Company

Jackie Elliott started Rural Women's Day - an event for rural women to get off the farm - because she was lonely. Five years later, it's become a nation-wide success with numerous events, hosted in small rural communities all over Australia. Rural Women's Day is a non-for-profit organisation and amazingly Jackie works as a volunteer. This will change with the inclusion of Squadron Energy as a majo...

Julia Spicer OAM grew up in a small rural community and now lives with her husband Tony on at Goondiwindi, QLD. Julia, the child of two teachers, has clearly been influenced by her parents vocation. She’s a teacher, a sharer, someone who likes to see others rise and shine - and in some ways this is her life’s work - getting regional Australia and it’s people on the map - and helping others to deve...

This episode is certainly one to share with the farmer in your life. (Not to say that it’s not uber interesting to all of our regular listeners) Maria Crawford is a country girl, who’s progressed through the ag industry - with a keen and detailed interest in how supply chains operate. This interest and obvious skill has landed her in her current position as the innovation and sustainability manage...

Today's guest Nadja Wallington of ChaLou Winery in Orange is about to take you on a journey into the world of wine and how to make it. This woman and her husband, Steve Mobbs, have just been awarded The James Halliday Dark Horse Award; one of the most prestigious awards of the Australian wine world. To receive it at such a young age, and for such a young brand of wine – is – I’m told – a huge achi...

Today we meet international speaker and agricultural commentator and all round cool chick, Claire Taylor – who originally hails from a beef farm near Ayr in the south west of Scotland and will soon call Orange in central west NSW home. Claire started her working life as a producer for the BBC before becoming a political commentator for Scotland's national farming paper. More recently she’s been tr...

Today our guest is a scientist – she is not dull, she is super interesting and she has a lot to offer the industry of agriculture. Nutritional food scientist, Dr Anneline Padayachee took to the stage recently at LambEx in Adelaide recently, comparing consumer perceptions of lamb to those of beef. Her case study – which she’s been researching for the last few years especially for this Lamb Ex talk...

Welcome back to Season 3 of Company for 2024 coming to you in partnership with our friends at Rabobank Australia, without who we would not be bringing you all these wonderful stories with such regularity. Today the podcast is sounding slightly different. It’s a live recording of my conversation with Emily Riggs, founder and creative woman behind the 100 per cent merino wool clothing brand Iris & W...

Shannan Davey has spent the last couple of weeks exploring Paris while competing in the Olympics. It’s a far cry from the life he was leading in the regional town of Narrabri at the age of 10. He was regularly fighting in the playground, was hyperactive in the classroom and loved to eat pizza on the couch. Two years later – his brother told him to put the pizza down and come with him, to the boxin...

Look out for 21 year old Jamieson Leeson, who hails from Dunedoo in central west New South Wales in the upcoming Paralympics. She’ll be representing Australia in Boccia in both the individual and pairs events in the B3 classification. Boccia is one of the only sports specific to the Paralympics and basically it’s a ball target game that has similarities lawn bowls, bocce and snooker as well. No ma...

Patrick Tiernan blew everyone's expectations when he was amongst the lead pack for the 10,000m track event at the Tokyo Olympics. Less than 100m from the finish line as the pace continued to increase, Pat stumbled to his hands. Many Australians can remember watching on in devestation for him, but in a moment of I-don't-know-what, he got up and willed himself over the finish line, still achieving a...

You may not have heard of Aislin Jones before but I challenge you not to impressed by this woman’s integrity, maturity and goal setting ability! Aislin will be competing in the Olympic Skeet Clay Target Shooting Event and then ever-so-casually will also take herself off to run a her first ever Marathon a matter of days later. As a child Aislin was one of those children picking up the broken clay t...

Col Pearse grew up at a tiny Victorian locality called Bamawm Extension where the ratio of cows to people is 500:1. At the age of 2 he lost his right foot in a lawn mower accident. This, he says. never really impacted his life and he went on to lead a normal, hyper-active childhood playing any and all sports with his mates from town. At the age of 12 he met Paralympian Ellie Cole and after handlin...

One man to look out for in the Opening Ceremony – and in the Australian Men’s Rowing 8 Boat is 26 year old Jack O’Brien from Walgett in north west NSW Since the middle of May he’s been training, lapping, perfecting his style, mind, muscles and mentality, in various training camps and competitions across Europe – as the Australian Rowing Team works and works and works to give itself the best chance...

