The second recipient of the Neil Stocker Memorial Fund has been named.
South Island Organ Company employee Julian Shaw has received $7000 from the fund, to go towards attending a fine woodworking course in Nelson later this year.
Mr Shaw said he was looking forward to making good use of the scholarship and was excited to have the opportunity to bring more skills back to the company.
He had worked at the business for over a decade, despite not having any previous experience with woodwork.
The fund was created after Mr Stocker was killed in the 2011 Christchurch earthquake.
He worked for the company for 43 years, becoming the factory foreman.
Mr Stocker was one of a team of eight who were dismantling a pipe organ from the Durham St Methodist Church when the church collapsed, killing three men.
Mr Stocker’s widow Margaret instigated a fund to provide special educational opportunities for apprenticed or recently qualified young organ builders.
She said of the presentation her late husband would be ‘‘beaming down’’.
Guests at the presentation of the award included Rev Dale Peach and her husband, who were serendipitously visiting Timaru on the day. Rev Peach said they were ‘‘Durham St people’’.
The fund is not the only memory of Mr Stocker at the organ company.
Managing director John Hargraves said many of Mr Stocker’s yellow-handled tools were still in use around the workroom.
Mr Hargraves said organ builders developed a feel for their own tools, and would not want them travelling to another bench, so painting the handles had been Mr Stocker’s way to prevent that.
He said working at the company was quite a lot like television show The Repair Shop, with workers not only working with wood but leather, felt, glass, and metal.
