In January, my family and I visited the annual Sand Sculpting Australia exhibition in Frankston, in Melbourne’s southeast. This is an annual event on the Frankston waterfront, from Boxing Day each year through to the following April. Artists from Australia and around the world create sculptures and masterpieces from quarried sand.
My wife and I have been to the event a few times over the years but this was the first time our six-month old daughter attended. It’s a great place to take your children who even get to have a go at scooping sand on coin-operated, scaled down excavators (yes, my inner 12-year old was jealous, even though he has played on simulators and the real McCoy over the years!).
Of course, what largely goes unheralded is the role of Aidan J Graham Quarries, based in Langwarrin, in the sand sculpting event. You can read more about the company’s contribution in our news section (see page 11) but it’s a great example of how members of the quarry industry can engage with their local communities by donating raw materials or making other in-kind contributions.
Another quarry business – Capricorn Sandstone Quarries, near Rockhampton – has also made our headlines this month for its generous contribution of sandstone to an Anzac memorial project in central Queensland (see page 8). Indeed, Capricorn has a strong history of supporting schools, paramedic services, local artists and sportspeople, and war veterans. In 2011, the company also provided plant and equipment to help with the clean-up in Rockhampton after the region was flooded.
A third example is industry members’ ongoing support of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation’s (JDRF) annual Ride To Cure Diabetes (page 11). In January, 30 quarry professionals, including bicycle teams from Boral, Neilsens and Groundwork Plus, rode through the Barossa Valley to raise funds for the JDRF.
Quarry has run plenty of other news items over the years about the community contributions of various local and national aggregate producers and plant and equipment suppliers, such as Nucrush, Penrice, Hanson, Komatsu and Hitachi. I encourage you all – quarry operators and suppliers alike – to keep us informed of activities and initiatives that you support via the editorial details in the column to the right. In particular, the weekly Quarry enewsletter is constantly on the lookout for the positive work of industry members. The Quarry editorial staff are always happy to talk with industry people about how they are seeking to promote community works.
The great challenge for the quarrying industry is communicating to the public the importance of quarry products and how they underpin so much of our lives. As Capricorn Sandstone Quarries owner and general manager Reece Gough said of his company’s donation to the Anzac memorial project, engaging with the community not only provides exposure for Capricorn, it raises awareness that there is a local business that has supplied raw materials for over a century. In particular, the central Queensland region has not used a lot of sandstone, so there is an opportunity for Capricorn to educate local councils and businesses of the benefits of the product and open up opportunities to supply the product to more public spaces.
This raises the question: Can your quarry operation afford not to make a contribution to your local community, to build a rapport and to show the positive benefits of your work? And does creating a positive profile enable an operation to leverage off that contribution to broaden its business opportunities? These aren’t easy questions to answer and perhaps there is always an element of risk in drawing attention to yourself – but then again risk is an everyday part of business. If you’re considering sponsoring a local event or putting yourself out there, I say “Go for it!” I think the experiences of Capricorn and Graham quarries show that there is the potential for you to grow your business whilst making a social contribution.