NEWS
FORMER CEO NEIL DONALDSON AWARDED LIFE MEMBERSHIP difficulties. Life Member, John Bowler, was a Board Director during this time and was involved in Neil’s appointment. John reflects upon Neil’s time with the Society. “Droughtmasters owe a great debt of gratitude to former CEO Neil Donaldson. I was privileged to be a Director of the Society when Neil was appointed as Operations Manager to the Society in 1997. As a society we had come through a difficult financial period, held together by the personal commitment of the previous Secretary, John Boydell. Neil’s appointment was a leap of faith under the then President Bruce Campbell AM MBE, with the deal that we could only pay him very limited salary and he would have to find additional income and a vehicle. Neil delivered, demonstrating his financial management ability and his skills in persuading our members and the wider industry in contributing to our breed and the Society. He was able to increase our membership and the breed inventory over critical years in the stud industry when many breed Societies lost membership and registrations, to see the Droughtmaster breed become the second strongest in Queensland and fourth strongest in Australia at one stage. Neil’s ability to look past the immediate issues and plan for the long term has been instrumental in ensuring that the Society is in a sound financial situation today with its own premises. President Todd Heyman presented former CEO Neil Donaldson with his Life Membership at the National Female Sale in Gympie, with former President Rob Atkinson, Glen Ruth. By Jenny Underwood – Eversleigh & Wallace Vale Droughtmasters IN March 2021, Neil Donaldson was awarded Life Membership of the Droughtmaster Stud Breeders’ Society. From late 1997 until early 2019, Neil served the Society as the National Operations Manager/CEO which included a period as Company Secretary at the same time. During those two decades, Neil dedicated his time to raising the profile of the breed to such an extent that his name became synonymous with Droughtmaster. Neil Donaldson is well-respected within the livestock industry, other breed societies,
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key industry players and other organisations including the media. The breed and its members were like family to him and Neil spent countless hours on the road covering most areas of Australia visiting (and often staying with) stud and commercial breeders on their properties as well as attending Field Days, and local shows and events. In the early days, Neil identified “gaps in postcodes”, particularly in the Northern Territory where Droughtmasters were only being run on a couple of the larger operations. Nowadays, Droughtmasters are found throughout Australia. During the late 90s, the Society was experiencing severe financial
“Any organisation does have a range of personalities, with individual members sometimes having personal objectives at odds with those of the organisation. Neil’s ability to talk with and assist all our members, whilst being conscious of the Directors’ and Society’s objectives, was a great skill, and this was recognised and appreciated by many members and those associated with the wider industry. Our breed is recognised across a number of forums such as ARCBA (Australian Registered Cattle Breeders Association) and TBTS (Tropical Beef Technology Services) for the inclusive work of Neil in promoting our breed while supporting the wider beef industry at the same time. Neil was able to move past the parochial nature of many breed societies and see benefits in supporting industry projects which assisted the whole industry and which,
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AUGUST 2021
