![Next Gen Braford members Georgia Graham and Mac Kenny with some of the donated straws that were raffled. Picture: Sally Gall Next Gen Braford members Georgia Graham and Mac Kenny with some of the donated straws that were raffled. Picture: Sally Gall](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/88uitQDCBZnXA8enwGJ5Zd/6dbfc03d-5e27-446f-a5bb-86406c1c8a25.jpg/r160_0_4000_3000_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
A Beef '24 attendee who walked into the Australian Braford Society tent to get out of the rain ended up owning some of the breed's best genetics, all for a $20 outlay.
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Mark McNamee, who lives in the Brisbane Valley, was one of 495 purchasers of tickets in the society's Next Gen Lucky Straw competition, which saw 32 semen straws donated by 15 separate breeders across the world.
The straws were raffled last Wednesday during the Braford, Beers and Banter function, giving people whose names were drawn out of the hat the chance to draw a straw at random out of the tank.
"Some of them were from bulls that went back to the 1970s and some had never been offered before," spokesman Mac Kenny said. "We raised just shy of $5000."
The idea expanded on a similar raffle undertaken by the V8 Ranch in the US, which had a daily draw.
It was one of the ideas the Next Gen Braford group put into action for Beef, both to draw curious visitors into the tent and to raise funds to help educate and grow the next generation of Braford breeders through incentives and awards.
Mr Kenny said they hadn't decided how the money would be used yet but ideas included paying for people to do AI courses, and possibly making a futurity of the activity, given that half the straws went back in to the Braford breed.
"We had a lot of ticket buyers that weren't Braford breeders but they wanted to support us," he said. "They could donate their straw to someone if they won and didn't want it."
![Georgia Graham and Mac Kenny with the tank of semen straws ready to auction. Picture: Sally Gall Georgia Graham and Mac Kenny with the tank of semen straws ready to auction. Picture: Sally Gall](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/88uitQDCBZnXA8enwGJ5Zd/8070cdd4-06c3-4fd1-99e7-773f80d09eb2.jpg/r0_269_3464_2324_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
The group also raised the blood pressure of a few parents when it shared 'bid cards' with a group of 10 to 14-year-olds, letting them go to town on a pen of three cattle after agents took them through a talk on the process of selecting cattle.
"There were a few worried parents walking past, wondering what their kids were doing, but it gave them the idea of what it was like to purchase a bull," Mr Kenny said. "It was very popular with the 25 kids though."
He paid tribute to three young women - Alice Marks from Winvic at Clermont, Sam Moger from Triple S at Capella, and Amy McNamara from MCN at Bell - for kicking off plans for the Next Gen Braford group at Beef '24.