AMANDA Bayles has itchy feet.
From sombre Launceston warehouses in Tasmania in the height of winter to the sapping heat while governessing at Mundrabilla, Western Australia, Ms Bayles has jumped from one challenge to another.
However, one enduring association for Ms Bayles has been with Rural Youth Organisation of Tasmania – organiser of Tasmania's premier field day, Agfest.
The daughter of a mixed-farming family near Cressy joined Rural Youth in 2004 as an impressionable 15-year-old, keen to follow in the footsteps of her parents.
She said they had made a number of lifelong relationships through the group.
"Just seeing the friendships they developed drew me into Rural Youth, so my friend and I joined up at the Westmorland Rural Youth Club the year we were eligible," she said.
Barbecues, organising showbags and fundraisers and overseeing the animal nursery at the Longford Show were part of Ms Bayles' responsibilities in her first three years at club level, but she was destined for other things.
Encouraged by local Rural Youth leaders, Ms Bayles began to climb the ladder, becoming regional president of northern Tasmania in 2006, a year after her first volunteering stint at Agfest.
"Initiation is carpark," Ms Bayles said of her first experience at Agfest, referring to the carpark being the place where 99 per cent of volunteers start.
Ms Bayles relished a job that others might not, and her enthusiasm bred responsibility as she became purchasing co-ordinator in 2010-11, vice-chairperson and vehicles co-ordinator in 2012 and eventually chairperson for 2013-14.
"You have to do your time," said Ms Bayles of her association with Rural Youth, which also echoes her approach to work.
The Bayles' property, which runs a mixture of cattle and sheep alongside cash crops, is currently run by Ms Bayles' father and his two brothers.
And while she might be destined for the farm later on, the family ensured Ms Bayles never had a sense of entitlement.
"It was always the deal that we had to go off and do our own thing, not just rely on going straight home to the farm," she said.
"You have to get out there and see how everyone else does things.
"It's all well and good that we've been shearing in November for as long as I remember, but would you look at someone doing a March shearing and ask 'would that work at home'."
Working on a large dairy farm with hierarchical management structures also provided her with an insight into more corporate farming models, which in some cases, was different to the family farm.
"There's plenty of arguments every now and again," Ms Bayles said of the occasional head-bashing at the family farm, which was healthy, but in some instances unproductive.
A stint in Launceston's warehousing trade was followed by an impromptu trip to Mundrabilla, WA, to work as a governess for a remote community in 2010.
About 100 kilometres from the WA-SA border, and 600km from the nearest town of Ceduna, SA, Ms Bayles was certainly out of her comfort zone.
A teacher at a major regional area like Kalgoorlie-Boulder, WA, would send a term's-worth of work to the children who would link up for a video chat with teachers daily.
Ms Bayles, who was charged with looking after the children and ensuring their work was completed, was introduced to the show via a major broadcaster's Landline program and thought "that sounds alright".
Itchy feet was behind the eight-month move West, and was doubtless the reason she moved back to Tasmania to work on a dairy – an area she had little experience in.
During her 3.5 years at the dairy, Ms Bayles saw employees come and go, something which she felt was representative of Tasmania's dairy industry as a whole – a trade blighted by a high-turnover of staff and the proliferation of casual labour.
Ms Bayles is currently working on a Australian Therapeutic Protein sheep farm at Longford, for a "change of scenery", but still milks at the dairy on the weekends because it's "something to do... not that I'm not busy enough".
Working in different environments has given Ms Bayles the mediating skills required to run a successful field day that caters for 60,000-70,000 people across three days.
"You can use your knowledge and experiences to understand what needs to be done," said Ms Bayles, who believed a strong committee last year, was the key to her successful first year as chairperson.
