Resilience

Last Friday night I was the key note speaker at the launch of the 2018 Loddon Murray Community Leadership Program.  I was asked to speak on resilience. Ive had many people say since seeing posts about my talk that they wished they had been there - so Im posting my notes here - its not exactly what I said but its the basis of what I said (hope that makes sense)
Enjoy!

Community Leadership Loddon Murray

16^th February 2018

Ive been asked to tell you a little bit of my story of how I got to be here talking to you all, a facebook community Im very proud of called show some #dairylove and also community resilience.

So in preparation I looked up the definitions of community which is a small or large social unit who have something in common and resilience which is the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties, the ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape and have elasticity.

Therefore I am going to use this resistance band to help me explain all of this to you!

I go to a personal trainer, in fact I went this morning and we used a resistance band in part of my work out. When you use a resistance band – and it can be used in many different ways, you think the hardest part is when you are expanding it – but Ive come to learn – and painfully at times – that the hardest part is controlling it when it is going back into shape.

Ive come to learn that how you survive through problems and challenges and how you come out at the other end is due to your attitude and the solutions that you put in place to get through.

Otherwise you could break

I read a quote recently that has really stuck with me – “a problem is only a problem if you see it as a problem” and I think on looking back over the last 12 or more years I think I have stuck by that philosophy

I talked to my husband Gary the other night (he is the reason I became involved in the dairy industry and water policy – I married in for love) and started to list some of the challenges we have faced in the almost 12 years we have been married.

As many of you know I knew nothing about dairy until I married Gary – but I love it and Ive embraced it as not just my job but my lifestyle as well.  And yes I love cows

So some of the challenges we have faced are –

2006          Married with no knowledge of dairy stuff and we built a new dairy.  This was the middle of the millennium drought and one of the driest and toughest years.

2008/9       Price drop by our milk company post GFC and due to drought we had no cash reserves left.  We lived on Centrelink benefits just to eat

2010/11     The drought broke (hooray) with huge floods – and one of our properties was under water for several months

2011          Basin Plan discussions started

2016          The dairy crisis

Not to mentioned interdispersed in all of this –

-       Dry cows on agistment were not fed by the landowner and we lost several due to starvation and the rest developed salmonella – something that has taken years to correct and the ongoing legacy of having to inject all our cattle every year to hold it at bay

-       Cows bloating on Lucerne feed and dying before our eyes

-       Failed crops

-       Power outages

-       Changes in government policy around water

And the list goes on

And how did we survive – by adapting and changing but never losing sight of who we are

I mentioned the dairy crisis of 2016

April 27^th to be exact – this was the day that Murray Goulburn (who we supply and who we continue to supply) informed suppliers that the income wasn’t matching the expenses and that we had been overpaid for our milk.  This money had to be recovered somehow and that somehow was from suppliers.

At the time I felt like the bottom had fallen out of our world.  We had just bought the neighbouring farm, had started to grow our herd numbers and had taken on a huge amount of debt.  Everything that the dairy industry was telling us to do.  We had also employed staff to help us.

Many of you would have heard me quote Henry Ford – “Don’t find a fault, find a remedy” and that is what I did.

The day after the price drops – which Fonterra also did with their clawback I was looking through my facebook feed and seeing and reading all the anger, shock and dismay.  Id also had friends and family ringing and messaging me asking what they could do to help me.

My answer was – “Just buy dairy and if you can afford it and its available to you buy Devondale”

After saying this a few times I realised that I still loved being a dairy farmer and involved in the dairy industry. 

I realised times were going to be tough (AGAIN!) but we would get through it – but how?

I must confess at this point that I had drunk most of this bottle of wine

I was texting a friend and we were discussing what to do and I said maybe I should start a facebook group and show people the really good things about dairy farming – the positive things and encourage them to buy dairy

And so show some #dairylove was born

I started off by adding a few friends, who added a few friends and over night we had 500 plus members

Today Im very proud to say there are almost 16000 members of the group – its not a group it’s a community.

The membership is worldwide – all ages, genders and walks of life with both dairy farmers, retired dairy farmers, people that buy dairy and even vegans and animal activists.

To me it is the BEST thing to come out of the dairy crisis and something Im incredibly proud of.

Its saved lives – through peer support around mental health and there are several people I personally know of who wouldn’t be around if not for #dairylove

It’s a safe place which has no rules as its self policing.  Many many people have told me its there favorite place on facebook – no negativity no nastiness just a place to come and look at great farm and cow pictures and a place where you can get advice and support. I have the help of 4 other admins to help monitor the group as it’s a lot of work

Facebook tells me that in January there were 1,135 posts, 12,800 comments and 61,900 reactions with 13,400 members being active

But back to the resistance band

As I said its hard to be stretched and to hold the stretch when its happening – but sometimes that’s ok because you are busy doing things to cope and survive.  I know when I go to my personal trainer, she plays great music that distracts me from dealing with the pain!  Family and friends are great for that when going through stuff – as is a supportive community – like dairylove

But when the stretch stops – what do you look like when you go back to normal? Or do you go back? And what is normal?

The band could snap and break – and that happens to people

The band might not go back to the same shape

The band might be faded and worn like this one

It didn’t lost its identity as a resistance band – it didn’t compromise what it was

But at the end of the day the band knew that is was stretched and made bigger and it survived

Can I encourage you that if you are faced with a problem – small, large, personal, work, whatever to try and look at it from a different focus

Instead of a problem – an opportunity  -  an opportunity to learn and grow