Category: News

COMMUNITY BUILDERS WEBINARS CONNECTING RURAL AUSTRALIA New series: what it takes to build strong, enterprising and sustainable towns.

Posted on

Rural Aid has today announced the new topics for its popular “Community Builders” webinars series. 

The free webinar series, sponsored by Bushells, was created during the early months of Covid-19 restrictions to support small towns in rural and remote Australia in developing stronger futures in the face of adversity.    

The theme of Rural Aid’s August series is Tales and Lessons from Strong, Enterprising and Sustainable Rural Towns. 

According to John Warlters, CEO of Rural Aid, the webinars are about bringing fresh ideas and real world case studies of successful small towns to the rest of Australia.  

“Population decline, drought, bushfires and now Covid-19 are all challenges that destabilise the fabric and economic viability of our small towns. We want to provide proactive solutions and inspiration for the people who “get stuff done” in those towns; we call them the community builders. This series is being built off the back of the success of our first Community Builders series held earlier in the year.” 

Mr Warlters said that while community leaders, business owners, primary producers, Councillors and key community organisation representatives are the most common attendees, anyone is welcome to register and join in.  

“These webinars have become critical opportunities to connect, and exchange ideas and information to broaden the collective knowledge base in rural Australia,” Mr Warlters said. 

The webinars are hosted by Peter Kenyon, community change and renewal expert from The Bank of Ideas. 

“Peter has spent over 35 years in the field of community change and renewal, and he has a wealth of knowledge on delivering initiatives, programs and long-lasting improvements to our precious small communities across Australia and beyond,” Mr Warlters said.  

Episode one features a town in Tasmania and one in Western Australia with case studies on turning around a community in decline, host Peter Kenyon said. 

“Deloraine is a quaint town near Launceston with a population of around 3000 people and Balingup in the south east of WA has under 500 locals. These are two rural communities with forty-plus years of continuous community reinvention. Both towns benefited from alternative and traditional farmers finding common ground and both have developed significant calendars of special events,” Mr Kenyon said.  

Guests from these towns will speak on the initiatives that worked for their communities, and attendees can ask questions through the chat function of the webinar platform. 

  • Week 1: 6 August 4pm-5pm AEST | How to turn around a community in decline 
    Week 2: 13 August 4pm-5pm AEST | Reinvent your town’s fortunes through alternative tourism  
  • Week 3: 20 August 4pm-5pm AEST | How to use events to put your town on the map  
  • Week 4: 27 August 4pm-5pm AEST | Bold community campaigns that work in small towns 

To register to be part of the Community Builders Series, visit: ruralaid.org.au/towns/webinars 

END 

About Rural Aid 

Rural Aid is one of Australia’s largest rural charities. Well known for the highly successful ‘Buy a Bale’ campaign, the charity also provides financial assistance, water and counselling to farmers in times of drought, flood or fire. Other initiatives support its vision that farming and rural communities are safeguarded to ensure their sustainability both during and after these natural disasters. Visit www.ruralaid.org.au for further information on these programs and other support for our rural communities. 
 

Media: 0447 116 757 | media@admin.media.ruralaid.org.au 

Spokesperson: Rural Aid CEO John Warlters | 0409 618 641 

Follow Rural Aid for updates on: 

Rural Aid – FB: @ruralaidaustralia | IG: @ruralaid |IN: Rural Aid Ltd | TW: @ruralaidaust 

Buy A Bale – FB: @buyabaleofhay | IG: @buyabale | TW: @buyabale 

NATIONAL FARM SAFETY WEEK

Posted on

Five day challenge activity encouraged as farmers focus on their wellbeing

One of Australia’s largest rural charities, Rural Aid, has compiled a five-day wellbeing challenge for primary producers during National Farm Safety Week.

The organisation says that prioritising the wellbeing and welfare of primary producers is extremely important particularly in recognising many on-farm hazards and risks.

“Farming is already a high risk job. You’re working from heights, with complex machinery, handling livestock, and the single vehicle incident rate is huge. On top of that, stress caused by long working hours, drought, bushfires, financial worries, price uncertainty, and high input costs is ever present,” CEO John Warlters says.

“There is a correlation between people suffering stress or overwhelm and accidents occurring.”

Toowoomba-based counselor Jane McCollum recently ran a webinar for primary producers on how to deal with the sense of overwhelm that is prevalent in the agricultural community, as part of Rural Aid’s On the Couch webinar series.

“It’s very common for farmers to get overwhelmed, it’s just the nature of the uncertainty, demands of what they do and the external pressures coupled with personal pressures, or challenges at home,” Ms McCollum said.

