All the photos from Graziher’s Up Early Beef 2024 event

In May, the Graziher team travelled to Rockhampton, Queensland to celebrate Beef Week 2024.

Beef Week is a week-long exhibition and celebration of the Australian agriculture industry – it’s also an opportunity to dress up and meet other women working across the beef industry.

On May 10, the Graziher team hosted an Up Early event with theme NEW HORIZONS: CELEBRATING WOMEN IN BEEF, where women from the industry could get together for a morning of connection, motivation and inspiration. It was also an opportunity to celebrate 10 years of Graziher telling stories about rural and regional women.

The event was brought to you by our Gold Sponsor Calleija, who were represented at the event by Louise Pillidge. Calleija is also celebrating a special anniversary this year – they’ve been designing bespoke jewellery for Australia women for 40 years now.

Attendees enjoyed a panel session led by Graziher’s Life on the Land co-host and TV presenter Sammie O’Brien with some of the leading women in the beef industry including Stephanie Trethewey, Tracey Hayes, Jess Bidgood and Julie McDonald, breakfast canapes, tea and coffee, and a limited edition Whitney Spicer x Graziher tote bag, filled with goodies.

Graziher founder and publisher Claire Dunne opened the event by paying tribute to the Central Queensland community who helped bring her dream to life. Read her full speech below:

“It’s very special to be back in my home grounds of Central Queensland.

It’s nearly 10 years since this local community helped me bring a dream to life: Graziher. We’ve grown so much in that time, from planning and designing the pages of that first magazine at my parents’ kitchen table on their property near Duaringa, to a magazine published six times a year, a podcast, Life on the Land, and — in the upcoming months — a new digital platform to host more wonderful stories from the Graziher community.

The goal of Graziher was, and still is, to bring to life the lived experiences of the many amazing, talented and interesting women of rural and regional Australia. It is important to me that the contribution of women is recorded.

And I am so grateful to the women who gathered behind me and were such an important part of the journey.

Beef Australia has always held a special place in my heart: it’s such a behemoth of an event. Each year seems to bring more excitement and innovation from the beef and agriculture industry. The many trips to Beef I have taken over my past 30 years are dotted alongside other milestones in my life.

I can remember Akubra hats being dusted off for the occasion, a pair of boots washed and cleaned, perhaps picking out the ‘good town clothes’ — not to be confused with yard clothes. Then off to marvel at the sights and sounds at the Showgrounds.

In later years, Beef became more than looking at the cattle and shows, it became an important part of connecting and networking. I mean, the social events were also pretty darn good: the Friday night cocktail party and Next Gen events.

And now, Beef is still as exciting to me as it was to my younger self; the fashion, the talks and the events, such as this, all just as bright and interesting.

The circle continues: I’ve made the journey from our quiet country town in New Zealand back to Rockhampton with a three-year-old and a three-month-old in tow. I hope that soon they’ll start to make their own Beef Australia memories and can look forward to it every three years.

So we are here today to continue our storytelling, to hear from these inspiring women. They are advocates — the wearers of many hats: farmers, directors, business owners — and I can’t wait to hear their thoughts on today’s panel.”

The Graziher Beef 2024 Up Early event was brought to you by our Gold Sponsor Calleija, and our Silver Sponsors Nikki Williams and QRIDA, and our Bronze Sponsors Homestead Road, Cable, Acumentis, Norfolk Island Tourism, Cattlemen in Pearls, Explore Rockhampton, Ariat Australia, The Rockhampton Grammar School, Rabobank Australia and Crystalbrook Collection.

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To hear more extraordinary stories about women living in rural and regional Australia, listen to our podcast Life on the Land on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and all major podcast platforms.