It's the fourth anniversary of this website. While David's story is well documented in these pages there is another story which may give some insight into how the site came into being, its purpose and its evolution.
Long, long ago in a sleepy little city in the middle of New South Wales was guy approaching 50, semi retired on a disability pension. Recently moved from Newcastle, life was – well a little sleepy. Continuing studying Web Design at TAFE maintained some intellectual pursuits and watching Big Brother 2006 substituted for a social life. I discovered the online version of the show near its end and found myself actively caught up in its online forum. It didn't take long for David to become my favourite housemate because I could relate to so much of his story. This online virtual world is very addictive; I met and made friends with people from all over Australia and the world, most of whom I only knew by their online nicknames and many I later met in person.
Sharing my Big Brother experience with my new found friends, I started putting my TAFE training to use by putting up pictures and videos on my private web space to share. This escalated into to a fully fledged fansite. Big Brother finished, the forum closed and this band of friends moved on to another forum kindly provided by Suellen, reluctant to finish our experience quite so soon.
This may have been the end of the story, as interest waned and the band of friends moved on to other pursuits. Out of the blue came an email from David himself. First contact. It's hard to express in words my reaction that day calmly perusing my inbox. It was the start of another incredible journey.
David needed a platform to continue his message of acceptance of gays in rural areas and I had the knowledge, time and desire. www.farmerdave.com.au was born. A few months later I travelled to Dave's farm with a group of forum friends to meet Dave in person and trial run a Farm Stay. I remember that meeting well. I'd spent months building the site - which included editing a lot of images. Meeting him in person was like a 2 dimensional image morphing into 3D.
It's hard to image in the current day with flooding a concern, but just four years ago farms all over Australia were going to the wall due to years of drought. Within two months of leaving the Big Brother house David's farm was in dire straights, the dams near empty, paddocks dust and sheep dying. Being a doer rather than a complainer, Dave sought ways to rescue the situation. Ideas from Farm Stays to selling bags of outback earth were considered. Finally, using the popularity of the new website, a "Sheep Sponsorship" scheme was launched. It was successful beyond our expectations. The generosity of Australians is amazing.
It wasn't long before Dave had the opportunity to repay that generosity. An invitation to join the cast of Dancing With The Stars 2007. The website and I took on a new role, promoting the plight of drought stricken farmers and marshalling votes to keep Dave in the show. It wasn't an easy process, with a singular lack of talent in the dancing department to overcome, but the longer he stayed in the show the more issues of drought reached a wider audience and the more money raised for Dave's charity. Again Australians arose to the cause and Dave stayed in the show well beyond his dancing talent. I got the rare opportunity to travel to Melbourne watch the recording of the Grand Final and meet the Celebrity dancers. Thanks Dave.
Once again this may have been the end of the story, but Dave, not one to sit on his laurels and still with a drought in full progress and a farm to save, continued to conceive new ideas to save the situation. So on one of my many stints at the farm, after a day of mustering and drafting (while having a drink under the bright stars), Farmerdave Free Range Lamb was conceived. It was a logical progression really. Dave had been pioneering drought tolerant Dorper meat sheep but wasn't receiving fair value at the sale yards and consumers were paying high prices for inferior lamb. Using the website to cut out the middle man and sell direct to the public seemed the obvious solution. So again, the website and I took on another role – direct sales. What followed was weeks of research on similar ventures, online shopping carts, local meat processing and the logistics of getting a fresh product from outback Queensland to city consumers. The first week of a live online shop was a reality check – the reluctance of consumers to buy fresh meat online and the logistic of getting it to consumers proved to big an obstacle.
One of the things I admire about Dave is his ability to regroup, consider the situation and find another solution. In this case it was "if we can't get the consumers to come to us we will go to them". Selling the lamb at farmer's markets was the solution. It meant Dave working ridiculous hours, driving long distances and burning the candle at both ends and in the middle. While I provided as much assistance as I could, living and now working 12 hours away from the action meant I couldn't do much more but look on in awe.
That situation couldn't continue on too long. It was providence that family members provided the finance to set up a base on the Gold Coast. The business went from servicing one farmer's market to more than 30. I decided to move to the Gold Coast to play a more active role in the growing venture. Though I don't miss the 3.00am starts, I did very much enjoying telling the Farmerdave lamb story at the farmers markets and watching the delighted faces of patrons enjoying our product. Though both Dave and I have both moved on to other interests, that business still continues to flourish to today.
In the interim the website was expanded to share Dave's travel experiences using new technologies as they have evolved. The site has now hundreds of videos and thousands of pictures to share. Another of Dave's strengths is his ability to convey the excitement and experiences of those locations and it's my pleasure to create the medium to share them.
This website was the first website I've built. In my current job as a web developer in Brisbane I've now created over 30 websites and yet it remains my favourite. Through it and my connection through Dave, I've gone from prematurely retired in sleepy inland city to fully employed in a challenging job in vibrate Brisbane.
I look forward to the upcoming airing of Dave's story on Australian Story. It should another fascinating milestone in a fascinating story. I've relished my small part in that story.
And the website – it still tells a remarkable story of "Having a Go". Its been a great 4 years through the ups and downs. May the adventures continue. Thanks Dave.