SOUTH AUSTRALIAN RURAL WOMEN'S GATHERING
in 2012
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Ita Buttrose is an exceptional Australian, who has led in so many different theatres of endeavour as a businesswoman, journalist, author, motivational keynote speaker, advisor to corporate, community and welfare; and as a director.
Twice voted Australia s most admired woman, Ita Buttrose began her distinguished career as a copygirl on The Australian Women s Weekly when she was 15; by 21 she was the magazine s Social Editor and by 33 had become the Weekly s Editor, its youngest ever - a distinction she still holds today. Under her editorship the Weekly broke through the one million copies sold barrier for the first time (it was then a weekly and not a monthly) setting new publishing records in this country and making the Weekly, per capita of population, the highest circulating magazine in the world.
Ita Buttrose was the founding editor of Cleo and was appointed Editor-in-Chief by Rupert Murdoch of his Sydney Daily and Sunday Telegraphs - making her the first woman to ever edit a major metropolitan newspaper in Australia. She was invited to join the board of News Limited, Australia, becoming the first Australian female director of this world-wide media group. Ita s early career was recently the subject of a highly-acclaimed ABC two part miniseries titled Paper Giants: The Birth of Cleo in which she was portrayed by actress Asher Keddie.
After a distinguished career with both Australian Consolidated Press and News Limited, Ita Buttrose started her own publishing company and created ITA Magazine as well as doing publishing work for such clients as David Jones, Telstra, and the Australian Tax Office for whom her company created the first TaxPack. Currently she is host/interviewer of Ita s Musical Theatre on the Ovation Channel, is a regular social commentator on Channel Nine s Today Show and is Editor-at-Large of OK! Magazine.
Ita Buttrose is a committed contributor to community and welfare organisations and is currently National President of Alzheimer s Australia, Patron of the Macular Degeneration Foundation; and Vice President Emeritus of Arthritis Australia. She was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for her services to the community especially in the field of public health education when she spearheaded Australia s HIV/AIDS Education Program; she received the OBE for her services to journalism and a Centenary Medal for her leadership to Australian Society.
Ita Buttrose was a founding member and former president of Chief Executive Women. She has written ten very successful books including her best-selling autobiography, with the most recent work being A Guide to Australian Etiquette: For all Occasions, from Weddings to Work.
Ita Buttrose is unique. An accomplished communicator with a wealth of experience across a broad range of industry sectors, she has worked behind the scenes and in the public eye for major corporates, small business, governments and charity. When she speaks she does so with on-the-job knowledge and experience to deliver a speech that informs, entertains and inspires her audience. Her lively wit is a joy and there is never a dull moment at question time. Not surprisingly she is a much in-demand multi-media performer. She is an entertaining speaker, an accomplished facilitator and a superb MC.
Ita is also a proud mother of Kate and Ben and knows all about the challenges of combining a career with raising children.
Ita Buttrose has extensive experience as a public speaker in both the private and public sectors. She has been engaged as a speaker in a variety of roles including keynote speaker, master of ceremonies, analyst and host. She is a content rich and inspirational speaker with a wealth of corporate and societal experience.
Ita Buttrose is a committed contributor to community and welfare organisations and is currently National President of Alzheimer s Australia, Patron of the Macular Degeneration Foundation; and Vice President Emeritus of Arthritis Australia. She was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for her services to the community especially in the field of public health education when she spearheaded Australia s HIV/AIDS Education Program; she received the OBE for her services to journalism and a Centenary Medal for her leadership to Australian Society.
Ita Buttrose was a founding member and former president of Chief Executive Women. She has written ten very successful books including her best-selling autobiography, with the most recent work being A Guide to Australian Etiquette: For all Occasions, from Weddings to Work.
