July 17, 2021 saw the #6Bs taken to the Northern Ag Region of Western Australia, with the day based around the Tenindewa area.
The day was organised/hosted by the Messina and Critch families, which saw the blokes start to gather at “Westwithy” for lunch at 1pm followed by a great afternoon of farm touring and machinery inspecting. Just a classic setting for great bloke interactions! Front of utes or cars, shoulder to shoulder, chatting about life, professionally and (hopefully) personally.
The day ended with a glorious evening at “The Shack” where around 70 blokes all enjoyed the opportunities of the full #6Bs:
Blokes - BBQ - Bonfire - Beers - Bonding - Bullshit
An evening with a feed and some froffs, lots of laughs, no doubt a couple of quiet tears somewhere too, but most of all continued the theme of the day of information share, all through the age old communication medium of conversation.
We in Agriculture are all great at sharing with our counterparts our successes and our failures. Arguably we enjoy seeing others in our industry learn from ourselves, more than we take the time to enjoy our successes ourselves. Our ability to have these professional shares differentiate us collectively to every other industry, we love to see our successful practices used by others, and more so our failures not adopted. Letting others learn from our mistakes is a real strength for us all.
Now wouldn’t it be great if we could all adopt this mindset as blokes, personally? To share our life journeys, our successes but also our shortcomings. To let others, walking along a similar path, to learn from us, to realise that they aren’t the first blokes walking that track, to know that others have been there, and may just have some experience to share, to make it easier to navigate. We just may start to stop leaving so many blokes behind, feeling overwhelmed and completely lost.
Lets all take the opportunity to connect with others more often, to communicate and become a broader community once again?
Thanks to the Messina and Critch families for their organisation and farm/machinery chats. Thanks to the Kitto’s for opening their farm and their story of My Provincial Kitchen up to us all. Andrew Cripps and Independent Rural for the trial site inspection. Thanks to Ben Crosthwaite for his photography skills to capture the day. But most all, a heartfelt thank you to the 70 blokes who took some time out of their busy lives, to invest some time into themselves and other blokes, and hopefully now feel more engaged with their wellbeing
Many thanks to Ben Crosthwaite for these images
