Time to get back to the grassroots

Tish Campbell, Western Australia’s Timber Communities Australia manager for the past seven years has decided to call it quits. Basically on the eve of stepping away from a job she sees as essential, Tish sounded a warning on where the organisation was heading.
“I believe that over the years, due to the ebb and flow of all things political, we as State managers have found ourselves in roles that have somewhat removed us from our core purpose in some respects. I believe that the time has come for the TCA managers to head on back to our grassroots and back to the communities.
“The hard stuff, I think, and it is for that reason that I am leaving my position. Due to my family commitments I am unable to offer my communities the time and effort they deserve.
“I am in constant contact with all of them electronically, but for TCA to grow as an organisation i.e. grow our membership, I believe the managers need to spend more time on the ground in the communities, doing the hard yards, an extremely rewarding, although time-consuming task I can no longer commit to,” she said.
“The thing in WA that stands out most is the ‘unitedness’ of the industry. I don’t believe that anywhere throughout Australia will you find TCA, the industry association, the unions and the Government department’s work so harmoniously to fight for the cause. A very balanced ‘ego’ system we have in WA,” Campbell said.
Campbell’s first major connection to the industry was back in the mid-1980s when she worked for Bunnings Engineering Works in Manjimup, and was responsible for data entry in the workshop store.
“I left there in 1990 when my first son Jayke was born. My husband at the time was a (hand) tree feller for Bunnings, back in the days when you couldn’t touch the sides of the Jarrah and Karri stumps if you lay across them.
“After retiring from full time work, I went on to have another son Jedd and a daughter Billi, working part time as a florist while my husband and I started Appadene Forest Products, a vertically integrated timber furniture/flooring manufacturing business.
“From sawmilling to drying, machining and now Appadene also makes beautiful timber furniture on site. Appadene is one of the ‘10’ Jarrah contract holders as a result of the Gallop Government’s protecting our old-growth forest (POOGF) policy,” Tish said.
“I had become a member of TCA in 2000 around the same time the industry held the huge truck blockade around Parliament House in WA. I first became really interested in the forest debate as such when I read an article in the Australian Women’s Weekly written by none other than Liz Davenport. It irritated me so much that not only did I respond in a letter to the editor, but I phoned continuously to ensure that they published the letter … and eventually they did,” she said.
That was the start of her commitment to defending what she terms is an amazing industry, and speaking out at every opportunity.
“Unbeknown to me, Trish Bodle, my predecessor, was grooming me for the position as WA State manager, as after 12 years in the role herself Trish had decided she needed to move on.
“I started full time as the WA State manager in October of 2001 about two days prior to the first en mass redundancies (Pemberton mill halved its workforce) of what were to become hundreds of redundancies throughout our industry due to the POOGF policy.”
Basically, she hit the ground running and has been doing so ever since. Now, though, it is time for a change but Tish maintains she will be ‘hanging around in some form or other’. “I have made too many incredible friends along the way and the timber industry is something you can’t just walk away from,” said Campbell.