Tara sheep and cattle producer leads Toastmasters

The Coolalee stud sheep breeder was elected to lead Toastmaster’s vast District 69, an area covering Papua New Guinea, the Northern Territory, Queensland and part of NSW, and comprising 190 individual clubs and thousands of individual members at a gala ceremony at the Gold Coast in May.

Joe’s election to one of the highest Toastmasters offices in Australia represents the latest step in a colorful public speaking journey that began at a Junior Farmers meeting in a small NSW country hall in 1959.

He was 10 years old, and petrified, when asked to give an impromptu speech on the topic ‘that duck shooting should be banned’.

“I had absolutely no idea what it meant,” he recalls with a chuckle. “I was 10. I thought it was about putting bands on their legs,” Joe said.

“As a consequence it was hilarious for the audience, and pretty embarrassing for me.”

Despite the baptism of fire, Joe continued to work on improving his public speaking through Junior Farmers and then in Rural Youth, and at age 21 he represented his district in public speaking.

In the following years Joe worked as a shearer before he and wife Jenny, a school teacher, moved to Tara in western Queensland. It was there they established a successful seed grading business and then fulfilled a lifelong dream by buying their own sheep and cattle grazing property

Along the way Joe also worked off-farm as a coordinator for Landcare, and served as a councillor on the Tara shire council, in addition to volunteering for the local service groups.

In 2005, Joe was handed a pamphlet at his local show promoting the formation of a Toastmasters club in Tara.

As a local councilor Joe felt he could improve his ability to get his message across, and thought Toastmasters could help.

He and Jenny signed up and became charter members of the new club, appropriately named the “Country Chatters”.

At a personal level, the timing was ideal.

“When I think back to that particular time, we were going into a drought on the farm, and the seed grain business wasn’t performing as well as it could,” he said.

“Farmers didn’t have the money, and it was also an era where a lot of headers were coming onto the market with new screening technologies, so there was no longer as much demand from farmers for having grain cleaned.

“I was certainly a bit down, and becoming involved in Toastmasters was somewhere to go and express your feelings and ideas.

“It gave me a great deal of confidence.

“I think farmers certainly need an outlet, and Toastmasters is a good way of mixing with other people and getting confidence in yourself, in what you say and how you say it, it is quite an educational experience.”

Toastmasters allows members to practice speaking by preparing speeches on any topic they like.

A favoured subject for Joe is his animals, and particularly his dogs: an occasional source of frustration, a frequent source of education and a constant source of companionship.

Joe and Jenny are now members of three clubs – the Country Chatters, the Goondiwindi Toastmasters Club, and the Northern Nomads, an advanced club that draws members from all over northern NSW and southern Queensland and meets in a different country town each month.

Joe says his own experience with Toastmasters has been ‘life changing’.