Community & Business
21 February, 2026
Gilgandra PROBUS Club - February 2026 Meeting
National Agri Futures Rural Woman of the Year, Carol Mudford, was the guest at the February PROBUS Club meeting.
By Margaret Schier, publicity officer
The Gilgandra Probus Club annual general meeting was held last Thursday (February 12) with changes to several positions.
Lynda Wykes is our new president, Marg Zell vice-president, and Marg Schier secretary. All other positions remained the same and the changeover lunch will be held next month at the Gilgandra Services Club.
Thank you to Pat Thompson who has been our wonderful president for the last four years and in that time, she has encouraged many women to join PROBUS.
We now have 40 members, and this year Pat and Denise are hoping men will join our club again. PROBUS once had more men than women members.
Our February guest speaker was Carol Mudford. Last October, representing NSW, Carol was named the National Agri Futures Rural Woman of the Year at a gala function at Parliament House in Canberra.
Carol was born in Gilgandra, the daughter of the late Max Mudford and granddaughter of our very proud life member, Shirley Mudford.
She moved to Victoria when she was eight-years-old with her family, educated there and gained an arts degree in performing arts.
COVID lockdown happened and she chose to come back to Gilgandra with one bag of clothes leaving her dog and life back in Victoria.
She joined her uncle Don in the shearing shed and learnt to shear one sheep and then three.
Carol went to a shearing school at Haddon Rig as a shed hand and gradually became a shearer.
She kept going through 2023 full-time shearing and sleeping in a wool bale.
She loved sheep, and the sheds, at ‘Nianbah’ Gulargambone is a favourite with all its history.
Carol could now shear 200 crossbreds a day and the industry still can’t replace traditional shearers with robots. She attended shows at weekends in South Australia and the Northern Territory.
Carol became a registered health care nurse and a mental health nurse. She realised how isolated shearers could become being away so much from home and camping with work mates not being with their families.
Carol had the dream of starting ‘sHedway’ for suicide prevention in the shearing industry after there were three suicides in three weeks.
This is now a registered charity and they receive grants to continue the good work.
Talking to people was the important part and in 2023 she started a social media page.
She has been to every state and 130 events speaking to people, making practise calls to Lifeline on loudspeakers so people could be confident to use that service.
Suicide is a huge problem in Australia and double the road toll. Shearing sheds are hard places to work in, dealing with extremes in temperatures, isolation, medical help, social life outside working hours, driving long distances. Dubbo TAFE were helpful with toolbox talks and connecting with shearers again.
Carol and her team will be conducting Safe Talk Workshops in Yass in March and in Campbelltown in June, plus Q-Fever Vaccination Clinics at Wellington and Dubbo Shows. Their goals are to make it ok to talk about mental health.
For more information visit
www.shedway.org.au
National support services:
If in a crisis or with thoughts of suicide please call 000. If no reception from mobiles call 112.
Lifeline - www.lifeline.org.au
Call: 13 11 14 Text: 0477 131 114
