NOW OPEN

The Australian Society of Animal Production, together with CSIRO Publishing, will prepare a special edition of Animal Production Science to be distributed at the Animal Production 2018 conference, 2-4 July 2018, in Wagga Wagga, NSW.

The first call is now open for authors to submit 300 word abstracts. These will be reviewed by the conference editorial committee and invitations will then be offered for a limited number of authors to prepare a full six page paper.

The Animal Production 2018 editorial committee will be assessing full papers and one page papers for relevance to the conference theme – Fostering innovation through the value chain – soundness and quality.

Research papers in Animal Production Science focus on improving livestock and food production, and on the social and economic issues that influence primary producers. The journal is predominantly focused on beef cattle, dairy cows, sheep, pigs, goats and poultry as well as emerging animal industries.

The full papers will follow CSIRO submission requirements with submissions made through the CSIRO’s ScholarOne Manuscripts portal.

Authors of abstracts who are not invited to submit full papers will have the option to submit one page papers through the second call for submissions.

The deadline for the first call for abstracts is 5pm (ACST), 8 September 2017.

Details: For further information on the conference and the call for abstracts visit the conference website.

Find out how to submit your abstract.

Share this article

Founder of the Hub and Spoke model retires.

Professor Cottle was an Associate Professor of Wool Science in the Department of Wool and Pastoral Science at the University of NSW in the 1990s. When the school was closed David worked five years as a member of the senior management team at the Wool Research Organisation of New Zealand.

In 2002 he was appointed Professor of Sheep and Wool Science at the University of New England, to manage the education program for the Australian Sheep Industry Cooperative Research Centre (Sheep CRC). The new Chair at UNE was jointly sponsored by the CRC itself, UNE, and the Australian Wool Wool Education Trust.

The education program developed by the CRC under Professor Cottle’s leadership was part of the CRC’s strategy to revitalise education and training for Australia’s sheep industry. A key element of the strategy was the delivery of a range of courses that accepted external enrolments from other universities, with UNE acting as the “Hub” and the other universities as the “Spokes”, thereby maximising the enrolments.

Professor Cottle gained his Doctorate at UNE. During his career he was the editor of The Australian Sheep and Wool Handbook and the Journal of Wool Technology and Sheep Breeding, two of his lasting legacies to the sheep and wool industry.

We wish him well in his retirement.

Share this article

Fostering innovation through the value chain

The 32nd Biennial Conference of the Australian Society of Animal Production, Animal Production 2018, will take place from July 2-4 at Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales.

The 2018 Organising Committee have commenced planning a dynamic program that will bring scientists, educators, social scientists, extension experts, consultants, consumer advocates, processors and producers together to share the latest information on all aspects of animal production.The conference tagline, fostering innovation through the value chain, will deliver a cross-species focused program sourcing international and national speakers on topics such as:
– Opportunities for innovation in animal production – a cross-species view
– Understanding the consumer: social, economic and animal welfare in animal production industries
– Mixed farming and grazing systems: integration, management, innovation
– The value of big data and its potential as a resource

Conference submissions are now being called for. The paper submission timeline has been released.

Share this article

Improved access to CRC for Premium Quality Wool Resources.

The Australian Wool Education Trust holds in trust the educational resources created by the CRC for Premium Quality Wool during its activities from 1993-2000. This resource collection consists of some 2500 high quality Microsoft Powerpoint slides prepared and edited by leading Australian wool educators, researchers, and industry personnel. Each slide is accompanied by explanatory notes and references to allow users to extract personalised information modules.

The educational resources are organised into Subjects, Themes, Topics and Modules. The Modules are MSPowerpoint files with some associated notes.

Until now these resources were only available as compressed archives for each subject i.e.

  • Wool Biology
  • Wool Metrology
  • Wool Marketing
  • Wool Production
  • Wool Technology

These are still available. However, it is now possible to drill down to the topic level within each theme for each subject and download all the modules for a topic as a compressed archive.

Each page is organised in the same way. The heading includes the Subject followed by the Theme. The first paragraph is a brief overview of the Subject. The next paragraph outlines the Theme. Each Topic has an individual heading under which are listed the Modules included within that Topic, together with a brief overview of the topic and each module within the topic. Links to the individual archives of the modules for each topic are provided. This will enable users to more rapidly access the material that specifically interests them.

Go to CRC for Premium Quality Wool Resources

Share this article

AWET grant recipient wins a prestigious prize.

Hannah Tan, a student at UTS and one of the recipients of the 2016 AWET fashion student grant, won the Australian Fashion Fund Scholarship/Internship Prize for 2016/2017, with the collection facilitated by the Trust’s grant.

Winners of the Prize receive a USD$20,000 grant and a 6-month internship with a global fashion powerhouse in New York City or Europe, and most likely Hannah will intern at Calvin Klein.

The Australian Wool Education Trust Grant 2016, alongside ongoing support from The Woolmark Company, has been invaluable throughout my Honours experience. It was not only the financial aid that assisted in building the collection, but also the wealth of knowledge and advice from members of the company. It has truly been a great honour to have received the grant, creating visibility and success for my work.

View Hannah’s Collection here.

Share this article

Woolwise.com was originally developed as a resource for educators, researchers, consultants, students and other stakeholders in the wool industry.

The range of devices used to visit websites has increased. Most people use PC’s, tablets and phones for this purpose. However, for this to work successfully a website must be “responsive”. This means designing it so it can be satisfactorily rendered on all these devices. A major renovation of the site to make it responsive has been completed, and a fresh new look created, using the services of Woolwise’s web hosting provider, MindVision.

The new site has been tested on Apple and Android tablets and phones. It is recommended that for optimum performance you use the native browser for these devices, rather than a secondary browser such as Firefox.