“As a counsellor, I meet with plenty of primary producers whose state of overwhelm is quite chronic in nature, to the point that we do actually need some assistance in coming out of that state. This is why it’s so important to know that simple, regular activities can keep overwhelm in check.

“I liken it to being struck by a dust storm; you’re not able to breathe, you’re not able to see ahead of you. In that moment, in that absolute moment, you can tend to be a little bit panicked and even freeze. That’s the feeling of being overwhelmed.

“For example, you might want to go into town from the property to fuel up, go to the bank, the post office and you have the shopping list with you. But you find yourself heading into town and you realize that you don’t even know why you’re there. This is often a good sign you’re overwhelmed.”

“You might be unwell and fatigued, but there’s no discernable reason to feel that way. That’s another common sign. Or, you’re having trouble focusing and completing simple tasks like washing clothes and folding them up, cooking a meal, weeding, spraying your weeds and cleaning up the shed – things that you would have usually been able to do okay but, for some reason, you’re just not being able to carry out those tasks.”

During National Farm Safety Week, our Rural Aid counsellors are supporting our farmers – asking for all farmers to consider a challenge activity each day for five days.

Monday task: Make time to relax

“The best of engines needs a cooling off period, and your prize stock horse still needs a rest period. Lock in time out for yourself today to relax and to stop for at least 20 mins. This looks different for everybody: watching their favorite TV series, playing Candy Crush, reading a book, getting out into the garden or doing some photography. Some people love to just go and sit on the fence with a cup of tea and look at the view.”

Tuesday task: Enjoyable exercise

“There’s a difference between physical activity and exercise. Physical activity is great in its own sense, but it’s all about work. When your work is stressing you, there’s going to still be issues of stress around that physical activity. This is where exercise is different. It’s intentional and it’s a period of time that you can just be doing it for yourself.  Maybe leave the quad bike and walk to the mailbox today. Try doing even a walk for 10 minutes three times today if a full 30 minutes is untenable.”

Wednesday task: Talk about what’s up

“Talk over an issue that’s troubling you with a professional, friend, or family member. One of the exacerbating factors in rural Australia is our propensity to keep it all in, which has long been viewed as very admirable, but it’s actually dangerous.”

Thursday task: Pros and cons list

“Whether personally and professionally, when you’re trying to make a big decision, do a pros and cons list. When you put things down on paper and you see what’s good and what’s not so good about that decision, you start to see the big picture.”

Friday task: Break it down

“Breaking big jobs or big challenges down into smaller parts is really important when it comes to dealing with overwhelm because we tend to try to tackle the bigness of the issue which isn’t helpful. Break it down and deal with it bit by bit or step by step. Some other words here that you can see are: streamline, disentangle, clarify, clean it up, order, unscramble, facilitate, get down to basics, reduce, and make clear. I use a big sheet of paper.”

You can watch the full webinar on overwhelm www.ruralaid.org.au/counselling/

END

About Rural Aid

Rural Aid is one of Australia’s largest rural charities. Well known for the highly successful ‘Buy a Bale’ campaign, the charity also provides financial assistance, water and counselling to farmers in times of drought, flood or fire. Other initiatives support its vision that farming and rural communities are safeguarded to ensure their sustainability both during and after these natural disasters. Visit www.ruralaid.org.au for further information on these programs and other support for our rural communities.

Media: 0424203935 | media@admin.media.ruralaid.org.au
Spokesperson: Rural Aid CEO John Warlters | 0409 618 641

Follow Rural Aid for updates on:

Rural Aid – FB: @ruralaidaustralia | IG: @ruralaid |IN: Rural Aid Ltd | TW: @ruralaidaust

Buy A Bale – FB: @buyabaleofhay | IG: @buyabale | TW: @buyabale

RURAL AID APPOINTS TWO NEW BOARD DIRECTORS

Posted on

Farm Table founder Airlie Landale and Angus stud stock producer Erica Halliday add expertise to Rural Aid Board.

Rural Aid has welcomed two new directors to its Board. They are well-known beef industry leader Erica Halliday of Nevis Angus, Walcha, and Farm Table managing director and founder Airlie Landale from Deniliquin.
Chairman Alex Hutton said the appointments further strengthened Rural Aid’s already strong connections with rural and regional Australia.


