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PPS 15th Annual Conference; Ararat Town Hall; Ararat, Tuesday September 17th, 2024
A great line up of presenters will soon be announced, an early tip; Paralympian Ellie Cole OAM, has been confirmed as the Conference Dinner speaker. Ellie had her leg amputated at two years of age and swimming became part of her life, she went on to be Australia’s most successful female Paralympian with six gold, five silver and six bronze medals from four Games.
Annual Dinner; A change has been made to the venue for the Annual Dinner, this year the pre drinks and dinner will be catered for at the Ararat Town Hall. The bar will be open to purchase drinks before and during dinner, this change offers atten- dees more time to further inspect sponsor displays during pre dinner drinks. The dinner will be catered for by Jody & Co Cater- ing. Full details of the Conference and Dinner will be emailed closer to the event.
Annual Conference Offer; We all know people who would be interested in PPS activities, this year PPS are offering a prize draw for members who come to the conference and bring a guest who signs on as a member. The new member cost is $66 for membership and $55 for conference, both including GST. We look forward to seeing a few new faces.
Study Tour; Planning for the study tour to Tasmania (August 4-7)is well advanced & members are asked to confirm their booking by June 21st. Information has been emailed to members, contact the Project Manger if you need more detail.
Federation University (FU) PhD Projects; FU PhD candidates, who are focusing on agricultural projects will be making short presentations for PPS members and guests. The projects will be supervised from the Ararat FU hub and offer great op- portunities for PPS to receive new information as the projects evolve. Projects include Decision support for carbon manage- ment, Smart farms: Using big data to improve decision-making & Carbon farming: role and implications for broadacre agricul- ture. It will be held at the FU Ararat Hub on Wednesday 26th June at 5pm, pizzas will follow at 7.00pm.
Farm Business Resilience Program; PPS has been fortunate in gaining $18,150.00 towards three events through this program. The funding will assist with costings for the guest speaker at the conference dinner, the Spring Farm Tour and the End Of Year Paddock Walk and BBQ. Thank you to Felicity Pritchard, Kit Duncan-Jones and Jo Cameron (Ag Vic) for their help in processing our application.
Hay Corer: PPS has purchased a hay corer for collecting hay & silage samples for feed quality testing. The unit attaches to a portable drill for easy usage. The corer is available for loan to members; contact the Project Manager.
Fire/Phalaris projects: PPS has commenced two member initiated small projects at Joel South and Dadswells Bridge. At Joel South, Holdfast GT and Mate’ cultivars were planted side by side in 2023 on Mt Glen by Mat Hall, both cultivars have had pasture cages installed and dry matter cuts and feed tests will be done during the year as a demonstration project. PPS are also measuring a fire affected pasture with multiple species at “Marlu” Dadswells Bridge to assess species recovery after the February 13th fire. More details and photos on page 5.
Rabobank Sponsorship; Rabobank & PPS have created a sponsorship agreement and Rabobank will providing fund- ing to assist with PPS events and Girls & Grass projects. An additional benefit to members is that the relationship extends across three Rabobank branches in our region; Ballarat, Hamilton and Horsham.
Spring Farm Tour - Not Just Farmers; the spring farm tour will be on Sunday 13th October at PPS member farm “Rosedale Ridge” at Maroona. The farm was the location for the filming of the movie “Just A Farmer” and the tour will include some of sites used. PPS members and guests will get to see a highly productive farm business and a film set.PPS members & film stars Leila and Sean will talk about their farm, their quest to talk about farmer suicide and mental health which led them to produce the film. Carly McKinnis from the One Red Tree Resource Centre Inc will give a presentation and talk about issues raised in the film. Lunch will be provided by the Maroona Primary School, so RSVP is essential, the tour will meet at the school at 12 noon. RSVP by Thursday 10th October (TBC).
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