Social media marketing specialist and coffee lover Chanelle O'Sullivan. Photo / Supplied
Social media marketing specialist and coffee lover Chanelle O'Sullivan. Photo / Supplied
Have you ever listened to The Country and found yourself wanting to know a bit more about the person Jamie Mackay is interviewing? Well you're in luck - we've created a questionnaire so you can find out what makes our guests tick.
So here is everything you wanted to knowbut were afraid to ask about Chanelle O'Sullivan.
What do you do?
I'm a mum to a 6 year old girl and a 3 year old boy. I run a facebook group (Farming Mums NZ) of over 10,500 rural ladies from across New Zealand. I work as a social media marketing specialist for Grass Roots Media. I work within rural women's mental health and support as well as working on a new business I started at the end of 2017 called Virtual Insight!
I do all this largely from home, on farm in South Canterbury.
What's the best part of rural life?
Coming from an urban upbringing, there are many great things about living rurally. A lot of them are related to the opportunities the kids have to run naked, get dirty, have pet deer and get involved on the farm. For me, I can walk around with no pants on and have no neighbours to complain about it! (Sorry Mr Postie). The views, the space, the rivers and lakes – so, so much.
Long hours often means you have to be both mum and dad and struggle on alone during harvest/calving/shearing etc. (Luckily this can often be helped by off-season flexibility – eternal optimist).
Chanelle, Isabelle, Hunter and David. Photo / Supplied
What are your hopes, dreams and aspirations for the future of New Zealand agriculture?
I LOVE New Zealand's agriculture industry, it's an incredibly supportive and exciting place to be. I'd like to think New Zealand can lead the world in innovation and technology advancement. Hopefully this will help us to get maximum output with minimum input, to ease off the land a little and come back to enjoying farming - rather than pushing our systems and environment so hard to squeeze the profits out of everything. Of course with this, it comes back to getting premiums for our excellent produce. In turn, I hope then farming can become a more desirable career again with 16 hour days and 21 day rosters becoming nothing more than a myth.
Facebook /Twitter or Instagram?
Oh, to be honest, I'm not a big fan of Twitter so I'd say Instagram-Facebook first equal for different reasons.
Quiet night in or big night out?
Tricky one... I spend plenty of time at home working, with the kids etc so I'll say a big night out (or if sans kids – a lush night in with good food and better company).
Name something trivial you can't live without and why.
My car. Not overly trivial but I have a tendency to spontaneously announce a roadtrip and take off around the country so this bad boy and its reliability is crucial!
Coffee. I only started drinking it a couple years ago and now I have much fondness of my Nespresso machine ❤
Tell us your idea of the perfect day.
My perfect day is ironically, no phone, no social media, a dslr camera, a big autumn landscape, rivers and lakes, no fighting kids, quiet, wandering with no time restraints and a Patagonia hot chocolate from Arrowtown. *Heads off into a wistful day dream...*