Erica Halliday

Erica Halliday comes from a generational background in the farming and rural sector having started as a jillaroo and stud muster. Erica has an extended skillset as a business facilitator, life coach, board member and a sought-after guest speaker.
As a fourth-generation cattle producer, Erica understands the complexities and challenges of agriculture.
After studying agricultural economics, beef production and marketing, Erica worked holistically with farm families to balance economics and finance with the land, animals and the people within.
Since 2006 and in partnership with her husband, Erica has been running Ben Nevis Angus in Walcha NSW, managing genetics and marketing.
Erica is Vice-President on the Board of Directors of Angus Australia and has been a Director of the Australian Beef Industry Foundation, Australian Beef Association and Chairman of the NSW State Committee and New England Angus Breeders. She and her husband Stu won the prestigious Stewarts Award in recognition of their service to Angus Youth.


Airlie Landale

Born and raised on a mixed farming property in NSW, Airlie Landale is the Founder and Managing Director of Farm Table, a national online knowledge sharing platform. The platform connects producers with the latest research, opportunities and resources, and to each other, to help them to navigate the complexities of farming.
Through the development and launch of Farm Table, Airlie understands the commitment required in a start-up business and possesses a broad range of skills. From business development, financial management, stakeholder engagement and management, technical development, event management, design and testing, agriculture research and content development and dissemination.
Prior to Farm Table, Airlie Landale was a Business Analyst with Macquarie Bank’s Paraway Pastoral Co – which operates 27 pastoral enterprises. She was also a Drought Coordinator with Edward River Council NSW, Researcher and Columnist for Food Tank – Chicago, and an Economics and Policy Senior Consultant with PricewaterhouseCoopers – Melbourne.
Airlie Landale has been a popular presenter at many industry events and workshops, including Women and Leadership Australia, Murray Landcare Collective, FoodCon 2018, AgriVictoria, Producer forums and the National Fodder Conference. She separates her time between running Farm Table and working in the family farming enterprises in Deniliquin and Holbrook.
Both Erica and Airlie have an excellent understanding of the rural sector. Their extensive relationships in rural and corporate sectors will ensure that Rural Aid continues to have a strong capacity to meet its objective to support rural and regional Australia in times of need.


About Rural Aid
Rural Aid is one of Australia’s largest rural charities. Well known for the highly successful ‘Buy a Bale’ campaign, the charity also provides financial assistance, water and counselling to farmers in times of drought, flood or fire. Other initiatives support its vision that farming and rural communities are safeguarded to ensure their sustainability both during and after these natural disasters. Visit www.ruralaid.org.au for further information on these programs and other support for our rural communities.
Media: Lyndsey Douglas 0424 203 935 | media@admin.media.ruralaid.org.au
Spokesperson: Rural Aid CEO John Warlters | 0409 618 641
Follow Rural Aid for updates on:
Rural Aid – FB: @ruralaidaustralia | IG: @ruralaid |IN: Rural Aid Ltd | TW: @ruralaidaust
Buy A Bale – FB: @buyabaleofhay | IG: @buyabale | TW: @buyabale

RURAL AID ROAD TRAINS TRAVEL THE LENGTH OF NSW TO DELIVER HAY THIS WEEK

Posted on

RURAL AID ROAD TRAINS TRAVEL THE LENGTH OF NSW TO DELIVER HAY THIS WEEK

Rural Aid road trains will head from border to border in NSW this week delivering nearly 1000 hay bales to eight farming communities.

Covering the length of the state, Rural Aid will travel thousands of kilometres this week from the Northern Tablelands to the Snowy Mountains to provide over 60 farmers with fodder, CEO John Warlters said.
Primary producers in tiny towns betweenTenterfield and the Queensland border will be the recipients of Rural Aid’s hay drops early this week with deliveries scheduled to Tabulam, Legume, Woodenbong, Upper Tooloom, Cullendore and Rukenvale.

“Six road trains will deliver approximately 170 tonne of hay to around 30 farmers over four days to those six locations, distributing 461 bales,” Mr Warlters said.

“From there, we’ll head west to Nullamanna near Inverell and Graman near Warialda to distribute 102 tonnes of hay to 11 farmers who will each receive a portion of the 146 bales.

“The Rural Aid trucks will make their way south in the latter part of the week to the Snowy Mountains and border towns near Victoria to deliver hay to farmers in Delegate, Coolamatong, Nimmitabel and Cooma to farmers who will receive 332 bales.”

Last week, 80 farmers shared 955 bales of hay weighing in at nearly 600 tonne in the New South Wales towns of Wilsons Downfall, Boorook, Tenterfield, Byabarra, Bingara, Delungra, Yetman, Dalgety, Jincumbilly; as well as the Queensland towns of Binjour, Elbow Valley, Junabee and Running Creek.

