SENIOR staff from Consolidated Pastoral Co’s 20 far-flung cattle properties scatted across northern Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland gathered in Brisbane last week for their annual conference and get-together.

A two-day day program featured guest speakers on wide-ranging topics, and a rare chance to interact face-to-face with fellow CPC staffmembers – both from head-office and across the stations.

More than 60 station managers and their partners, plus board directors and other stakeholders closely aligned with the CPC beef and live export supply chains were in attendance.

The program culminated in an awards dinner held at Brisbane’s Royal on the Park Hotel on Friday night.

By any standards, it was a long way to come for a party. One of managers present, Jim Beale, from CPC’s Bunda Station in the Victoria River district, told Beef Central he had a 3400km road trip to get back to work this week, for the start of a new season. CPC bought Bunda this time last year (click here to view earlier property story) to add to its VRD portfolio of breeding properties.

What clearly stood out to Beef Central while mingling with staff during the gathering was the positive vibe that permeated through the room. There was a thirst for innovation and ideas, and a desire to drive the CPC business – managing more than 375,000 cattle across 57,000sq km of country – forward through the ‘one-percenters’ that add up to cattle business improvement, regardless of scale.

One of the popular attractions at Friday’s awards dinner was this half-scale ice sculpture in the shape of a bull. Not only was he decorative, but by way of a funnel on his back and plastic tube winding its way through his frozen body, exiting through his mouth, guests could cool their stubbie to ice-cold at the same time.

Jackie Cannon from CPC’s Brisbane head office cools a stubbie using the ice-scupted bull at Friday’s dinner. Click on images for a larger view.

Special guests this year included Terra Firma deputy chair, Justin King and boardmembers from CPC’s operating entity, Lake Woods, including Mark Bahen, Mike Kinski and Ruhul Amin from the UK, Chris Evans and Margeaux Beauchamp.

This year’s conference theme focussed on increasing productivity in northern beef production, and extracting more value out of the company’s cattle as they move through to the two JV company feedlots in Indonesia, or to processing in Australia.

A field trip included a visit to the enormous Ingham chicken business near Brisbane to study its high degree of vertical integration and process-driven business model from farm to consumer, controlling everything from genetics to feed, milling and processing/distribution.

The gala dinner also served as an opportunity to highlight staff excellence, with a series of in-house awards presented, covering important aspects of CPC’s business operations.

Set out below, and accessible also via the gallery at the base of this page, are some of the winners in each category and a brief explanation. More on one of the key awards winners on Beef Central later this week.

Joint award winners for Operational Performance were Simon Cobb at Wrotham Park, near Chillagoe, and Lester Bolton at Comely, near Moura, pictured with GM for QLD Alex Walsh and CEO Troy Setter

Shadow Minister for Agriculture Joel Fitzgibbon presents Emily Bryant from Argyle Downs in WA with the Ambassador of the Year award, with CEO Troy Setter