Boarding school is something that many children from rural, regional and remote areas experience in their lives. It can be one of the greatest experiences – making life long friends; getting a great education; and being offered amazing extra-curricular activities such as sports and cultural activities. Making a decision about your child’s education can be difficult, so we have created this guide to help make that hard decision a little easier for those of you who are facing it.
Please enjoy this guide – it’s a digital guide, each page has a direct click through link to each school.
Goondiwindi girl Caroline McCulloch has faced her fair share of challenges along her business journey. As founder of the multiple award-winning footwear brand, FRANKiE4, she chats with Graziher about life, business and her country upbringing.
Take us back to your first job. How did that experience influence where you are today?
Well if you don’t count ‘stick picking’ and ‘cotton chipping’ on our family property, it would be in first year uni, working in a clothing store in Brisbane – my first taste of retail!
What challenges have you faced?
The same challenges most business owners face: cash flow, supply chain, Covid, trying to keep up with ever-changing technology and marketing processes, staffing plus a touch of exhaustion.
I remember 12 months into FRANKiE4, we were operating at a loss, and were questioning why we were taking our focus off our profitable podiatry clinics to try and get this footwear brand off the ground.
We were told by a reputable businessman that if we continued with FRANKiE4, we’d be so broke we would have to sell our son’s highchair.
His comment rattled me and I admit, I cried a good amount that night – I felt sick with worry. We respected his opinion at the time, it really did make me operate with a level of self-doubt and caution since – perhaps a blessing in disguise.
Safe to say ten years on, we’ve been just fine.
Image supplied by FRANKiE4
Many people have business ideas but not many act upon them. Why do you think you did?
I felt I didn’t have a choice – I was sick of referring patients to wear shoes they didn’t love. I believed I could create a better shoe for the foot, in styles that women would love to wear.
I no longer treat patients, but ultimately can still help so many women with their foot comfort.
What are your strengths?
I’m tenacious and passionate.
Your advice for young women starting their careers?
Understand the numbers – even if you aren’t a ‘numbers person’ – force it upon yourself. Ten years of FRANKiE4 and I really wish that I forced it upon myself to understand the numbers sooner then what I did – I still need to be better in this area!
All the creative and design stuff is cool – but understanding the numbers is critical if you want to steer the ship well.
Did you ever have a mentor? Tell us a little bit about that and why it was important?
No, I have never had a mentor.
I completed a podiatry and physiotherapy degree to understand the body, particularly feet! Years of owning and operating podiatry clinics that sold footwear brands to complement our treatment, fitting countless shoes and listening to customers and patients to understand what did and didn’t work as well as what they liked.
I learnt from experience. We weren’t an overnight success, but I’ve enjoyed the journey.
Can you tell us about your upbringing?
I was born in Narrabri where my grandparents were from and grew up in Goondiwindi. Though I went to boarding school in Brisbane from Grade 5 at Clayfield College and Stuartholme School from Grade 8.
My parents had a cotton and wheat property — we had horses, did pony club, swam in rivers and all those things.
I think it’s why we love our home in Brookfield, we may live in the city for work but we have 2.5 acres and that gives us that feeling of space I crave in my bones.
Finally, what do you think is the most important step you have taken so far in your career and why?
All the groundwork we did to get to where we are. We always learn from our mistakes and are constantly looking to improve on everything we do.
To shop game-changing sneakers, flats, heels and more, visit frankie4.com.
For Megan Gooding, diversifying her farm and business in WA’s Wheatbelt meant taking an innovative approach that has brought both challenges and successes.
Narrogin and its surrounding region, located two-and-a-half-hours’ drive southeast of Perth, is well known for its oats, wheat, lupins, barley and canola. What might come as a surprise is that it is also home to an ancient superfood – Megan Gooding is one third of Three Farmers, a team that is growing quinoa in WA’s Wheatbelt. Megan says that while the path to production has been a steep learning curve, it has also been enormously rewarding.
Megan, 37, farms 5000 hectares of mixed crop and livestock along with her husband Damien, 41, and his family on their 7000-hectare property, situated between Dumbleyung and Kukerin and around an hour’s drive from Narrogin. Between farming and raising their two young children, daughter Eva, seven, and five-year-old son James, Megan is devoted to learning more about quinoa as well as sustainable farming practices.
With a strong background in agriculture, Megan’s journey to growing quinoa began on her family property in Narrogin. After completing a PhD in Agriculture, she decided academic life wasn’t for her and returned to work on the farm. “I wanted to get more of a handle on the hands-on side of things,” says Megan. The idea to grow quinoa came about during a bad drought in 2010, when Megan began thinking about different plants to grow that would diversify the farm, offering more protection against the major risks of drought and frost.
“I also wanted to grow something that would enable us to move further up the supply chain and farm something that was high value,” she says. “We didn’t have a lot of land so it needed to be something that would work on a smaller acreage.” Megan’s search led her to quinoa, a seed imported from South America that was praised as the ‘mother of all grains’ – while not actually being a grain – by the Inca Empire.
Through her research into the crop, she came across another farmer in Narrogin, Ashley Wiese, who was also looking into growing quinoa. Alongside Ashley and his agronomist Garren Knell, Megan began six years of trials, starting small before gaining the confidence to undertake bigger broadacre trials. “The Australian climate means it grows very differently here than it does in South America, so we had a lot to learn before we got it right,” she says.
Their hard work paid off, and with support from a Coles Nurture grant, they built a processing facility and were able to replace the imported quinoa in Coles with Australian grown quinoa in 2016. “There were a fair few ups and downs the first year we started selling,” she says. “A huge oversupply meant the price dropped about 70 per cent. It was definitely a challenging start.” While they initially had their own Three Farmers branded quinoa, they later took that off the shelves to concentrate on their wholesale market.
Given quinoa is still a relatively new and niche – and therefore volatile – market, Megan and her team have balanced it out with another venture, partnering with Red Tractor Foods to supply wheat-free oats. “One of the main drivers for our business is to replace imported products with products we can grow in Australia,” says Megan, explaining that previously, all the wheat-free oats available here were imported from Canada. “We were already growing oats and knew through our work with quinoa that we could execute a gluten-free supply chain.” In 2020, Three Farmers started supplying Australian grown, wheat-free oats in the Australian market under the Red Tractor brand.
For Megan and her team, the sustainability of the land they farm is as important as the sustainability of their business. This means working with nature rather than against it, which is why Megan was an early adopter of Seed Terminator. “A few years ago we got a new header and were looking for ways to control our weeds sustainably, so that we didn’t have to burn stubble and get rid of all the carbon from our soil,” says Megan. “We were really impressive by Seed Terminator’s innovation and what they’ve been able to achieve – it is helping the environment as well as the long-term sustainability of our farming.”
Megan says Three Farmers’ paddock-to-plate supply chain enables her to talk to consumers directly, gaining valuable insights into the market. “A major thing they’re concerned about is making sure the food they’re buying is grown in a sustainable manner,” says Megan. “This is really important to us too, not only for the product but for the soil and the environment, now and in the future.”
Seed Terminator is the future of weed control. This story is part of a Graziher collaboration celebrating our farmers with Seed Terminator. Find out more at www.seedterminator.com.au
