Welcome to F*Up Nights Mildura! We present this very special activation at the renowned Fossey's Distillery, based in the heart of Mildura. This event is presented in collaboration with Mildura Regional Development and LaunchVic.

F*Up Nights is a storytelling-focussed gathering acknowledging the mistakes, failures, and f*up stories that impact our personal lives and professional careers, affecting us as the humans that we are.

F*Up Nights is a global movement born in Mexico in 2012 and established to help share public failure stories with hundreds of people attending each event around the world. Each month 3 speakers will be invited to talk about their F*Up stories; we’ll learn about their biggest mistakes, what they learned, how they moved on- all whilst sharing invaluable advice along the way.

The speakers will candidly share in 7-10 minutes:

* What their project / business was

* What went wrong / How it affected their personal life / What they learned / What they would do differently.

Speaker 1: Jade Benham - MP - Member for Mildura

Prior to entering Parliament, Jade did many things and has had a pretty colourful life thus far. Jade worked in media for 13 years before escaping and going to live in a tree on Lake Michigan. She ended up staying in the United States for an extended period, before moving to the UK to take up a position at the Global Digital Media Agency.

When her tenure was done there and she had all of this new knowledge, she returned to regional Victoria to set up her own business to assist small regional businesses with digital communications and marketing. Jade has travelled, worked in corporate and owned a small business. She was also a Councillor and Mayor before being tapped on the shoulder and asked if she would ever consider a career in politics.

Jade has always been taught not to whinge about things if you are not willing to change them, which is why she ran for local government in the first place. During the pandemic the regional discrimination regional and rural Victorians suffered was amplified, and she decided she had to try to do something about it. This is what prompted her to run for Parliament.

The main passion and priority Jade has as a member of Parliament is regional healthcare. Jade believes your postcode should not dictate your health outcomes, but it certainly does if you do not live in the city. Jade is passionate about promoting the food producers in her region, which produce everything – grain, meat, nuts, fruit, vegetables. Jade believes her region is feeding the nation and a few others, and she wants growers to know that they are valued and respected for that.

Jade is passionate about roads and believes it is getting harder for food to get to market and port with little rail freight, and roads crumbling away before her very eyes.

https://www.jadebenham.com.au/

Speaker 2: Steve Timmis Esq - Ginnovator, Fossey's Ginporium

Steve has been in business most of his life, apart from an early time in finance and real estate in the 80’s. he has been a Farmer, a Private investigator, a Contractor and a small business operator.

Steve developed a waste water treatment facility in 2000, with a small fleet of vacuum trucks (aka shit carting).

After selling the business to a multinational in 2005, Steve transitioned into media purchasing several big screens (Big Screens Australia), making television and attending live venues in all states of Australia and New Zealand for the next 8 years.

After selling the media business, Steve became involved in 2012 in training organisations, developing RTO’s and eventually, selling them too.

In 2016, Steve entered the hospitality business to set up Fosseys Distillery (a legacy business), along with some property development in the hotel sector.

https://fosseysgin.com.au/

Speaker 3: Henry Higgins,  Leda Ag

Leda Custom Farm Equipment was founded by Henry Higgins in 2000. Henry is an agricultural engineer by trade, (though identifies as a professional problem solver) and initially began designing and manufacturing PTO driven slashers for local horticulturists that weren’t happy with current quality available, later progressing to the production of cane strippers, pruning equipment, trailers, commercial stainless steel and general fabrication work.

In 2005 he was approached with the proposal of a partnership for the Design, Fabrication and Servicing for a new over the row Olive Harvest that the Australia Olive Oil Market desperately needed.

The flagship of Leda’s manufacturing prowess is displayed in their colossal olive harvester, aptly named the Colossus, this 28 tonne, over-the-row monster is a testament to LEDA’s capabilities. The Colossus is the world leader in olive harvesting and really must be seen to be believed with regard to its size.

Since 2016, LEDA has continued developing and improving on the Colossus as well as the Self-Propelled and Tow-Behind Grape Harvesters with an in-house design team implementing industry-leading CAD software. This enables LEDA to carry out stress analysis and dynamic simulations of new prototypes, as well as improve the accuracy of manufacturing methods.

LEDA remains committed to supplying Australian Designed, Australian Made, and Quality machinery both here and overseas. And Henry has continued to problem-solve the company to scale its growth to this very day!

https://leda.net.au/

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At the end of each story, we have a bit of Q&A time where you’ll have a chance to ask questions- nothing too cheeky, but feel free to dig around.

You’ll hear stories and advice you won’t get elsewhere - and these stories will (hopefully) put you in good stead to not make the same F*Up's.

Our Presenting Partners

Mildura Regional Development (MRD) is the peak economic development and tourism organisation for the Mildura region.

Visit the website for more information: https://milduraregion.com.au/about/

LaunchVic is Victoria’s startup agency. Their role is to fuel the growth of Victoria’s startup ecosystem.

They do this by building the confidence and capability of Victorians to create, scale and invest in startups. They were established by the Victorian Government in 2016.

Visit the website for more information: https://launchvic.org/