Anyone who know’s me. Or who follow’s along here will know, I love newsletters. I love media, and magazines, and stories. And now I am just a bit smug with newsletters – they are delivered to my inbox, I do not have to read anything I don’t want to and the diversity is waaaaaaaay hugher than in normal journalism. One of my favourites, in fact most likely my favourite newsletter is from Sydney base...

Introducing: Paddock To Paris a Manson Podcasting Podcast celebrating rural and regionlal athletes on their way to the Paris Olympics. Search Paddock to Paris in your podcast app and follow or subscribe to make sure you don't miss an episode. Today we give you a taste of Skye Manson's conversation with Narrabri born and bred Laura Gourley who's going to Paris to row in the Womens Quad Scull. Of th...

Carmen Quade lives with her husband on a cropping farm at Tallimba near West Wyalong in central west New South Wales. They have five children and two businesses.   Carmen is a total office geek; she LOVES it, and she’s good at it.   And when she realised this was the case, after studying her Masters of Accounting she decided that she’d like to help others become a boss in the office too and starte...

Have you noticed a boom in rural fashion designers?  Last September, Holly Goodman and I sat down to record this interview.  Holly lives in Tamworth with her husband and three young children and is a fashion designer with her own label, Peter Bill, which has morphed from young boys clothing into a really impressive womens range.  In Spring last year, Holly put on The Rural Runway, a fashion runway...

This is the story of a unique coming together of a molecular scientist, a farmer and a PR and marketing executive in the beauty industry (all within one family). Annoyingly; the latter, the marketing and PR exec had experienced dry, cracked lips for the better part of 10 years.  Fed up; and driven by memories of childhood holidays spent in the family shearing shed, turned to the most natural, (and...

I’ve never met a farmer like Carly Baker Burnham before. She is SO in touch with herself.  She listens to her intuition, works out what she wants and then gains confidence to push forward in that area - no matter how unconventional it may seem to the often traditional mindset of those in agriculture.  So, how exactly does a large ecological organic beef farmer, who’s also a funeral celebrant, popu...

Claire Mactaggart amongst other things; has been a contributing writer for - one of Australia's most loved publications - Country Style magazine for 19 years. She's been a lynchpin in opening the eyes of everyday Australians to the the way of life, homes, gardens and businesses of rural and regional people and families - through countless beautiful stories. In this sense I think she's a trail blaz...

If I was going to be in QLD there was one woman I just had to interview. Georgie Somerset But it wasn't the titles to her name that pushed me to tie her down at one of the busiest weeks of her life, Beef Week in Rockhampton, QLD, it was her endless championing of young people in agriculture that most had me intriguied. Why is she so tireless? How does she manage the time to champion so many from t...

In a bit over a week, in May 2024, Sarah Wheeler and her horses - Shifty and Sally - will set out on The Outback Long Ride, a 5,500km journey through Outback NSW and QLD honouring the lives of her late parents and raising funds and awareness for upper GI cancers through the Pancare Foundation and for her own charity, A Daughter's Way which will support families and individuals suffering tragic los...

I first met Cara Spreadborough when we started talking about a sponsorship for our newsletter Company on Sunday’s. (So full disclosure, Cara’s label Sorority Clothing has been paying for a sponsorship of our newsletter for the last six weeks. ) I knew not much about Cara’s high end fashion boutique Inky and Moss in Roma QLD and nothing about her second online label Sorority Clothing. So we got cha...

Jodie Goldsworthy is a co-founder and director of Beechworth Honey based in Beechworth, Vic. When Jodie and her husband Steven decided - out of the blue* - to take on a beekeeping venture of their own they had not a bee hive to thier name. It was starting from scratch. What they did have was four generations of heritage of family knowledge on how to manage bees and produce honey. Beechworth Honey...

When you go to a stadium in Australia or even just a local footy match - singing, chanting and war cries are not uncommon. We’ve all been there - and experienced the power, that feeling, of people coming together and singing.  In Britain is also the case for live orchestra events. But in Australia, this is unheard of.  Enter Bourby Webster a pom from rural UK, who trained in classical live music a...