Funding brings home comforts for farming group

Baw Baw Shire mayor Kate Wilson recently enjoyed a rural excursion out of the office to see the shire's community support grant funds at work.
Cr Wilson was invited by the Women on Farms West Gippsland group to their monthly farm activity.
The group's October event saw the launch of a new mobile toilet, a portable comfort station, which the group purchased with the assistance of a community grant. While the funds were received several months earlier, the launch date was set for the scheduled visit to a scenic farm high in the hills overlooking Yarragon.
Cr Wilson arrived in wind and rain, joining the women who were intently watching a sheep husbandry demonstration by Chloe Dunn, known as Chloe the Shearer. The farmer, Jude Conway, said she regularly had Chloe attend 'The Edge' to mark, shear and give pedicures to her small, mixed breed sheep herd.
With the new mobile toilet parked nearby, and amid amused laughter, Cr Wilson launched the trailer, saying how pleased council was to see such practical community use made of funding assistance.
WOFWG president Margaret Young of Yarragon thanked the mayor for taking time out to drive the unsealed winding roads. Committee member Mary Hughes of Neerim said the new toilet was a vast improvement on the original one purchased 20-plus years ago and now sold to a farming enterprise for its field workers.
Lyn Link of Garfield North, who tows the portable comfort station to properties, emphasised how having their own toilet made a bunch of women more welcome on most farms they visit.
Cr Wilson talked to WOFWG members about their farming interests, their locations and the importance of the rural group to their knowledge and social connection. She said "this is the part of the job I really love especially as I too have farming in my background."