The Wheatbelt Business Network held its Women Enterprises of the Wheatbelt conference, WE Shine, on Friday 25th October at the Pingelly Recreation and Cultural Centre.
The day was a huge success with businesswomen from around the region walking away inspired and with workshopped ideas to take back and implement into their businesses.
Annmaree Jensen from Extra Mile Writing Services (Burracoppin) who attended the conference summed the day up perfectly. “The We Shine event held on Friday 25th October was simply brilliant. It was totally jam packed with value, the speakers and the workshops were excellent, and quite simply I had one of those extremely rare but totally enjoyable and enormously inspiring days. It was invaluable listening to so many different women of completely different ages running completely different enterprises, while grazing on beautiful food!”
The effervescent MC, Gertrude Wellease from Denmark, was exceptional in her role directing the days proceedings, and Keynote speakers Jo Palmer from Pointer Remote Roles in rural NSW and Helen Marshall from Primal Alternative, Albany shared how their businesses grew from country towns. Their shared stories of their business successes were inspirational as well as entertaining.
The afternoon workshops were on a variety of topics including staffing, strategic planning, social media, tourism, business strategy and finance. The workshops enabled business women to work on aspects of their businesses that require attention with a hands-on focus, providing them with skills and knowledge that they could then take back and implement in their business.
The day rounded out with a Q&A panel of successful local businesswomen fielding questions from panel Chair Leonie Knipe from Avon Valley Toyota and WA Telstra Business Woman of the Year 2019. The panel consisted of Rachel Sheahan from Scissorwest, Allie Gledhill from Moora Chiropractic Clinic, Cathy Wood from Stumpy’s Roadhouse in Brookton and Jo Palmer from Pointer Remote Roles. Their stories were inspiring and honest, with the audience joining in to glean as much information as possible as to what makes these women tick, how they overcame obstacles along the way, and how they got to where they are today.
The day was made possible with generous sponsorship from Countrywide Insurance Brokers and Regional Development Australia, allowing for such a high calibre of speakers at an incredible venue.