Rural Aid CEO John Warlters said a mix of environmental and economic factors continue to pose problems for primary producers, with the generosity of Rural Aid’s donors and sponsors essential to the delivery of fodder to communities finding their feet following bushfires and drought. More recently winter frosts have begun and trade uncertainty brought on by covid-19 is posing an additional challenge for farmers.

“With the same tenacity our farmers show, our team has managed to continue deliveries throughout 2020 to help farmers and rural communities in need – be it drought, bushfire or flood effected,” Mr Warlters concluded.

About Rural Aid
Rural Aid is one of Australia’s largest rural charities. Well known for the highly successful ‘Buy a Bale’ campaign, the charity also provides financial assistance, water and counselling to farmers in times of drought, flood or fire. Other initiatives support its vision that farming and rural communities are safeguarded to ensure their sustainability both during and after these natural disasters. Visit www.ruralaid.org.au for further information on these programs and other support for our rural communities. Visit www.ruralaid.org.au/snapshots for Rural Aid’s latest assistance statistics.

Media: Lyndsey Douglas 0424 203 935 | media@admin.media.ruralaid.org.au
Spokesperson: Rural Aid CEO John Warlters | 0409 618 641
 
Follow Rural Aid for updates on:
Rural Aid – FB: @ruralaidaustralia | IG: @ruralaid |IN: Rural Aid Ltd | TW: @ruralaidaust
Buy A Bale – FB: @buyabaleofhay | IG: @buyabale | TW: @buyabale

HOW TO RAISE RESILIENT KIDS IN THE BUSH

Posted on

Register for “On the Couch with Rural Aid Counsellors” webinar, Wednesday 15 July 2020 7pm AEST.

Register here.

One of Australia’s largest rural charities is hosting a webinar for country parents and grandparents this Wednesday night on the topic of raising resilient bush kids. 

The charity provides financial assistance, water, fodder and counselling to farmers in times of drought, flood or fire, and says children too need support during these challenging times. 

Rural Aid counsellor Zoe Cox will be running the webinar, which is anonymous for attendees who can ask questions privately and directly to the Rural Aid team, and she says that while there are distinct advantages to growing up in rural Australia, there are unique disadvantages too. 
 

“Country kids get exposure to a variety of experiences and through that they develop problem solving abilities in a resilience-boosting environment. They also tend to have a great sense of community and a bond with nature,” counsellor Zoe Cox explains.

“But bush kids are also subjected to additional adversity including financial hardship, environmental stressors and isolation. Droughts, floods, fires and economic shutdowns – like we’re experiencing today – impact bush kids, so it’s important we know how to create an environment where they can be emotionally resilient.” 

The webinar on Wednesday night will deal specifically with a child’s emotional resilience, meaning one’s ability to adapt to stressful situations, adversity or crisis.

“The old “toughen up, princess” approach is not the answer, nor is helicopter parenting,” she said.

Zoe says there are 10 key approaches parents and grandparents can employ to raise resilient kids. 

1. Make sure your child feels seen

2. Encourage strong relationships

3. Help them discover identity

4. Use strength-based parenting

5. Support autonomy and independence

6. Encourage flexible thinking 

7. Combat negative thinking

8. Foster self-control and delayed gratification

9. Reward effort over ‘smarts’

10. Minimise ‘screen time’, maximise outdoor play

Country parents are encouraged to register for the webinar where these topics and tactics will be discussed in detail.

ENDS

About Rural Aid 

Rural Aid is one of Australia’s largest rural charities. Well known for the highly successful ‘Buy a Bale’ campaign, the charity also provides financial assistance, water and counselling to farmers in times of drought, flood or fire. Other initiatives support its vision that farming and rural communities are safeguarded to ensure their sustainability both during and after these natural disasters. Visit www.ruralaid.org.au for further information on these programs and other support for our rural communities. 

Visit www.ruralaid.org.au/snapshots for Rural Aid’s latest assistance statistics. 

Register at www.ruralaid.org.au/towns/webinars/ to be part of the Community Builders Webinars Series and to access past episodes. 

Media: Lyndsey Douglas0424 203 935 | media@admin.media.ruralaid.org.au 

Spokesperson: Rural Aid CEO John Warlters | 0409 618 641 

Follow Rural Aid for updates on: 

Rural Aid – FB: @ruralaidaustralia | IG: @ruralaid |IN: Rural Aid Ltd | TW: @ruralaidaus
Buy A Bale – FB: @buyabaleofhay | IG: @buyabale | TW: @buyabale