Texture of choice

If you like your peppers to stay firm, cook them uncovered for 25 minutes, without the cheese. Adding moisture-containing ingredients like cheese, and keeping that moisture trapped with a covering, steams and softens the peppers. After 15 minutes of cooking to firm them up, you can add the cheese.

A new Broken Hill mining agreement looks set to secure the city’s historic mining industry for the next five decades.

Pinnacles Mine, which sits 15 kilometres south-west of Broken Hill, has entered what some are calling a “game changing” agreement with Broken Hill Mines Limited (BHM).

The mine is believed to hold 6 million tonnes of high-grade silver, zinc and lead, with the potential for other large deposits nearby contributing another 15 million tonnes.

This week’s agreement has seen BHM purchase 70 per cent of Pinnacles Mine’s profit share.

Geologist Ian Plimer believed the move would be a “game changer” for the mining city.

“[While] the top 50 metres around Broken Hill have been fairly well explored … certainly not at the Pinnacles,” he said.

“We’re getting techniques now where we can go a lot deeper.

Mr Plimer was also hopeful the move would lead to new local employment opportunities.

“Hope, that’s what it gives Broken Hill,” he said.

“It gives us hope that there are jobs here for the kids.”

‘A bigger shovel’

Craig Williams’s family has privately owned the Pinnacles Mine since 1952.

However, Mr Williams said it had become clear the resource-rich mine was too much for the family to manage alone.

He said the new agreement with BHM provided “a bigger shovel” to help them access more deposits of zinc, lead, silver, copper and gold from the site, which he believes easily has another 50 years in it.

“It’s not a family concern no more,” Mr Williams said.

Mr Williams said while BHM will now take a significant chunk of the profits, his family will still receive a percentage as he plans to continue working on the business.

BHM was listed for the first time in May this year.

Shortly after it formed, the company announced it would be acquiring the city’s CBH Rasp Mine.

Mr Williams said this latest agreement will help the company with cashflow.

“There’s not a lot of cash up-front,” he said.

Pinnacles a ‘special’ mining site

BHM executive director Patrick Walta said the Pinnacles site was quite “special” and would be a “multi-decade” project.

“Pinnacles is really the last known virgin ore body in Broken Hill,” he said.

Mr Walta added that acquiring an existing mine was always his first preference.

“You know the timeline from a discovery [of a new mine] through to production for any ore bodies is probably 10 to 15 years, assuming it’s economic and can be developed,” Mr Walta said.

“But if you can acquire an old mine … and reinvigorate it, you can compress it into one to two years.”

Independent mining analyst Peter Strachan agreed.

“Because that reduces your capital cost to get into production.”

Mr Strachan said the new venture looked promising.

“The ore seems to grade, you know, one to four ounces a tonne of silver,” he said.

“With silver at over $US31 an ounce … that’s not bad.”

I created an ‘open-book’ policy, in which I was absolutely fine to talk through and contribute with my ideas, as well as throwing my team’s ideas into a melting pot to then make the right call on how to move forward.

Andy Reid

Andy Reid, a renowned auctioneer and high-performance coach, has built a successful career leading teams and businesses.

At 21, I managed a $13 million business with 250 staff, doubling profit margins while building a culture based on 360-degree accountability. 

Upon arrival at university to study engineering, I had my priorities in the right order and knew that I needed to get a job ASAP in order to pay for the alcohol consumption level required to deem my time at university as a success…

There are two obvious sectors that students like me head to, being retail or hospitality, and so I got a weekend job as a bartender in a soccer stadium, pulling pints for a lot of fired-up fans. I very quickly realised that this wasn’t just a part-time job for me, because the joy in serving people combined with the pressure of service gave me a huge buzz that became intoxicating in itself, and I found that my degree was rapidly starting to take a back seat to my growing passion for hospitality. 

Over the course of the three years working, increasing numbers of hours, giving up the holiday periods between terms, building my experience and committing my focus to the industry, I was fortunate enough at 21 years old to be entrusted with the keys of a multi-million dollar operation as the manager upon finishing my last exam at university.

Leading a team twice my age

When you’re young, the one thing that can screw you over when it comes to taking on this sort of role (or starting your own business) is ego.

Now despite operating in the business for that time, growing through various leadership roles of varying sized teams, do you really think that I had all of the knowledge required to run an 8-figure organisation?? Not a chance on this planet was I ready to take it on! For example, my financial acumen was rather average – I had studied business management and contract law as a part of my degree, but outside of that my knowledge of reading a P&L to any great effect beyond ‘black is good, red is bad’ was tremendously limited.

Was I being judged for my age as well? Definitely. There was no hiding from the fact that of the 250+ staff that I had under my wing at various times, more than 60% of them were older than me, a decent chunk of them being more than twice my age!

But I had a few things in my favour that were undeniable, that had helped me to earn the trust of senior leadership and venue ownership.

My ability to operate under pressure had been tested at various times during the three years previously, intensely so at times, when we not only had major operational challenges, but we were also responsible for looking after some of the most high-profile individuals in the world (not an understatement, I’ve had team members heat bottles for David Beckham’s kids!). I had earned the moniker of ‘Mr Unflappable’ from shareholders, which as far as nicknames go wasn’t a bad one!  

The nature of the venue meant that I was dealing with multiple demographics from multiple socio-economic backgrounds – from the rich and famous to the blue-collared factory worker. The diversity of my client base meant that I would need to switch communication and service styles within the ride of an elevator, and we had discovered that I seemed to be quite natural at matching the frequency of whoever was in front of me.

