A NEW auctioneer for the day made buyers at the Western Wool Centre (WWC) sit up and take notice recently.
Used to crusty old-timers or garrulous middle-aged men selling them wool, WWC buyers welcomed visiting Sydney wool auctioneer Natalie Lyons to sell the Elders fleece catalogue of about 150 lots.
Ms Lyons was visiting her Elders wool Western Australian colleagues to learn what they do and about the wool market on this side of the country.
Growing up on a wool property near Dubbo in New South Wales, Ms Lyons admitted wool "has been my life".
She completed her education at Marcus Oldham College, an agricultural, equine and farm management tertiary education institution near Geelong, Victoria, then joined Elders in Sydney as a wool trainee in February last year.
By Easter last year she was auctioning some of the Elders' catalogue at the Yennora live auction wool centre in Sydney.
"It was a bit daunting at first and there's only so much practice you can do," Ms Lyons said.
"I started off doing just a small portion of our catalogue and built up from there.
"Everywhere I've sold (she has also auctioned wool at the Melbourne selling centre) everybody has been very helpful.
"Now I do most things, from typing the wool when it comes in, to compiling the catalogue, to the appraisals and then I get to sell it.
"I love being able to follow the process right through.
"I think it's a big privilege to be able to sell a wool clip - I've had the privilege of selling my father's clip a couple of times, that was pretty cool," she said.
Her parents and her brother and his wife are still on the farm and have been lucky enough to maintain "relatively normal" flock numbers despite the drought, although paddocks were looking "very ordinary", Ms Lyons said.
"There is a big volume of tender drought wool (in NSW).
"I was very lucky in that when I started wool was in demand and we didn't have a poor sale, every sale was a good one.
"But more recently, with a lowering of demand and poorer quality because of the drought, it's been much harder to sell wool.
"The first time I went into the room and no one put a bid out there I didn't know what to do."
But her stint at the WWC went without a hitch and there were plenty of bids.
"I was in the room when Dean (WA wool manager Dean Hubbard) was auctioning the oddments and then it was my turn," Ms Lyons said.
"Everyone was very friendly and even though auctioning was challenging because I didn't know the room and I had to read the name cards to see which company was buying - some of them are multiple buyers (buying for more than one company) which makes it a bit harder - but I enjoyed it."
According to the buyers, Ms Lyons auctioneered with aplomb and she is welcome back any time.
