Welcome to Moree: Putting the ‘you’ in Young Aggies

Do you:​

​a) Hit the pub and hope for the best? 

​b) Focus on cultivating office friendships until you meet your people?

c) Touch base with a ready-made, forward-thinking network of people who are working towards a better community? 

Fortunately, people moving to Moree can do all three.

But were you to knock on the Young Aggies’ door, you would certainly be welcomed into the fold. 

The Moree Young Aggies are a growing group of young professionals – who “aren’t necessarily young or aggies’”  – but are keen to showcase their community and welcome new arrivals to the state’s North West. 

The group is chaired by 29-year-old agronomist Fiona Norrie and covers a wide range of ages and occupations.

Ms Norrie told the Next Crop Forum the might only have been operating for three years but were getting increasing turnouts to events they put on throughout the year. 

“One of the hardest things for people when they arrive in a new town is… where do I go from here?” she said. 

“You might have just come out of uni, you’re in a new environment, around people who have been in the industry for a long time… you need those familiar young faces that you feel like you can bounce things off.

“A landing ground to soften the blow a bit.” 

The group is actively trying to get more young people to move to town. 

They have a scholarship to help cover the costs of a work experience stint for young professionals, and they’re sharing the good word via the Young Aggies Facebook page. 

“If we can get the word into the city universities... it may be appealing engineering-types to get them into ag engineering. Basically showing people opportunities to what they may not have first thought were here in Moree.”

Getting people to come out, meet some people when you’ve finished studying, look after the long-term prosperity of the town.” 

THE Moree Young Aggies’ big event for the year is of course the annual Gold Rush Ball.

This year the fundraiser will be held on Saturday September 22, with half the money raised going to Ronald McDonald House in Tamworth and the other half being set aside for the group’s rural work placement scholarship. Previous Gold Rush events have donate money to causes such as Lifeline. 

Young Aggies chairwoman Fiona Norrie said while the night was certainly the centerpiece of the group’s social calendar, it was increasingly branching out into other regular events and initiatives including professional development workshops.

“We’re definitely seeing an increased response to these type of things,” Ms Norrie said.

“Farmers, accountants, agronomists, marketers… we’ve got all sorts in the mix. We used to struggle to get 10 to 15 people to events.

“Now we’re seeing 40-50 people… It doesn’t sound like much but when they’re making the trip into town to talk about profit drivers for an afternoon it’s pretty good.”