You can take the girl out of the red dirt of south west Queensland but you can't take that love of the land and its people out of Jenny Whip.
Charleville born and bred, Jenny is retiring in early December after 25 years working for Rural Solutions Queensland, which operates the Rural Financial Counselling Service and Small Business Counselling Service, for southern Queensland, based at Roma, 15 of those years as its CEO.
She has lots of fond memories of people she's worked with and for in that time, but one of the most poignant involves little bottles of soil decorated with sprigs of mulga that she lovingly prepared for a metropolitan dinner presentation in 2018.
As she explained, it was dirt from one of the worst droughted areas in her region and was a small token for the guests.
"This soil has witnessed the hardships endured by those producers who have walked upon it, and the many times they have struggled to keep food on the table and their enterprises alive," she told them.
Her deep attachment is partly why the organisation's chairwoman Karen Tully says that Jenny's strong leadership, vision, determined commitment, dedication and passion contributed hugely to the success of the service.
"I can honestly say that the organisation we see today is in a very large part the result of Jenny's dedicated and strong leadership," she said.
"She has capably grown the (services) to be an established and respected provider of choice for many rural community support services.
"In her leadership role, she has continually given of herself to supporting the work that needs to be done to support clients - be it primary producers, small business owners or the numerous stakeholders with which the service has worked over 25 years."
Big numbers
Since she became the organisation's CEO in 2006, when Queensland's financial assistance schemes were re-organised into two main groups, the service has assisted 12,000 primary producers and over 1000 small businesses.
The latter has only been offered since 2019, when funding for that separate service first began.
"They're astounding numbers," Jenny said.
"When we began with the new arrangements, we were funded for three to four counsellors, a part-time admin and myself as the CEO.
"We grew from one of the smallest services in Australia in rural financial counselling, to between 2016 and 2021 we were the one of the largest services in Australia."
The service peaked at 24 rural financial counsellors and 12 small business ones but currently has 18 rural financial counsellors and eight small business counsellors.
Drought has been the main driver of that growth, supported by increased federal and state funding support, with an increasing number of people reaching out for help.
Budgets and financial statistics can be some of the driest of topics but Jenny is one of those people who can look beyond the data and see the people in need behind it.
She commented that it was an unwritten rule of thumb that for every year of drought, it can take three years to recover.
"When you've been in drought a long time, it takes time," she said. "I think funders and policy makers are more engaged with that, especially these new programs with business resilience assistance and new drought assistance packages."
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She and her Kluger have become well acquainted with the roads of southern and central Queensland, covering an area stretching from the Scenic Rim to Livingstone to the Bulloo Shire, helping plan community events to bring people together.
One of the biggest changes she's noticed over the years is the focus on natural disaster preparedness and building resilience.
And thanks to inflating property prices, more clients that had been constricted by severe drought, are now able to make succession planning a reality.
The RFCS has worked with the Rotary district since 2014 to distribute vouchers as part of its drought assistance scheme, and Rotarian Bryan Payne said Jenny's knowledge and understanding had been invaluable.
"She was a pleasure to work with," he said.
The move to retirement will be a big one for Jenny, who has worked in the Wyndham Street office since 1985, initially for the Maranoa Graziers Association.
She remembers hours of scouring heavy bound books in order to compile a record of all the policies they'd ever approved, in time for their centenary.
She found that some problems, noxious weeds and feral animals, have remained the same for a hundred years.
Her successor, Ross Leggatt knows he will have big shoes to fill.
After starting work with the Commonwealth Bank in Townsville, and then with Ruralco Holdings in Brisbane, Ross has spent the last five years with QRIDA, firstly delivering financial assistance programs to primary producers and then giving COVID support to small businesses.
"To take over an organisation held in such good stead is a testament to Jenny," he said. "I congratulate her and thank her for all her dedication."
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Sally Gall
Based at Blackall, CW Qld, where I've raised a family, run Merino sheep and beef cattle, and helped develop a region - its history, tourism, education and communications. Get in touch at 0427 575 955 if you've got a story idea for me.
Based at Blackall, CW Qld, where I've raised a family, run Merino sheep and beef cattle, and helped develop a region - its history, tourism, education and communications. Get in touch at 0427 575 955 if you've got a story idea for me.
