Ducks on the Pond

Networking can be a daunting task, especially if you’re a bit more reserved or introverted. On today’s episode I spoke to a pair who struck up a friendship thanks to networking at Rural Women Lead, a program that empowers and connects women personally and professionally in South West Victoria. Alison Byrne is the Executive Officer of South West Community Foundation that helped sponsor the Rural Women lead event, and in one of their first sessions she sat next to Jackie Elliot who created Rural Women’s Day. The pair have since caught up and developed a relationship outside of the event that they’re both incredibly grateful for. Each of them share some tips for how to make connections and address some of the barriers women face in wanting to attend events like these. If you’re wanting to get a project like Rural Women Lead off the ground, reach out to Leadership Great South Coast or Ducks on the Pond. Thank you to Leadership Great South Coast for sponsoring this 3 part collaboration.Send us Fan MailThis is a Rural Podcasting Co. production. Interested in making your own podcast? Let us help you tell your own story!

Jodie Hill is one of the masterminds that developed Rural Women Lead, a program that empowers and connects women personally and professionally in South West Victoria. Today she offers a peek behind the curtain about how the project came to be and the benefits of replicating a program like this in your region. As the CEO of Women’s Health and Wellbeing Barwon South West and a board member for Leadership Great South Coast, Jodie is no stranger to leadership roles. She speaks about how this program could help more regional women into leadership positions in their community. If you’re wanting to get a project like this off the ground reach out to Leadership Great South Coast or Ducks on the Pond. Thank you to Leadership Great South Coast for sponsoring this 3 part collaboration.Send us Fan MailThis is a Rural Podcasting Co. production. Interested in making your own podcast? Let us help you tell your own story!

What if some of your greatest leadership strengths are the things that energise you?In the first episode of a special three-part Ducks on the Pond collaboration with Rural Women Lead, supported by Leadership Great South Coast, Kirsten Diprose talks to clinical and health psychologist and positive psychology practitioner Dr Jodie Fleming about the human side of leadership.Jodie works with individuals and workplaces to identify and harness strengths, values, self-compassion and emotional intelligence to help individuals and teams perform at their best. And this conversation goes beyond the usual leadership advice. We explore what actually makes us thrive at work, how leaders can better understand themselves and their teams, and why compassion and accountability aren't opposites.In this episode, we discuss:🔹 How to find your strengths and what energises you.🔹 Why you shouldn’t overuse your superpowers.🔹 The five elements of emotional intelligence.🔹 Compassion doesn't mean avoiding accountability,🔹 Are workplaces still valuing IQ over EQ?This episode is the first in a special three-part collaboration with Rural Women Lead, supported by Leadership Great South Coast. Across the series, we're looking at practical ways women can build leadership skills, create impact and invest in their professional development.Send us Fan MailThis is a Rural Podcasting Co. production. Interested in making your own podcast? Let us help you tell your own story!

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you walked away from the life you thought you were supposed to live?Amie Penny grew up in the suburbs of Sydney and went on to work at an investment bank in the CBD. She loved the corporate world and always imagined herself in a successful nine-to-five career. Farming was never part of the plan.Then, what was supposed to be a two-week break on her extended family’s farm near Cowra changed everything.Something clicked for Amie. She surprised herself by walking away from her corporate career and, after meeting her husband, the pair pulled out a map, picked Rockhampton and packed up their horse float to start a new life. With very little money, they spent close to a year living in that horse float in someone else’s backyard while saving for a place of their own.From there, they built their life one step at a time. They bought 60 acres, lived in sheds and less-than-glamorous houses, and kept buying slightly bigger properties as they could afford them. What started with 16 Brahman cows eventually grew into a farming business running around 1,200 Angus cattle across properties near Gunnedah and Walcha.In this episode of Ducks on the Pond, Amie shares what it’s like to build a life in agriculture when you don’t come from a farming background — including teaching herself how to farm through Google, instinct and the occasional phone call to a neighbour.We also dive into the big questions around the realities of starting from scratch and why breaking into farming can be so difficult for people without inherited land, Amie is also asking an important question: when do you give yourself permission to actually enjoy what you’ve created?Thank you to Weighting for Happiness for sponsoring this Season of Ducks on the Pond. Listen to the episode to hear their special offer. And listen to the Before Dieting podcast - for a systems thinking approach to health.Send us Fan MailThis is a Rural Podcasting Co. production. Interested in making your own podcast? Let us help you tell your own story!

What happens when a rural community decides to stop waiting for someone else to solve its biggest problem?For the people of Mudgee in central-west New South Wales, it meant creating their own solution to the growing shortage of GPs. The result is Doctors 4 Mudgee, a community-led initiative that set an ambitious goal of attracting 10 new doctors in three years.Just 11 months in, they're already halfway there.In this episode of Ducks on the Pond, Kirsten Diprose speaks with winemaker, business owner and Doctors 4 Mudgee Region Program Coordinator Kate Day. While Kate never imagined she'd be working in healthcare recruitment, she's helped build a program that's becoming a blueprint for regional Australia.The conversation explores why welcoming doctors' families has been just as important as offering financial incentives, and how a simple idea—a "lifestyle concierge" service—has helped new GPs feel connected from day one.Kate also shares the remarkable story behind her wine business, In Two Minds Wine, founded with her sister-in-law Send us Fan MailThis is a Rural Podcasting Co. production. Interested in making your own podcast? Let us help you tell your own story!

