Change is inevitable - often for the better, sometimes for the worse (but that could be a matter of opinion or a reluctance to embrace something new).
While some practices in the wool industry such as shearing, sheep breeding or animal husbandry tend to have a traditional inclination, albeit with a modern twist, the wool broking side has embraced technology in a big way to stay relevant in a complex world.
One person who has been a witness to significant change during the past 35 years is Vicki Flynn, and well-known to woolgrowers across the Monaro from her office in Gordon Litchfield Wool Pty Ltd, Cooma.
Vicki has worked for woolbrokers based in Cooma since she was approached by Ross Langwell who managed NZT Wool in Cooma in the early 1980's.
Her interest in sheep but especially wool derived from a childhood growing up on the 2500ha family farm near Shannons Flat on the Monaro, which had been bought by her grandfather Nickolai Peet in mid-1950's.
Her parents had worked on the Snowy Mountains Scheme, where her father Allan Peet was an engineer and her mother Maret was a draftswoman but Vicki admitted her enthusiasm for farm life as a young girl had to fit in with a busy social life.
"I was a country girl who liked to have fun and in-between finishing school and going out on Friday nights were a highlight after working on the farm all week," she recalled.
Upon leaving school Vicki did get a job in Cooma as a telephonist and later in a service station which job led unexpectedly to an offer which kick started her career.
"One of the customers came in one day and asked if I wanted to work in the wool industry?" she fondly remembered.
"That was Ross Langwell who asked if I would to come and work in their office."
The decision to accept the offer has not been regretted for one minute as Vicki continued to find employment with Monaro-based woolbrokers as rationalisation occurred and smaller brokers were subsumed by larger firms.
"I was with Ross for six or seven years, by which time I had two children," she said.
"When Rachael was born in 1990 I was studying Wool Theory 1 and in 1992 Carl was born - they called him 'Wool Theory number two' because I took him into the exams!"
While her children were growing up, Vicki took on the classing of the family wool clip, before becoming the AWTA wool samples tester for the Monaro.
"And then another woolbroker, Steve Blyton at TWG Cooma came along and I worked with him for five or six years," she said.
When that business was taken over by Landmark (now Nutrien) another woolbroker came along to offer Vicki a job processing wool sale documents for woolgrowers, preparing sale catalogues and ensuring the smooth operation of a major business.
"That was Gordon Litchfield who I had worked with at NZT Wool and twenty years later I am still here," she said with a laugh.
"It has been a very exciting time. For me, wool is a superior product - and it has had all of these hurdles thrown against it, like synthetics, the demise of reserve price scheme and droughts but it has survived because it is a superior product."
When Vicki looks back over her career, one progressive development has been the ease with which the woolbroking industry in general has embraced technology to facilitate wool sales in a timely manner for clients.
"The manual invoicing, the use of telex machines to get the information out there, getting the paperwork to the industry," she recalled.
"To get the invoice to China I had to use a telex machine - all the wool test certificates [which are no longer printed] had to be laid out on a big table and manually processed for each buyer, grower and our copy.
"Deadline was the six o'clock post when everything had to be finalised and in the post."
They were days Vicki looks back on fondly, but doesn't regret that time has moved for the wool industry with the new generation of woolgrowers keen to embrace the latest innovations to boost the profitability and excitement of their flocks.
"The young people are wanting something different, they are wanting to move forward and are excited by the industry," she said.
In exactly the same way Vicki said she felt 35 years ago: but Gordon Litchfield Wool Pty Ltd director Gordon Litchfield said she has always moved forward with the changes in the industry..
"Vicki is one of those people who hasn't become bogged down like it does happen," he said.
"We all do it as we get older, and then we get to a point where we wont move forward.
"Vicki has always kept in time with things as they are happening."
The excitement in Vicki Flynn's voice as she talks about the pace of change is palpable.
"You've got to keep up with the times," she said.
"Otherwise you are left behind and no good to anyone."
Drawing on her wool classing experience, Vicki is not afraid to admit that if she doesn't understand something she will ask a lot of questions!
- courtesy, The Land, NSW.
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