Sandy Gunter (SA)

I live near Woodside, located in the Adelaide Hills in South Australia. I live on a small rural property with my partner, 3 kelpie dogs, a small herd of beef breeder cows, 2 horses and a motley crew of assorted chickens. Basically, I’m living an Australian version of the BBC Good Life sitcom with a little bit of River Cottage Australia thrown in.

I love living where I do because I have room to breathe, get my hands dirty, and appreciate nature. My current interest is trying to improve my little farm using regenerative ag practices to improve my soil.

I’ve been a member of APEN for many years, probably getting close to 30. Originally, I joined to gain some credibility because I was straight out of university and working with pastoral landholders. It looked good on my CV too. Over the years I’ve discovered how much knowledge is contained within this organisation and how generous people are at encouraging each other and sharing their experiences. I decided to step up and challenge myself by becoming a regional coordinator for South Australia over the last 5 plus years and this has been a great experience too.

My 3 core values:

Achievement – to attain challenging but realistic goals and to be involved in things that I personally believe are significant.
Creativity – to be innovative, and to create new and better ways of doing things. Status quo is rarely my thing.
Independence – to have freedom of thought and action, and to be able do things on my terms and in my own time (this one can annoy the heck out of some people – my motto is that rules are just a guide).