But in my humble opinion (not necessarily the correct one), the biggest asset I had proven myself to have was a work engine that could outlast anyone. I could stay switched on for very long periods of intense work, and although Health & Safety would never allow it these days I did co-own the record for the single longest shift, a massive 36 hours that started at 3pm on Friday and ended at 3am on Sunday, and there was no room to relax during that period on account of backed-up business demands. You could argue that I possibly showed a poor degree of leadership in not being able to delegate here, but just because I was wearing a tailored suit paid for by the venue didn’t mean that I stopped rolling my sleeves up, and we had hundreds of boxes full of glassware to clean, polish and reset into rooms overnight!

When you’re young, the one thing that can screw you over when it comes to taking on this sort of role (or starting your own business) is ego. It is impossible to think that, at 21, we know everything there is to know about business, and that we’ll never be making any mistakes now that we’re in a position of leadership or ownership.

Age is just a number

Thankfully, although I was responsible for leading large groups of people, it was never lost on me that time and experience provides some of the best lessons, so my leadership style naturally fell into one of collaboration, in which the opinions and suggestions of others were valued and respected. As a result of both that and the respect that I had earned (and understandably had to earn), I created an ‘open-book’ policy, in which I was absolutely fine to talk through and contribute with my ideas, as well as throwing my team’s ideas into a melting pot to then make the right call on how to move forward.

(Note that this is not just an open-door policy, because that can still imply a degree of inferiority on staff which wouldn’t have gone down well with the team members that had worked at the venue for more time than I had been alive!)

Since then, I’ve learned that it’s ok to not be amazing at everything, which is the preconception for young leaders that they feel the need to be able to perform any tasks that their team can do. If anything, if you can learn to feel comfortable in acknowledging, complimenting and empowering your team members by admitting that they’re better than you at certain tasks, the level of respect soon returns when you draw a line of authority because that small degree of humility indicates that when you need to lay the law down, that too will come from a very authentic and real place.

Age is only a number, as long as you make the effort to earn the respect of those around you with the talents you have, and then learn the ability to give the respect back in acknowledgement of the talents and knowledge that your team can bring to you.

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Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has embarked on a fleeting trip to the United States for a meeting of the Quad countries that will focus heavily on China and Joe Biden’s impending departure from the US presidency.

The leaders of the US, Japan, India and Australia will gather in Mr Biden’s home state of Delaware this weekend for discussions aimed at ensuring security in the Indo-Pacific region.

US concerns about China will dominate the talks, along with the AUKUS arrangements that will see Australia acquire US nuclear-powered submarines.

The White House’s National Security Council spokesman James Kirby said China will “certainly be high on the agenda” when asked about the Quad meeting.

“In fact, it would be irresponsible if they didn’t talk about the challenges that still exist in the region, caused by aggressive PRC [People’s Republic of China] military action, for instance, unfair trade practices [and] tensions over the Taiwan Strait,” he said.

Mr Campbell was blunt about the challenges China poses to regional security.

“Frankly, the Cold War pales in comparison to the multifaceted challenges that China presents,” he told the congressional foreign relations committee in Washington on Wednesday, local time.

“It’s not just a military challenge, it’s across the board — it is in the global south, it is in technology,” he said.

“We need to step up our game across the board.”

Mr Albanese placed less emphasis on China, speaking in more general terms about the Quad’s “important gathering” before he departed for Delaware.

“The priority is about peace and security in the Indo-Pacific, as well as stability and prosperity. It will be a real opportunity for us to re-engage,” he said.

Biden brings leaders close to home

Facing his final months in office, Mr Biden has taken a more personal approach to the formal gathering by inviting Mr Albanese, Narendra Modi and Fumio Kishida to meet in his home state.

It is “a sign of great friendship” and commitment to continuing to build relationships, Mr Albanese said.

“I see it as the president continuing to do his job as the leader of the United States, a great partner of Australia, and a sign of great friendship that he’s developed with myself, with Prime Minister Modi and with Prime Minister Kishida.”

Mr Albanese will hold what is likely to be his last one-on-one meeting with Mr Biden, with the US presidential election to be held in November.

“I have a very close personal relationship with President Biden, which is why I’m very much looking forward to meeting him over the next couple of days,” he said. 

It is a period of flux for the Quad, with Japan’s Mr Kishida also close to finishing his term as leader. 

Mr Albanese’s trip will be brief and he will spend as much time in transit as he will on the ground in the US.

Dreamforce 2024, which debuted in 2003, kicked off on Tuesday in San Francisco, featuring more than 1,200 keynotes, sessions, and workshops. While the event will encompass a wide spectrum of topics, expect Salesforce to showcase Agentforce next week at Dreamforce.

Designed to streamline workflows, boost customer satisfaction, and redefine the customer service landscape, Agentforce was unveiled just days in advance of Dreamforce 2024, but expect the conference to be full of talk about the low-code tool suite for creating autonomous AI agents that can reason for themselves when completing sales, service, marketing, and commerce tasks. Salesforce also recently announced the October availability of two autonomous agents for sales teams built on Agentforce. In his keynote, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff will no doubt discuss Agentforce further, as Salesforce seeks to become the platform of choice for building AI assistants for sales, service, and marketing use cases.

AI capabilities integrated into Salesforce products is taking center stage. Watch for updates and enhancements to Salesforce’s data cloud platform and new tools and features designed to improve customer engagement and satisfaction.

By Ali Daher For Daily Mail Australia

Published: 02:39 EDT, 19 September 2024 | Updated: 03:48 EDT, 19 September 2024