Company

Rosie is a photographer, videographer, and creative director based in Esperance on the south coast of Western Australia. Having spent her childhood in the bush and the beach, Rosie works as a freelancer specialising in these areas - shooting everything from farmers and machinery, to ocean-side fashion and lifestyle campaigns. With a background in journalism and a passion for creativity and storytelling, Rosie does everything from shooting photo and video, to styling, production and creative direction, and writing. Every day is different. When she isn’t shooting and creating, she’s often out exploring her backyard with her trusty side-kick Nelson (of the red Kelpie kind) by her side, ever in search of adventures and inspiration. Her passions are rural and regional Australia, storytelling, mental health, psychology, creativity, design, regional development, swimming, skating, adventuring and exploring.

Thank you to Bec Bignell who suggested I interview Rosie for Company! You can hear the interview we did with Bec for Graziher's Life on the Land' here.

The older I get, the more I fall in love with England and its gardens and landscapes.

And today’s guest speaks to that and another of my loves, magazines and publishing.

Skye O’Neill is an Aussie now living in the UK. Last year she and a friend started Fieldfare Press a print journal about landscape, gardens and most of all place.

I forever interested in how these project blossom from an idea to the real deal, and this publication in particular is interesting as it’s run across three continents. Australia, the UK and the USA.

My guest today really is living the life I would love to live as a rural content maker.

Kimberley Furness is the editor and founder of Oak Magazine in Victoria and the A Friend of Mine Podcast.

This year she was the Victorian winner of the Agrifutures Rural Women’s Award, which will see her creating an audio version of her popular magazine and I learnt she’s just bought a van that she’s fitting out so she can travel to rural areas and record more stories. To me THAT is the dream.

I love magazines, like really I cannot get enough of them and its beyond exciting to see so many of them flourishing in regional Australia – Oak is no exception and it was a delight for me to steal and hour with Kimberley to record this conversation.

Manson's Daily Routines podcast is weeks away from launching.

If you want to know more, you can find the trailer episode at mansonposting.com or wherever you find your podcasts OR the easiest and funnest way is to subscribe to our newsletter which you can do via the shownotes, our website or via @mansonpodcasting on Instagram.

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Today’s guest is Dimity Brassil from A Lasting Tale a professional interview service for people with a lifetime of stories to share.

Family History especially in the spoken word has the ability to deeply touch those who consume it – can you imagine listening to your loved ones speak, years after they have left this earth?

What a treasured gift, heirloom and a legacy that could be.

Well, this is the work of Dimity Brassil and her business A Lasting Tale. Dimity spends her time interviewing and record personal oral histories of people all over Australia.

She lives in Albury and most of her work is centered about this location, but not all of it and one day Dimity hopes A Lasting Tale will have people working and recording in communities all over Australia.

I think today guest has one of the coolest jobs. Melinda O’Donohue makes wedding dresses, not from a swanky studio in city but from her farm near Gurley in north west NSW.

Isn’t that just so fabulous?!

Melinda’s Instagram profile reads, 'Soon to be retired bespoke wedding dress maker doing up an 1860/1900 Australian homestead in North West NSW with her clever husband, Des.'

I think she’s trying to retire, but the brides keep coming and coming and coming.

Today’s guest Louise FitzRoy is a good friend, and a total wonder woman – she lives her life between her family farm at Guyra in the NSW New England and the Cayman Islands.

She’s successfully infiltrating schools all over Australia with her paddock to plate curriculum, she’s a published author, owns and runs an online yoga platform and to boot, she’s won a Walkley.

Total overachiever – but sweet as pie at the same time and good fun too.

Bec Fing from House Paddock Consulting, is a master of routines. She is a professional get things done person, get systems in place, your shop in order, life organised – the whole bit.

Bec lives on the outskirts of Goondowindi with her husband, and three children and has built her business from nothing to something that consults all over Australia, almost daily. To add she has a side business Bec Fing Designs.

House Paddock Consulting started as a consultancy in the Work Health and Safety space and has evolved to become one, that’s focused on helping women, mostly in rural areas, better manage all the balls, and juggle all the things.

I think you’re going to find this chat really helpful. You will actually learn some tips to help you manage your time better because Bec is so generous with what she does so get your pens ready. It’s like a mini house paddock consulting session.

Hay, Hell and Booligal are words made famous by much loved Australian poet Banjo Patterson and today I’ll take you to the so-called 'Hell' (which isn't really hell at all, in fact it's buzzing with movie stars at the moment)

It’s the One Tree Plain, on the Cobb Highway between Hay and Booligal and it's home now to the also in-famous One Tree Hotel – which might be familiar to you without you even knowing – its façade, a timber building, with an iron roof on a flat plain that stretched forever is quintessentially Australian.

Sally Smith, from Hay is the owner of the One Tree Hotel – which has quite a story – and the reason I wanted to speak with was because right now the multi million dollar film Max Max is being rehearsed and later filmed there.

In the Association's one hundred year long history, its women have become known as the reliable, just-get-stuff-done kinda people and it rings true to this day.

In part two of my conversation with Liz Harfull, the author commissioned to write 'Women who Changed Country Australia’ for the CWA of NSW's 100th birthday. Liz introduces us to some of the trailblazers of the NSW CWA – the women who she wishes she’s been able to share a scone and a tea with.

The legend of the iconic Country Women Association makes up the threads of the cloth that is worn (and honoured and respected) by many, if not all the women in rural Australia.

As a rural journalist, some of the stories told to me by women of the CWA reflect what I consider to be ‘real acts of kindness and camaraderie’ in some of the most isolated communities in Australia. They are my favourites.

And for my guest today, author Liz Harfull there’s a similar pull to explore and celebrate the mighty women of the CWA.

This series of Company is kindly sponsored by the CWA of NSW. This year, it's celebrating its 100 year anniversary in NSW.

To honour all that has been and gone within the organisation Liz Harfull has been commissioned to write the book – 'Women Who Changed Country Australia.’

Liz spoke to me from her lovely old cottage in the Adelaide Hills, where we started our conversation reliving her childhood as the daughter of a dairy farmer in south east South Australia.