It can be hard to attract and retain professionals in the regions and vets are no exception. Entering the eighth year of a regional vet shortage, our guest Dr Rebecca Faris wants to curb it. Having worked as a vet in South West Victoria for many years, Rebecca transitioned to focus on helping students move into the workforce and then eventually vet wellbeing at the Australia Veterinary Association. Rebecca shares that vets experience high rates of poor mental health, one of the reasons behind the high turnover in regional areas. As the workforce becomes more feminized, issues like childcare shortages, lack of upskilling and ability to find housing are among some of the reasons vets and young professionals move away from the regions. But vets face further challenges such as inflexible work hours with long on-call periods, difficulty making vet businesses profitable and struggling to prove their experience to farmers. Rebecca shares her hopes for the industry and changes that can be made to both improve wellbeing and retention of rural vets across regional Australia.  Complete the Vet Wellbeing survey here. Send us Fan MailThis is a Rural Podcasting Co. production. Interested in making your own podcast? Let us help you tell your own story!

Losing a loved one is a worst fear for most, and something that Sarah Guthrie and Georgia Lillie have in common. Sarah’s son Ford died 10 years ago from an accident when he was only 17. Georgia’s husband James died of an aggressive cancer seven years ago, leaving her and her two young boys behind. While they both lived close by in Western Victoria, neither women met until they were encouraged to swap books that they each wrote about their grief. For Sarah it’s an intimate book remembering her son's life and documenting her grief afterwards, and for Georgia a children's book for her sons could remember their dad by. Grieving in a regional community can sometimes feel like you’re under a microscope and these authors talk about their unique experiences of coping with grief in such a tight knit community. There is a lot of resilience, relatability and humour in how Sarah and Georgia talk to Kirsten about their loved ones and their lives after a great loss. Thank you to Weighting for Happiness for sponsoring this Season of Ducks on the Pond. Listen to the episode to hear their special offer. And listen to the Before Dieting podcast - for a systems thinking approach to health.Send us Fan MailThis is a Rural Podcasting Co. production. Interested in making your own podcast? Let us help you tell your own story!

How much do you know about your soil microbiology? Dr Aurelie Quade makes a very good argument for why we should know more about it… including improving farm productivity and lowering inputs.Originally from a forestry community in France, Aurelie fell in love with the desolate landscape of Australia when she arrived here 20 years ago. Initially doing her PhD in plant pathology, she said she became bored at trying to fight nature and instead wanted to learn to work with it, leading her to become a highly sought after expert on soil microbial activity, soil health and resilient production systems.She speaks about encouraging farmers, particularly smaller producers to learn more about their soil health, run their own tests and experiments and make changes to ensure you’re getting the most from your soil. Her expertise at her consultancy, Soil Resilience has been used by producers, corporate farming and regional bodies and her long term goal is to help Australian farming systems grow and to get more out of their soil health. Dr Quade has a far ranging discussion in this episode from the politics around soil carbon, the complex language of climate change and the future of farming. Thank you to Weighting for Happiness for sponsoring this Season of Ducks on the Pond. Listen to the episode to hear their special offer. And listen to the Before Dieting podcast - for a systems thinking approach to health.Send us Fan MailThis is a Rural Podcasting Co. production. Interested in making your own podcast? Let us help you tell your own story!

Unrealistic body standards are inescapable for young women. Between diet culture, food rules at home, and stick- thin models all over our screens, it’s hard to feel in touch with what our body needs. Nurse, midwife and systems-thinking expert Bronwyn Fletcher spent her childhood fixated on understanding what was and wasn’t healthy - she later found she wasn’t always given the right information. Turns out eating less and moving more doesn’t always equal weight loss and more importantly being thin doesn’t always mean being healthy. After interviewing a thousand women on their experiences with food, eating and their body she created the Weighting for Happiness project. This program takes a systems based approach to weight management, encouraging women to look at the underlying emotions they have towards food and showing why habit based approaches like dieting and medications often backfire. From Victoria’s Secret models, the Biggest Loser and Ozempic, Bronwyn addresses why it is so hard to feel in touch with our bodies in a society that wants women to look a certain way. You can learn more about the Weighting for Happiness project and listen to Bronwyn’s podcast Before Dieting.A huge thank you to Weighting for Happiness for supporting us at Ducks on the Pond, as the Season Sponsor!Send us Fan MailThis is a Rural Podcasting Co. production. Interested in making your own podcast? Let us help you tell your own story!

What should you do when your ideas at work are always getting shot down? Or you’re being micromanaged by your boss? Or letting perfectionism stand in your way? Workplace expert Lynne Cazaly has the answers for you. She is a consultant, future work expert, international speaker and award winning author (just to name a few of her hats!). But despite all those qualifications, she also makes time for hobbies and speaks to the importance of doing things you love, even if you do them badly. She is an advocate for women letting go of perfectionism and instead learning to be just good enough. Lynne speaks about the importance of stepping into leadership in rural communities and speaking up about your passions, interests and experiences. Come to Lynne’s workshop! If you’re in South West Victoria you can catch Lynne’s workshop on expressing ideas to create change at Rural Women Lead  in July, brought to you by Leadership Great South Coast.Thank you to Weighting for Happiness for sponsoring this Season of Ducks on the Pond. Listen to the episode to hear their special offer. And listen to the Before Dieting podcast - for a systems thinking approach to health.Send us Fan MailThis is a Rural Podcasting Co. production. Interested in making your own podcast? Let us help you tell your own story!