Editor of The Moorabloo News, Helen Tatchell gives us some insights into why someone would continue putting out a local newspaper despite the trials and tribulations that come with running a local rural newspaper. She explains the crucial role of The Moorabool News plays in connecting the community particularly during disasters and the pandemic.

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Pam has had a long engagement with communities and people who want change for good. She has strong knowledge and experience in capacity building, skills development, mentoring and leadership for emergency services and disaster response in Australia and internationally, outstanding results overseeing major sport and recreation infrastructure projects for community, local government and peak sporting organisations, and strong connections across regional Queensland. Pam currently Principal at Future Ag Qld. Pam is an experienced team leader with broad experience in stakeholder negotiation, an excellent presenter, and public speaker.

Pam’s stories of leadership and collaboration demonstrate the importance of reciprocity, persistence, distributive power. This is a beautiful and honest conversation where Pam weaves personal stories with career narratives and advice for living well.

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This podcast features Lisa Annese, Chief Executive Officer of the Diversity Council Australia.

Lisa discusses her strategic communication plan, driven by her progressive agenda and based on research.  Lisa also discusses the importance of diversity and inclusion to economic success, social and cultural life, and how and why the Diversity Council seeks to influence for positive social change.

The podcast focuses on how creating change and informing policy have to be informed by the evidence, which often spans and goes beyond individual experience.

Lisa stresses the importance of influencing ‘the power brokers of the status quo’, and that it’s strategically important that these people are not disengaged and shut out from progressive cultural policy.

She considers how do I engage business leaders, how to use evidence to persuade people to adopt principles and practices of inclusion and diversity; the importance of articulating benefits to inclusivity in business terms, to engage stakeholders

Lisa also discusses communication strategy and understanding what it is you want to say, think in the language of your audience, and engage with your audience in a way that is relevant to them

This is an engaging and warm conversation where Lisa talks of her life, her love of literature and how reading science fiction can help you think or imagine ‘otherwise’.  We hope you enjoy it!

The importance of determination and leaning into failure: Charlotte Durack is a trained graphic designer who started her own communications company specialising in developing meaningful branding and communications strategies for agricultural businesses.  In just five years, Studio Agriculture has become the leading firm in the Australian agribusiness sector, earning Charlotte recognition as a finalist in the Telstra Young Business Women’s Awards in 2017. In this podcast, Charlotte talks about how she spotted an opportunity for her business, the risks she took to make it happen, and the determination that she has approached the development of her business particularly during the past two years of Covid-19 related restrictions.

Website: https://agricreative.com.au

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/charlotte-durack-b599a470

Instagram: @charlottedurack

This podcast features a dynamic duo, and the leadership team of Lighthouse Business Innovation Centre (Lighthouse) is part of the LHInnovation Group. Anna Pino is the Director and Chief Executive Officer, and Candice Edye is the Director and Commercialisation Manager. Both women have a wealth of experience and credentials behind them in running, supporting, investing in, and advising businesses. This duo is very passionate about helping businesses to grow and does not offer a one-size-fits-all approach, but rather focuses on targeted and individualised services and solutions.  They have developed business support programs with the government such as the IP Toolkit, Teen Start-Up, and specialized design projects in Allied Health. But also, ‘community-based' projects, e.g., Entry29 and Festival of Ambitious Ideas. Both are inspiring inclusive leaders and they also facilitated one of our workshops. Lovely to see them interact and work together so seamlessly. For an informative and empowering interview listen to this podcast to learn more about starting a business.

https://www.facebook.com/LighthouseInnovation/

https://www.lighthouseinnovation.com.au/

Phone: (02) 6163 8300

Email: [email protected]

In this podcast Genevieve provides some insights into her career and the importance of regional, rural and remote journalism. She explains the rationale behind the establishment of the Region Media Group and its aims and goals.

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Bags to Riches: Gidgee Smith’s Almost Accidental Road To Success and Self-Discovery

Gidgee Smith started making bags as a way of supporting her family during the millennial drought. Almost twenty years later, Gidgee Smith Bags are going strong, employing local women to sew and market the bags, and the business has opened up other networking and entrepreneurial ventures for Gidgee and her family. Now, Gidgee’s property near Morwen in South-West Queensland hosts a camping ground and coffee shop, and Gidgee works tirelessly throughout Western Queensland as an advocate for mental health. In this podcast, Gidgee discusses how these ventures have happened, and shares some life lessons that she has picked up along the way.