The bulk of the Trust’s educational materials are not distributed via Woolwise. They are distributed via DVD. This is expensive and in any event this medium is becoming redundant as the capacity for web based distribution systems increases.  Consequently, all of the Trust’s materials will be progressively migrated to the new Woolwise and made available via the internet.

Some of these materials are subject to licence agreements so the new site incorporates a registration and log-in system for licence holders. This is not available in the first release of the new site, but will be available once the licenced materials are uploaded to the site.

In the meantime explore and discover the new materials and features now available in this initial release. In particular these include:

  • An enhanced display of  News on the home page.
  • The ability to browse past News items.
  • The ability to categorise News Items.
  • A section covering the Trust’s funding activities with Fashion Schools and the outcomes.
  • Access to a more extensive range of AWTCC materials.
  • Enhanced access to VET materials created by the second Sheep CRC.
  • Links to AWI’s Learn About Wool site.
  • A built in Contact system.
  • Enhanced information about AWET.
  • An always available direct link to AWET’s Facebook page.

The “Woolwise Origins” menu includes most of the information from the original Woolwise site, albeit reformatted. This has been retained to acknowledge the work by the first CRC and its team, in establishing the site and some of the materials created by the CRC. The primary resources, the educational PPT files associated with each of the CRC’s programs, are available in the Educational Resources menu.

Additional features are planned for the site in the future.

Share this article

AWET provides scholarships for students attending VET colleges, studying wool and sheep.

Three of these scholarships are awarded to students enrolled in Tocal College, NSW

The scholarships for 2017 were awarded to Jack Finch, Meg Crouch and Kate Blair-Hickman.

Each VET scholarship is for a period of one year and is valued at $3000.

Share this article

AWET is extending its educational investments to include Fashion Design Students

In 2016 the Australian Wool Education Trust funded a pilot project for Fashion Design Students. This project will provide funding for students to purchase wool fabrics for their final year collections.

For the pilot project the criteria for administering and directing the grants are:

  1. AWET will support a fixed number of grants for Fashion Design Institute students to a maximum cost of $50,000 per annum.
  2. The grants will be available to final year students from 3 and/or 4-year Degrees.
  3. The quantum will be fixed at $1,500 for a final year student in a 3-year degree and $2,000 for a final year student in a 4-year degree.
  4. The scholarships are intended to assist successful candidates in sourcing and purchasing wool fabric for inclusion in their final year looks/outfits/ranges.
  5. Each grant is contingent on having 80% wool content in the base fabric.
  6. AWET will decide how many grants are to be available for each Institute, using enrolment numbers as a basis, and it will not be involved in administration.
  7. Each Institute will be responsible for advertising the grants and selecting candidates, based on the following criteria:
    • academic achievement or other related performance measures used by the institute;
    • commitment to producing a final year range incorporating the minimum percentage of wool required, with other fibres able to be used in conjunction with the wool component, within garments and/or in separate garments; and
    • the names and contact details being sent to AWET, as soon as possible after selection of successful candidates.
  8. Once completed, each Institute will arrange for AWET to receive a digitised version of their students’ designs/story boards, together with a description of the selected fabrics, plus an invoice for the total grants awarded.
  9. AWET will pay the funds to each Institute for distribution to their candidates.
  10. Upon completion of their looks/outfits, students will send digital images to AWET that may be published on AWET’s website and shared with AWI.

Initially 25 grants were provided for 2016, allocated to RMIT, Whitehouse Design, UTS, QUT, TAFE SA and Curtin University.

Following a review of the pilot program the Trustees decided to extend it into 2017, with the same number of grants and the same institutions.

The work of some of the grant recipients can be seen here.

Share this article

AWET has been funding scholarships for Honours and Masters by Coursework students since 2008.

These scholarships are intended to assist the applicants in funding their research project. Commencing 2017 the value of each scholarship was increased from $6000 to $7000.

The following students have been successful in their applications for Undergraduate Project and Masters by Course Work scholarships in 2017.

MURDOCH UNIVERSITY

  • Amy Bowden
  • Chad Averill
  • Lydia Inglis

SYDNEY UNIVERSITY

  • Alexander Clancy
  • Alyssa Woodland
  • Anna Cooper
  • Augustus Jacobs
  • Bethan Arthur
  • Kiri Farmer
  • Max Lloyd
  • Nicole Newsome (Masters by Coursework)
  • Philippa Bruce

UNIVERSITY OF NEW ENGLAND

  • Heather Earney
  • Sarah Duffield

UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA

  • Hediyeh Tahghighi (Masters by Coursework)

Share this article

Mr David Ward has retired as Chairman and Trustee for the Australian Wool Education Trust, effective 1st December 2016.

The AWTA Ltd Board has nominated Mr Gordon Dickinson as the replacement Trustee for David, effective 1st December, 2016.

At their meeting on 26th October, 2016 the Trustees appointed Mr Brian van Rooyen (pictured) as Chairman, effective 1st December, 2016. Brian is chairman of Australian Country Spinners and a former director of AWI.

The Trustees moved a vote of thanks for David’s contribution to the Trust over his 19 years of service as a founding Trustee and Chairman. David initiated and was responsible for the formation of the Trust by his recommendation for AWTA Ltd to commit $3.0 million of unappropriated profit to ensure the availability of tertiary sheep & wool education in Australia.

Furthermore, David was instrumental in encouraging AWI’s decision to contribute $4.0 million to the Trust. As Chairman he provided effective leadership of the activities of the Trust.

I am sure you will join with me and the other Trustees to thank him for his commitment and contribution to the Trust and to Sheep & Wool Education in Australia.

Share this article