Setting out Tarndie’s Next Steps and How You Can be Involved!

15 years seems like an eternity when you look forwards, but when you look back, 15 years is but a blink of the eye.

It is our goal to ensure Tarndwarncoort is a purposeful farm, contributing to society from a well conserved set of buildings in 15 years time, when the Dennis family would round out 200 years of wool growing at Tarndie.

Those next 15 years are the key focus at present, as we continue to tweak our business to ensure we hit that goal.

Key Messages:

Plans to improve the Tarndie visitor experience.

Asking for donations of money and/or artefacts to set up mini-museum.

Aligning Tarndwarncoort’s underpinning business to agritourism.

We want to enhance Tarndie so it can become a good agritourism destination that celebrates wool and promotes the handmaking skills that turn wool into clothing.

In the modern world, wool and craft have enormous value to the mind and to the environment.

If we can show people how sheep convert grass into wool, and how we convert wool into clothes then we have the makings of a valuable tourism experience.

In a recent RMIT course I learnt about the Evolution of Economic Value where we obtain greater value when a commodity, such as raw wool, shifts up the chain becoming a product that can create transformations in a customers life. The example used was how the value of coffee climbs the ladder:

To value the sheep, effort, fibre and history at the fullest, we’ve got to enable transformations where visitors feel connected, and even inspired to take up a new hobby in life.

Tarndie already has the ability to enable transformations – the best ones happen when a visitor combines our yarn with a workshop and stays in the accommodation.

A great combo to enable a distinct agritourism experience.

They have an immersive experience, but there’s more we can do.

In the course I learned about designing the visitor experience to enable that transformation.

Good tourism places offer layers of entertainment, aesthetics, escapism and education.

Tarndie looks good, so to boost our visitor experience, we’re going to develop the education layer in a mini-museum and exhibition space we’re calling the Polwarth Hub.

Building out the Polwarth Hub will create a focal point to the visitor experience. It will convey the story of the place, the people, the Polwarth and exhibit woolcraft in way that celebrates makers and skills while encouraging people to take it up as a hobby.

It’ll open up new revenue streams from a wider demographic market of visitors interested in old places and local stories, as well as those keen on a ball of wool.

They say it’s good to write an article in the future of what you want to happen!

The truth is that the conservation work required at Tarndwarncoort needs a steady, strong stream of funding, and this seems to be best way to create it while providing something useful to Australian society.

To kick it along, we’ve started asking for donations to help build the first stage which is an access ramp to the Hub.

With your help, Australia’s wool heritage and culture has a new place to grow.