2020 Shine Awards Belief winner and finalists
Visionary occupational therapist Simone Dudley from Deniliquin, NSW, is the 2020 Shine Awards Belief winner. Read her story, and meet Belief finalists Shannon Speight and Lisa Rundell.
2020 Shine Awards Belief winner:
Simone Dudley, occupational therapist and co-founder of Therapy Connect , Deniliquin, NSW
PAVING THE ROAD TO RURAL HEALTH
SIMONE Dudley really understands the tyranny of distance.
And she is determined it will not get in the way of rural families receiving the health care they deserve.
Simone is an occupational therapist who also happens to run a cropping and cattle property with her family at Deniliquin, in the NSW Riverina. She was ahead of her time five years ago, when – well before the days of Zoom – she founded an online telehealth service to deliver therapy to remote children with developmental disabilities.
“I could see that the potential of using technology was huge, it could decrease waiting lists, increase accessibility, increase frequency,” says Simone, who runs the business from her family farm.
She teamed up with a fellow rural woman, West Victorian beef producer and speech therapist Sue Cameron, to launch the service offering speech, occupational, nutritional and physiotherapy, as well as psychology services, through video conferencing.
“The truth for us is that telehealth has always been our plan,” Simone explains. “Undoubtedly the business is founded by two women who understand the difficulties in accessing expert allied health at a time when you need it.
“Our experience has informed our practice. And, I think the challenges have been that we are two rural women who are figuring this out all on our own. We have had to work incredibly hard.”
There have been many hurdles, not least digital connectivity, which was patchy at best when they started. Drought has also been a constant strain for Simone, her family, and her rural patients.
Therapy Connect has grown dramatically, now employing 40 part-time practitioners, many in rural areas, and delivering more than 1000 hours of service a month to families from the Torres Strait Islands to Tasmania, the western outback to the east coast, and even overseas.
Fellow health professional Dr Megan Hosken says the service is significant for many rural and remote Australians.
“It means overnight they have access to the specific therapists who can meet every need of their child,” she says.
For her vision to improve health services for rural patients, and determination to make it happen against the odds, Simone Dudley is a worthy winner of the Shine Award for Belief.
FINALIST:
Shannon Speight, livestock vet and software developer, Mareeba, Queensland
SKY’S THE LIMIT FOR INDUSTRY INNOVATOR
SHE fell in love with Australia’s cattle industry as a student working on a station in Queensland’s Top End.
Now, with a uni degree and prestigious industry award to her name, and a track record collaborating with some of the nation’s leading pastoralists, livestock vet Shannon Speight is determined to give back to the beef industry.
The 29-year-old from Mareeba has created a powerful data-analysis tool to help producers boost productivity and profits.
The idea took shape while she was co-ordinating a large-scale cattle genetics project across Queensland, Northern Territory and Western Australia.
She describes the role as “grunt work”, but it was much more than that.
Pregnancy-testing more than 30,000 heifers and clocking up more than 60,000km, she spent months on the road, long days in cattle yards, and most of her working week with her arm up cows’ rear ends.
While on the job, she discovered producers were sitting on a wealth of information – years’ worth of genetic measurements, weights, feed choices and carcass assessments – and were screaming out for a way to analyse it all, to inform better decisions.
“I had people coming to me with 10 years of data stored on their hard drives slowing down their computers, and on USB drives, saying ‘what do I do with it?’,” Shannon says. “I thought maybe I’m the person who can solve this, because no one else is putting their hand up.”
She teamed up with fellow cattlewoman Emma Black to launch a software solution called Black Box Co, and is working with industry leaders to fine tune its capabilities.
Shannon juggles the business commitment with taking care of her two young sons, two-month-old Fred and Russell, 1, and building her own cattle herd with husband Luke.
Business partner Emma says there is no end to Shannon’s enthusiasm.
“Her passion and dedication to change the rural industry and see it thrive in the future is astounding,” Emma says.
FINALIST:
Lisa Rundell, Lost Trades Fair co-founder, Kyneton, Victoria
FORGOTTEN TRADES FIND NEW CHAMPION
IN 2012 Lisa Rundell quit city life to move to Kyneton with her husband, Glen, and start Rundell and Rundell, a handcrafted chair shop.
While the Piper St shop has earned repute for its old-world production skills, the couple – particularly Lisa – has gained worldwide attention for their other pursuit: establishing the Lost Trades Fair.
The fair is a celebration of skilled manual work, traditional trades, crafts, tools and techniques.
“We held the first fair in the Kyneton Museum (in 2014) and we thought we’d get maybe 500 people a day,” Lisa says. “But then we had more than 7000 people and so we thought, we’ll do this again.”
Fast forward to 2020 and Lost Trades has become so big that in March they moved the fair to Bendigo for the first time. In total, 10 fairs have run across three states. The couple are in the process of taking out an international trademark, with requests – pre-COVID-19 – for Lost Trades Fairs coming in from the US and UK.
“It is pretty exciting to receive international recognition for an event started in a small country town in rural Victoria,” she says.
More than 120,000 visitors have attended fairs, not including the “millions” logging in via social media, magazines, radio, print and TV, across Australia and overseas.
About 200 artisans, from coopers to blacksmiths, leatherworkers to toolmakers, have demonstrated their trades and Lisa says she never fails to be impressed by their work.
“It’s a revolution of artisans – those who want to pursue a life that is meaningful, make beautiful things that are not throwaway and will last generations, made with an honesty that is real and tangible,” she says.
“I think the Lost Trades Fair in many ways has achieved more than we ever expected.”
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