Ag Machinery Industry Anthology Questions

 Ever wondered what happened to all the wonderful characters who designed, built, sold, and worked the farm machinery that built our country into the agricultural powerhouse it is today? I have.

 

There isn’t one definitive research area where these stories can be found, and I would like to try to address this. Over the next twelve months I intend to produce an anthology of stories from tractor and machinery men and women across Australia. At the same time I will regenerate the AgList website and accommodate your stories there too.

With your help, I believe we can tell the story of Australia’s farming communities in an interesting and humorous way. Therefore I invite you to participate in the following questionnaire and begin recording your story for future generations.

Please feel free to expand or contract the elements of your answers to tell your story. I appreciate the effort it will take to answer but believe that unless we begin to record the important human side of our industry this history will be lost. I am trying to address this.

Each question is set in a table, start typing under the question, remembering to save the document before returning via e-mail.

Your Name:                           

Your E-mail address:             

How did you get started in the machinery game? Answer:

And what was the first role, and for who? Answer:

Tell me a bit about it, anything interesting happen Answer:

Did you have a career plan or did it just evolve? Answer:

Worst day at work, can you tell me what happened and when? Answer:

And to balance things the best day at work, can you tell me what happened and when? Answer:

Was this your first career choice? Answer:

If not what happened? Answer:

How many different jobs have you held during your career? Answer:

Describe your best job ever, be careful if it’s not the one you hold now. Answer:

Tell us about any favourite times or parts of your career? Answer:

What was the best product or service you ever owned, sold, or worked on? Answer:

What is the most important innovation you’ve seen? Answer:

So how far did you go in school, and did you do any study after leaving? Answer:

What do like most about your work today? Answer:

What is that you are doing today, and who do you work for? Answer:

Can you remember your first pay packet, tell us how you felt when you held it in your hands and can you tell us how much it was? Answer:

Can you tell us what you see any challenges the industry will face over the next few years? Answer:

And is there any advice you can give to anyone considering a similar career? Answer:

I would like to include my story on the AgList website. Yes:                                     No:                      (please mark with an X)

 

Thank you for participating, if you wish to attach any photos of yourself or products that add to your story I would appreciate them.

 

Email your answers to; probertconsulting@bigpond.com

 

Yours sincerely,

Terry L Probert

Terry L Probert: Writing Plans for 2013

Terry L Probert: Writing Plans for 2013: Before I wrote Kundela I wanted to capture the stories of the men and women who drove possibly the biggest advances in agriculture since the...

Writing Plans for 2013

Before I wrote Kundela I wanted to capture the stories of the men and women who drove possibly the biggest advances in agriculture since the mechanisation of farming at the beginning of the Twentieth Century.

This is my main focus for next year and I am seeking people to help me by recording their story.

Background for the book

To my mind  the thirty year period between 1960 to 1990. During this time farmers focused on minimum till practises and big advances were made in the delivery of irrigation systems that meant a dry country like Australia could maximise production on limited rainfall.

From the mid seventies Australian companies became world leaders in the design and manufacture of farming plant and almost weekly a new design or practise would emerge to make farming more viable. To support this march of progress, these companies employed and  trained many skilled people to carry this knowledge to the farming community and in turn train the buyers how to get the best from their purchase.

I look back at this period with fondness for the pride and enthusiasm we had then. We in Australia were making stuff and had many talented people who could sell their skills on the world stage.

So this is a call out to anyone who ever wielded a pen, drove a tractor, setup a pump, designed a plough or partnered someone involved in the ag industry during this time to tell their story. To be part of it all just drop me an e-mail at probertconsulting @bigpond and I will send out some info to take it from there.

Kundela Chapter 9 a sneek peak

We are in the final editing stages of Kundela and I'm extremely pleased with our progress. It's amazing what a difference a few restructured sentences and some proper punctuation can do to a manuscript and I have Merlene Fawdrey to thank for that.

To give readers a little tastes of what is in the book this is a sneak peak from one of my favourite chapters. Joe and Laura have just found the camp of the bikies who have trashed the homestead and are hell bent on revenge. I will only leave this passage on the blog for a week before I take it down.

Thanks for dropping in.

Enjoy

Joe may have been over sixty, and with adrenalin now surging through his veins, he forgot his recent tiredness. Running back to the site where they’d kept watch, he picked up his rifle and settled into a sniper’s position. Taking aim, he took a deep breath he relaxed, letting half of the air escape slowly his lungs. He caressed the trigger with his right index finger. It was cold and, feeling it come against the trigger spring, he knew exactly what he needed to do. The rifle punched into his shoulder as he sent the first bullet toward the shell under the Harley where the girl had been tied.

Why you should include a timeline in preparing a story.

During the last eleven or so months I attended a longditudanl workshop on novel writing hosted at the Melton Library and given by Merelene Fawdry. In that time I listened intently making copiuos comments in the margins of the comprehensive study notes she provided. As Kundela had been almost completed I was able to follow her teachings whereby through ignorance and luck I'd managed to include and understand many of the points we were learning.

The whole process filling me with pride, allowing me to say 'I am a writer.'

Jump forward to this November and to when I started writing Toby Farrier. The planning was first class I had chapter outlines set and made sure there was a logical flow to the story. I developped a story board for tracking the action and places. Much moe reliable than drawing on the memories securley filed away in my head. I even wrote a story about a bus ride for the characters helping to fix their little nuances into my memory banks. Character charts completed for the main players helping to prompt me for things like hair colour, relationships, and other minute details. So you would think that writing this book should have been a simple matter of blasting the words down. After all the bones of the story had already been written.

Not so, because now after 25,000 words I realise I have a problem with the timing of the action.Or more to the point I should have planned a timeline. My only course of action now is to go over the story and plot the happenings. Taking care and drafting a line of sequences with dates and times to flow the series of events.Either that or find a good reason for Toby to have a party on the last Monday before school breaks up for the Christmas holidays.

Thanks for reading my rant and if you are planning a story of any kind learn from my mistake and jot down notes as to the timing of events. It is much easier.

Okay it's now time to get back to Toby and get his story finished.

Lauren E Mitchell

Lauren E Mitchell is the Municipal Liaison contact / organiser and gee-up person for NaNoWriMo. To manage all of these tasks and manage to exceed the target word count requires a big effort from one individual and I'm sure there were helpers along the way but Lauren made it happen. Therefore a big thanks to you Lauren.

To the others in my buddy list I watched as your word count powered to and past the target congratulations to:

• SatyaPriya   
• Lauren E Mitchell
• Mergwen
• Black Cockatoo
• Aimz_ICR
• Chrismackauthor
• VinnFjordwall

I look forward to following your progress next year.

Melton Wordsmith members past & present dominate the Melton Short Story Competition.

A wonderful night at the Arnold's Creek Community Centre where the Melton City Council presented the prizes to  the Melton Short Story competition winners. I was pleased to see that my writing group Wordsmiths of Melton members past & present had a good representation among the winners.

Congratulations go to Julee Stillman, Loraine Jones, Craig Henderson, and Toni Iannela who all picked up gongs. To hear Julee's winning entry read to the gathering added an extra dimension to the evening.

A big mention to the council for supporting the writers of our area and promoting the idea that anyone and everyone has a story to tell. Competitions like this one extend an idea into desire and then over time a writer crafts a story and with every word they improve their craft. Bringing well known authors to Melton to talk to aspiring writers is inspiring and offers excellent role models to follow.

The winning entries of the younger writers were beautiful and listening to them being read with my eyes shut woke every sense to the descriptive action.

Well done everyone.