Ita Buttrose is unique. An accomplished communicator with a wealth of experience across a broad range of industry sectors, she has worked behind the scenes and in the public eye for major corporates, small business, governments and charity. When she speaks she does so with on-the-job knowledge and experience to deliver a speech that informs, entertains and inspires her audience. Her lively wit is a joy and there is never a dull moment at question time. Not surprisingly she is a much in-demand multi-media performer. She is an entertaining speaker, an accomplished facilitator and a superb MC.
Ita is also a proud mother of Kate and Ben and knows all about the challenges of combining a career with raising children.
Ita Buttrose has extensive experience as a public speaker in both the private and public sectors. She has been engaged as a speaker in a variety of roles including keynote speaker, master of ceremonies, analyst and host. She is a content rich and inspirational speaker with a wealth of corporate and societal experience.
Elizabeth Young was born to Sandra and Forrest Young and raised on a potato farm near Kalangadoo. Her primary school, Mary MacKillop Memorial in Penola, was where Saint Mary MacKillip originally started her work of educating the rural poor. It was there that a number of her family became Catholic and she felt a calling to a religious way of life. She completed her education in Mount Gambier and Adelaide. A year after school her life went in a very different direction as she went to Melbourne to complete a Bachelor of Circus Arts. In a course full of physical discipline and fun, she specialised in handstands and tightwire.
As she finished the course, she kept feeling God's calling to something else. So, in 2007, she started a Bachelor of Theology and enquiries into the consecrated life in the Catholic Church. She then moved into a community of Sisters of Mercy and in 2009, made her first vows of poverty, chastity, obedience and works of mercy. In 2010 she moved to live with a community of Sisters in Port Augusta, which was a welcome return to country living. She completed a Diploma of Teaching and Learning and now works in a variety of ways with the underprivileged in the area. She finds many reminders of God's Spirit in the faith, support and community life of those in touch with the earth: country dwellers.
Title for presentation: Kalangadoo and Tangmalangaloo: Life of the Spirit in the Country
As she finished the course, she kept feeling God's calling to something else. So, in 2007, she started a Bachelor of Theology and enquiries into the consecrated life in the Catholic Church. She then moved into a community of Sisters of Mercy and in 2009, made her first vows of poverty, chastity, obedience and works of mercy. In 2010 she moved to live with a community of Sisters in Port Augusta, which was a welcome return to country living. She completed a Diploma of Teaching and Learning and now works in a variety of ways with the underprivileged in the area. She finds many reminders of God's Spirit in the faith, support and community life of those in touch with the earth: country dwellers.
Title for presentation: Kalangadoo and Tangmalangaloo: Life of the Spirit in the Country
ELIZABETH YOUNG
For over 12 years Bronwyn Roberts has been sharing the clinically proven benefits of laughter with groups around Australia and in the USA. Her role as Chief Happiness Officer of Let’s Laugh has seen her take her popular health and wellbeing through laughter and humour programs into the smallest of remote communities, the board rooms of some of our biggest multinational corporations, school rooms, hospitals, age care centres and ever maximum security prisons.
Her interest in the power of laughter began over 30 years ago when, working as an independence, meditation and stress management trainer in post trauma rehabilitation, she noticed that the more positive the client the more accepting they were of their changed circumstances and the more willing they were to put their all into their rehabilitation. Her Stress Management through laughter and humour workshops quickly became a hit with the clients and their families.
In November 2011, in recognition of her passion for sharing the benefits of laughter with community groups around the country the Kraft Corporation named her as one of their inspirational Australian’s in the 2012 ‘Vegemite Toast of a Nation Awards’. She is very pleased to now be able to say the she’s officially a ‘happy little Vegemite’.
While she shares the benefits of laughter with groups around the country Bronwyn is also completing a Graduate Certificate in Applied and Therapeutic Humour through Portland State University (USA) and a degree in Human Behaviour through Swinburne University (Melbourne). She is a Gold Member of the Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humour, an association member of the International Positive Psychology Association, a mother, wife and is owned by a cat.
