Company

Today’s guest is a 15 year old business entrepreneur from Greenethrope in central west New South Wales. Sienna Capra has just launched her own brand of Tea for teenagers, called Spill The Tea Co. She launched it from the comfort of her room at boarding school, winged by a gang of girls cheerleading her on, and helping to taste test, critique and perfect the taste and feel of her product – which is designed to fill a gap in the market – tea to help sooth issues faced by teens and early adults.

I was unaware of the work of today’s guest until only a week or two ago. Mea Campbell of Connected AU is real go-getter. You’ll know what I mean when you hear her story.

Last year, Tarnished by drought, her husband and young family made the tough decision to leave the community of Burren Junction in far western New South Wales and relocate to Dubbo.

I mean as if a big move with your family isn’t enough – pretty much as soon as they’d arrived Mea, who a qualified lawyer and a legal writer, began her next hugely successful venture – The Letterbox Project , a social enterprise connecting lonely and isolated people via letters. This project has 13000 people signed up and an average of about 550 letters sent each week.

I’m so genuinely enthralled by Mea’s story – and I admire her ability to have an idea and action it straight away. I have many ideas – that never see the light of day – so perhaps I need a but more Mea in my life!

Thanks for tuning in to Company - if you would like a weekly injection of inspiration and nice things you can sign up to my newsletter, Company on Sundays via my website mansonandcompany.com

Liza Ratliff grew up an only child in the small rural town of Barraba in north western New South Wales - even in childhood she was good at the hussle, writing letters to magazine editors and newspaper bosses to see if she could one day work for them. It paid off. She's now the Head of Podcasts at Australia's leading womens podcasting network Mamamia, working alongside the esteemed Mia Freeman. Just a week ago Mamamia's podcasts hit the 5 million downloads in ONE MONTH mark! Amazing.

You can find Liza @lizaratliff on Instagram and you can find me at @skye_manson or get in touch via my website mansonandcompany.com

From two ovens in her home kitchen (all council approved) in Inverell, NSW, Edwina Mill has handmade over 26,000 personalised biccies in the last 12 months. Her business Sprinkle and Bake was featured on Buy From the Bush almost 12 months to the day – taking it to some mind blowingly dizzy heights within hours.

You can Edwina at www.sprinkleandbake.com.au and under the same name in Instagram and Facebook.

You can find me at skye_manson on Instagram or sign up to my weekly(ish) newsletter at mansonandcompany.com

If you love country living then today’s guest will be another than needs no introduction. It's Claire Dunne the editor of Graziher magazine. At the age of just 22, fed up with the fact that no editors would commission her stories on rural women, she decided to go it alone and start own publication - she was living with her mum and dad on their family farm in Queensland, and pulled together the first issue in-between days doing farm work.

Last year Graziher celebrated its 5th birthday and this week, we’re all blown away by the excitement over the launch of the Graziher podcast, Life on the Land. Claire blows me away herself – she is so understated and yet so successful in her pursuit to build a community that celebrates rural women. Here’s her story ….

Right now here in Australia many of us are being plunged back into lockdown due to COVID-19 and for many the second time around is harder, more isolating and more mentally challenging. But what if you’d never left isolation? Today's guest, west Australian dairy farmer Tahlia McSwain has been stuck on a boat (a live export boat) in a port in South Africa for more than 100 days – after their plans to disembark were derailed by confusion and COVID. I came across Tahlia on Instagram about 2 months ago and I haven’t stopped thinking about how mentally challenging, boring and scary this experience would be for her. But she’s a bundle of strength and mature beyond her years as you will hear. I hope you are equally as blown away by her story as I am.

I’m honoured to say the least to have been able to interview today’s guest. It’s the former editor-in-chief Country Style Magazine Victoria Carey.

I occasionally write for Country Style magazine – this has been a dream of mine since I was child. I wanted to so badly to become a part of the pages of the magazine that seemed to be so revered by family and all the women in my community, my grandmother, my mother, our family friends and relatives. When I grew up a house was not complete without a bookcase or big pile of Country Style magazines, extending back years cataloging the most stylish houses, and occasionally featuring people we knew.

I feel so lucky to have worked with – and be guided by Victoria, and now to have had this conversation looking back on her career and the future of print media in Australia.

You can find Victoria @the editors house on Instagram.

For more on this interview can sign-up to my newsletter here mansonandcompany.com

Today’s guest has a beautiful way of honouring her favourite family moments - through cooking. Lo Corcoran lives in Boorowa in southern NSW with her husband and her three daughters – and has spent a lot of her life in the kitchen – and often it’s been alongside some of the great cooks of her family. Her website and blog Lo’s Kitchen pays homage to this and she so generously shares all this goodness on Instagram too. She’s published 250 published recipes and 40 recipes waiting to be written up and a post wall full of recipes to include in her cookbook – which she is going to write – one day.

Today you're going to meet a girl, who has a community collaboration project that I think you should all get on board with. In fact, if you’re a small business owner, I know once you see this Instagram feed you won’t be able to help yourself!

It was at 2am that Tori Packer decided her page @the_smallbusiness_community on Instagram need to become reality. It's a curated page of beautiful products and services connecting the best small creative businesses and artisans across Australia.

I hope you enjoy meeting this energiser-bunny-bombshell girl! She has endless energy. As a treat she's written about her perfect Sunday and all the small businesses she would peruse along the way for our Company on Sunday newsletter. Sign up here if you aren't already part of the gang!

My guest on this episode was suggested by a beautiful listener (thank you) but for years I've been perving on her hats and handiwork from afar. It's Fiona Schofield, from Fiona Schofield Millinery based in Orange, NSW. The story that leads her to today is fascinating and dynamic. She speaks of a childhood in Forbes, NSW, the benefits of being the youngest child and attending her mother's 'Tuesday lunches'. And shares with us her journey in fashion at the Whitehouse Institute of Design, designing hats for Ansett Airlines air hostesses, what it looks like in her studio and her favourite podcasts and instagram accounts.

You can find HUGE list of her favourites on instagram in my soon-to-be-released newsletter 'Company On Sunday' by signing up here on my website mansonandcompany.com