Bobbie Pannowitz started her life in a small town 25 mins from Coonabarrabran, called Binnaway, where she was raised on a farm and attended the Binnaway Central School. Bobby was the only girl to graduate year 10 in her year, and was then sponsored to attend the Calrossy Anglican boarding school in Tamworth, which she credits for opening her eyes to a wider world of possibilities. At the tender age of 17, Bobbie moved to Sydney to work, and found a job as a live-in nanny to a family who lived on the north shore, next to Taronga Zoo - a dream location for a country girl, and a wonderful opportunity to make the most of city life. Once the children in her care were old enough to be at school during the day, Bobbie attended a legal secretary course in the city, and within a few years was working as a Paralegal in Circular Quay.
It was there that Bobbie discovered her interest in the finer details of business operations, including the legislation that governs safety in the workplace.
Bobbie was able to transfer those skills into an infrastructure construction position in Work Health and Safety (back then called OHS, not WHS), and helped with the quadruplication of a train line in Western Sydney. Bobbie never looked back from this, and progressed through a series of jobs working with bigger and bigger rigs, in urban as well as remote areas. Bobbie loved these construction jobs because she got to build something real. It was on a job building rail sidings on a coal rail line in the NSW Tablelands, that Bobbie met her partner Scott Pannowitz, with whom she has now raised 4 children.
It was when they were expecting their first child that Bobbie and Scott decided to move to Leeton, where Bobbie worked for Michael Boots reworking all his safety procedures and manuals into compliance. By baby number 3 in as many years, Bobbie decided she needed to be a full time mum at home, which was on the farm at Murrami. Once the kids were a bit older Bobbie was ready to get back into the workforce, and was hired as a WHS Specialist for SunRice. When baby number 4 appeared, Bobbie decided to study a law degree which she started during her maternity leave, and which she will graduate from this June. Bobbie was keen to maintain her career progression and broaden her scope of job opportunities. Bobbie's academic record is impressive with 8 high distinctions in her bachelor of laws subjects.
Highlights for Bobbie's learning journey have been the areas of environmental and planning law, infrastructure and construction law - which all loops back to her interests in worker safety and big rigs. Industrial manslaughter is a new area of liability that worries Bobbie and that’s how her law degree can help her to navigate that new area at the intersection of Industrial Relations and WHS. Safety is Bobbie’s passion and her message is that the leaders in any organisation need to promote the message of safety as #1 above production or anything else. WHS specialists can facilitate safety in the workplace but they can’t make people care about it - that is up to the boss.
In the last two years, Bobbie was approached by the Business Chamber to help them with a project. In collaboration with the Shire, the Leeton Connect, FRRR, and the chamber, they scoped out a project and decided to build a website that would act as a useful community hub. All those questions people ask on Facebook about things in the town can now be answered through this locally controlled online resource without having to sift through the endless nonsense on Facebook. Looking for a business? Looking for a sport for your kid. Looking for volunteer opportunities? Head to www.leetonliving.com.au It has a lot of information - and amazingly Bobbie took photos of every physical business and institution in town. With 8 hours funded work time per week, it has taken a year to populate with the required data, which includes the contact information, summaries of what we do, location, logos, photos, website link, of every business and organisation and club in Leeton Shire.
Using the website, locals can create events and it goes into the events calendar. The calendar is not a tourism calendar, it s a community calendar. People can add their own events to save on data entry for the Business Chamber, and then Bobbie or her successor can just check it and maybe make corrections, and approve. The hope is that this will help to stop major events clashes in the town - we need to encourage everyone to use it.
Director's Roundup
- Acting president Brian Munro toasted the recently departed John Kirk. John's funeral is to be held next Friday 5th May, at 2pm at the Leeton Anglican Church.
- Greg Brown mentioned the https://foodplantsolutions.org/ - a wonderful Rotary International initiative that aims to help people around the world to increase their food security by developing the agricultural potential of their local plant species. Click on the link to check it out for yourself.
- Member discussed the Bhutanese visit next week - please remember to RSVP as it's going to be a bit bigger than our usual dinners. Peter Draper spoke about the history of the connection between Bhutan and Australia through the Colombo Scheme for offering South East Asian students the opportunity to train in Australia and take those skills back to help develop their nations' economies. This week's Bhutan delegation, including the Bhutanese Ambassador to Australia, are looking at regional locations within Australia where Bhutanese workers can visit to work and gain skills to take back to Bhutan, which we will hear more about from Rotarian Ken Dachi at dinner this week 4th of May.
- Greg and George Weston are encouraging everyone to book in with the Council for a Roxy site visit, and to encourage others in town to book in. The more people who go through, the better the understanding will be, and we need to spread the word.