Website: https://www.gidgeesmith.com.au/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gidgeesmith

“I am changed forever by kindness”, “Women leaders give other women another possibility of being a woman”, “Leadership means passing on” and “All my life I have been led by women” - These are just some of the insights, based on her lived experience, that Dr Kathomi Gatwari shares with us in this podcast.

Kathomi is a senior lecturer at Southern Cross University, the President of Australia Gender and Women’s Studies (the peak body for women and gender studies in Australia). She is also the founder of Healing Together (Counselling & Psychotherapy)- a therapeutic practice aimed to provide culturally safe therapy to Black and other people of colour in Australia, and is the founder CountingDeadWomen- Kenya a platform which collates all reported deaths of Kenyan women who have been killed through violence.

In this podcast, Kathomi discusses the importance of considering all women in empowerment and leadership by adopting an intersection feminism lens in her work and practice.  She provides a definition of intersectionality as recognising the white history of feminism, where middle-class white woman were aided and abetted in pursuing equal opportunities in public life, through the support (child and domestic care) by Black women, women of colour, and poor women.  Kathomi also notes that in all policy and practice it is important to consider the lived experience and barriers to full participation in all public life by poor women, Black women, women of colour, women with disability, Indigenous women, rural woman etc. as there is a tendency to use white women as the standard.  For instance, when we discuss dates women were provided the right to vote... we have to include all women

Kathomi’s goal in leadership is to build intersectional feminism and to support all women, so that all women can be seen/heard.

Her leadership focuses on facilitating Black and African women being able to see themselves in places and spaces they had not seen themselves

Kathomi muses on the relationships she has had with women (her mother, grandmother, lecturers..) to note that “some of the most incredible women leaders who have come into my path has been relational…” and advises to “let the relationship be the foundation of mentorship and leadership… [be generous with your knowledge] “you are a custodian of knowledge until you pass it on”.

She considers that leadership can be used generously (and not competitive), though acknowledges that when you have been kept of spaces of leadership our only entry to accessing the space is to behave like the people in there we reproduce the same barriers.  She instead shares some incredible stories and strategies of leadership as relationship, leadership as generosity, and leadership as authenticity.

Finally, Kathomi discusses her experience of racial fatigue (as a Black woman living and working in rural Australia), and people seeming to erase race as a factor of her experience.  In response, Kathomi developed an organisation Healing Together (Counselling & Psychotherapy) to provide racially sensitive therapy for Black and women of colour.

In this episode  Dr Sarah Casey is joined by Rechelle Leahy.  Rechelle resides in the New England area of NSW. Rechelle is committed to making the world a better place than she found it. After studying law at the great rural university, the University of New England, Rechelle moved to Canberra, and was there for about 20 years. A lot has happened in this time.

Rechelle lost her beloved husband to cancer and has two young sons. She has a podcast and business, IDecided where she speaks with others about their experiences of loss, and assists with end of life planning. Rechelle’s main work is with Regional Collab where she’s the CEO. It’s a consultancy business to help rural, regional and remote Australia roll out different projects, programs and facilities basically sponsored by government. She’s passionate about social and economic prosperity in rural Australia. Rechelle works on a number of different boards and committees  like  the National Rural Women’s Coalition, which is one of the six National women’s Alliances (NWA) funded by the Australian Government. Rechelle has been to the Commission on the Status of Women at the UN more than once and has spoken about rural, regional and remote women  and also about widows. Rechelle is also on the Australian Gender Equality Council. Her passion for the rural, for gender equality and for advocacy is inspiring.

Here are some links about Rechelle’s work, life, and businesses:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/rechelle-leahy-343654107/?originalSubdomain=au

https://regionalcollab.com/

https://www.mamamia.com.au/author/rechelle-leahy/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRpGYXVGMwlAW2micNjyC6g

https://about.abc.net.au/profile/rechelle-leahy/

https://www.agec.org.au/project/rechelle-leahy/

https://www.nrwc.com.au/about/board-member

Julia grew up on the family farm in South West Qld and now lives in Goondiwindi, running Engage and Create Consulting. Julia is a passionate supporter of rural businesses, innovation, and for women having a seat at the table. She has a background in environmental science, has worked in sustainable agriculture and natural resource management projects, and is on the Innovation Advisory Council (Qld State Government) and is the CEO of Eco-Markets Australia.

In this podcast Julia chats with Sarah about her commitment to the South West of Qld and rural Australia broadly. She’s not only an entrepreneur and innovator, but an advocate for whole of communities. In 2022, Julia was awarded Member of Order of Australia for her service.

Check out more about Julia, and connect with here: