Edition 18

Meeting Notice for 26th October 2026

The Family Hotel at 6:00 for 6:30pm

PROGRAMME: Trish Moore & Heather Stewart - CBA Bank

Last meeting

Tonight we welcomed Mark O'Connor, Chief Financial Officer of AMPS (Agricultural Marketing and Production Systems), as our guest speaker. Mark provided an engaging overview of the grower-owned agribusiness, which was established more than 25 years ago by a group of local farmers seeking greater buying power and improved access to research and agronomic services. Today, AMPS has evolved into an unlisted public company with approximately 130 shareholders, predominantly local farmers and customers, operating six branches across North West New South Wales.

Mark explained the unique AMPS business model, where profits from the rural merchandise division help fund an extensive agricultural research program. Through field trials and agronomic research, AMPS supports its shareholder base with practical, locally relevant information to improve farm productivity and sustainability. Having returned to the region in 2004, Mark spent several years advising the company as an external accountant before joining the organisation as CFO, giving him a unique perspective on its growth and development.

A major focus of the presentation was the design and construction of AMPS' impressive new Tamworth headquarters and branch facility at 23 Dampier Street, Taminda. After opening a Tamworth branch in leased premises in 2016 and experiencing significant growth, the company elected to invest in its own purpose-built facility. Mark outlined the extensive planning process, including capital raising from existing and new local shareholders, visits to rural merchandise businesses across northern NSW to gather design ideas, and the decision to adopt a fixed-price design-and-construct approach. The result is a modern, customer-friendly facility featuring efficient traffic management for customers, forklifts and heavy vehicles, along with a welcoming showroom that reflects the changing face of Australian agriculture.

Thanks to James Hindmarsh for the notes.
 

PRESIDENT’S  REPORT 

Very busy evening on Monday night.  It was exciting to be able to induct two new members into our Club in Ronald McDonald and Rob Moran.  They were both genuinely excited to become members of our Club and we are equally excited to welcome them.  Congratulations Ron and Rob and welcome aboard.

It was also a pleasure to welcome our guest speaker and fellow Rotarian Mark O'Connor who is the CFO of AMPS Agribusiness.  Mark gave us a really interesting presentation on AMPs and the journey behind the design and construction of their new AMPS Tamworth Premises at 23 Dampier St in Taminda which is most impressive.

A big thankyou to Phil Lyne who has championed securing our Presidency for the 2027-28 Presidential Term.  On the back of Phil's efforts, a big thankyou to Frank Henry, Col Quast, Tony Summers and Jim Booth who have volunteered to undertake a 3 month Presidential stint each in the 2027-28 term.  Hopefully post this time we will be able to secure a full term president once again.

As discussed our Return and Earn recycling account is now up and running at the Vinnies Tamworth Return and Earn depot in MacIntosh St Taminda. A big thankyou to Jemma and The Family Hotel who have agreed to donate the 50% of their weekly recycling to our Rotary Club return and earn account.  This should start to trickly in within the next few weeks. Thank you also to Coxy who has been one of the first Rotarians to make a donation of 197 cans and bottles which generated $19.70 to the fundraising account.  If you have any cans and bottles you wish to recycle to the benefit of Rotary this is an easy way to contribute.   I will talk more on this Project next week at our meeting.

The Brighter Day catering this coming weekend is coming together.  Thank you to Ron and Gordon who have organised the supplies for the day and to those fellows who are volunteering.  While the cooking officially starts at 9:30 am we will be arriving at Bicentennial Park around 8:30 am to set up for the day.

Next Monday night 26 October immediately after our meeting Chris Lang and Richard Chaffey will be chairing our first Motor Show Committee Meeting to start organising the event.  If you are keen to be part of the Motor Show committee please make yourself available to attend this meeting.

Further to my discussions with Jemma at The Family Hotel tonight, in order to make it easier to manage numbers and meal requirements for our members each Monday night we have been requested to provide firm meeting attendance numbers by Saturday evening for the following Monday night meeting. This is a very reasonable request and I will be amending our scheduled meeting reminder notice to be sent out to members on Friday.  Please ensure to  nominate your attendance  via the Bulletin Link by no later than 7 pm on Saturday evening so that we can send this through to Jemma.  If you have any dietary requirements please add this to your attendance confirmation so we can let Jemma know in advance to assist streamline our dining experience.

That’s it for this week.

Keep up the good work fellows.

YIR

James

Tony Summers,Ron McDonald, President James, Rob Moran, Pete Dillon

ATTENDANCE - Meeting of Monday 26th October  2026

Select the link below to the next meeting attendance ONLY if you are attending our next meeting on Monday.
The cut off time is 7pm on Saturday.

The caterer is advised of numbers just after 7.00pm Saturday evening

From Jim Booth 

Completed the 76km trip and so far the 15 walkers have raised nearly $41,000 which will buy more than 37 tent packages. Jim has raised $2770 but donations are still being accepted via the link https://hume-and-hovell.raiselysite.com/jim-booth … pics from the group at Hamilton Hume’s property, Cooma Cottage, just east of Yass, where the track starts. Another shot on the bush track just above Burrinjuck Dam where Hume and Hovell walked with the party of six convicts in late October 1824, almost exactly 202 years ago….