and was on the St Andrews Community Council.

She said, as a mother, volunteering in your life and your family's lives outside the home is something you do because you want to give them and yourself as many opportunities as possible.

“[Volunteering] enabled me to study and opened up employment opportunities when I separated and still had young children,” she said.

  In 1994, Joy met and married Keith McIvor. They established Kelceys Bush Animal Farm and Holiday Park in 1996, which they sold in 2019.

After nearly two decades working for CCS, Joy left in 2005 and started working at Waimate Playcentre and then St Andrews Playcentre until she retired.

As for volunteering, in 2000, after establishing herself in Waimate, Joy began volunteering with the Waimate Strawberry Fare committee in various capacities for 20-plus years and is now one of their patrons.

She also served as National Secretary for Kiwi Holiday Parks for 6 years.

During this time, along with her husband Keith, Joy became a foundation member of Bushtown Waimate Inc. and helped establish the Bushtown Heritage Park, which she remains involved in today.

Her main involvement with Bushtown is overseeing grant applications and fundraising, though she was secretary for a while.

Around the same time, they both became foundation members of Friends of Kelceys Bush Inc. Society, and she is currently its treasurer.

Then the Waimate Community Garden was established 12 years ago, and she has been on the committee ever since, serving as treasurer until two years ago.

In 2018, Joy also became involved in the Waimate2gether committee, which, after applying for and being granted funding, became part of the Community Led Development Program (CLDP).

She said the CLDP was a special programme set up by the New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) that guaranteed Lottery funding for community projects over five years, ending in 2024.

“Waimate2gethers' main initiatives have been the White Horse redevelopment, the Waimate Winter Festival, the Waimate Summer Garden competition, the Disc Golf courses at Victoria Park and Knottingley Park, Waimate Good Sorts, the Heritage Trail Booklet, the Art Trail Booklet, the Waimate App, and the Waimate Trail.”

“After transitioning from the CLDP in 2024, we have continued with a number of these projects, with our main focus being the Waimate Trail, a walk and cycle track,” she said.

Over the years, Joy has become a “stable player” within many well-known Waimate community organisations, with her “all in, all out” attitude, and has been awarded the Waimate District Council Civic Award in 2018 and the Waimate Rotary Paul Harris Fellow Award.

Joy said Waimate is a great place to live, with more than its fair share of community groups that achieve a lot for the community, allowing people to feel welcome.

“Our whole community is made up of community groups that keep the Waimate District ticking over, and those groups give the community many opportunities, including the feeling of belonging. Just like choosing to volunteer for those same groups has done for me,” she said.

By Amelia King