BRONWYN ROBERTS
ITA BUTTROSE
SARAH MOTT
JOANNA FINCHAM
Speakers
Click on the links below to find out more about our guest speakers
Sarah Mott was raised by a corporate father and animal loving mother which explains her experiences as a senior manager and addiction to rescuing animals! Training as a nurse in the early 1970s led to the igniting of a passion for people finding themselves in extreme disadvantage. Mental health training followed which provided a range of skills and knowledge which have been put to good use over the ensuing years. Sarah’s career in nursing practice, education, research and management has taken her from England via the United Arab Emirates and the United States to Australia in 1981, with work in the following years taking her to Adelaide, Geelong, Perth, Sydney and Mount Gambier. Along the way, much to her surprise and everyone else’s, she gained a son, Mitch, another source of wonder necessitating the swift addition of knowledge and skills to her toolkit.
Working with older people with mental illness, young people with acquired brain or spinal cord injuries, and a range of others who find themselves in difficult situations has strengthened Sarah’s belief that the best way along life’s short, pot-holed, windy road is to pack a bag containing: daily smiles (for oneself and others - give these often to everyone); inner strength (from reflecting on what one has rather than what one doesn’t have); persistence (giving up is easy, however persisting is so much more fun); compassion (for those whose bag isn’t as full as it could be); contact numbers for close friends (so you always find one when needed); good memories, (to be taken out and revisited from time to time); and, of course, a collection of animals (for their unconditional love and blood pressure lowering properties).
Sarah’s presentation ‘Warrior Women - strong women just keep getting stronger’ will present some of the issues she and the audience face as rural women and discuss what else might be needed in our life bags to get us through.
Working with older people with mental illness, young people with acquired brain or spinal cord injuries, and a range of others who find themselves in difficult situations has strengthened Sarah’s belief that the best way along life’s short, pot-holed, windy road is to pack a bag containing: daily smiles (for oneself and others - give these often to everyone); inner strength (from reflecting on what one has rather than what one doesn’t have); persistence (giving up is easy, however persisting is so much more fun); compassion (for those whose bag isn’t as full as it could be); contact numbers for close friends (so you always find one when needed); good memories, (to be taken out and revisited from time to time); and, of course, a collection of animals (for their unconditional love and blood pressure lowering properties).
Sarah’s presentation ‘Warrior Women - strong women just keep getting stronger’ will present some of the issues she and the audience face as rural women and discuss what else might be needed in our life bags to get us through.
Joanna first came to our screens in 2008 after entering Channel 9’s The Farmer Wants a Wife where she met her now husband, Rob Hodges. Joanna had moved from her home town of Melbourne to the South East where she lives on a farm with Rob and their 4 month old daughter, Darcy.
Joanna runs a successful photography business in the South East as well as Western Victoria and Melbourne and regularly exhibits work as well as contributing to glossy magazines and runs photography workshops.
Joanna has written a novel which is to be published in April/May 2012 by Allen and Unwin. It is a story about her struggles with an eating disorder and Depression and how she overcame her demons after meeting Rob and moving to the country. It is an inspirational story which Joanna hopes will help others in a similar situation overcome their struggles.
Joanna works with school students in the area of self esteem, an area she is very passionate towards.
Joanna is a ‘Blue Voice’ for Australia’s largest Mental Health organisation, Beyond Blue and one day hopes to become an ambassador.
Joanna runs a successful photography business in the South East as well as Western Victoria and Melbourne and regularly exhibits work as well as contributing to glossy magazines and runs photography workshops.
Joanna has written a novel which is to be published in April/May 2012 by Allen and Unwin. It is a story about her struggles with an eating disorder and Depression and how she overcame her demons after meeting Rob and moving to the country. It is an inspirational story which Joanna hopes will help others in a similar situation overcome their struggles.
Joanna works with school students in the area of self esteem, an area she is very passionate towards.
Joanna is a ‘Blue Voice’ for Australia’s largest Mental Health organisation, Beyond Blue and one day hopes to become an ambassador.
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