Casterton’s annual Premier Working Dog Auction will go ahead in June, with Elders livestock agent, Neil ‘Radar’ Cooper signed on as the convenor for the 2023 event.

Earlier this month, Casterton News announced the perilous position of the auction, with the Casterton Kelpie Association yet to appoint a convenor for this year’s event – a ‘must-have’ director for the auction to take place.

“If we do not have that person to bring everything together and provide that central communication point for our vendors and buyers, we do not have an auction,” the committee’s John Matthews told CN at that time.

Those concerns were put to rest at last week’s association meeting, when Mr Cooper was appointed convenor for the event and the auction date of 10 June, confirmed.

“The biggest issue is for us, if we continue to recycle committee people, we’re not going forward at all,” Mr Matthew said following the announcement.

“Neil’s here, he’s been in the local race club already and he’s now put his foot forward to take on this role.

“All the committee we were really just stepping high last night when the announcement was made, we have got someone new, fresh blood, fresh ideas and he comes with a host of knowledge about working dogs and rural people and landscapes and he’ll bring a lot to the role.

“It’s really important that we have consistency in our messaging and our stakeholder experience and it’s nice to have just one person to do that.”

Mr Matthews said with Mr Cooper’s appointment, the essential compliance paperwork for the auction could now be lodged, to ensure the continuation of Casterton’s world-renowned event.

“There’s a lot of compliance required … having an animal sales permit ready to go and it had not really been done before us, we were the first mugs on the block or guinea pigs and we have basically led the show for other auctions,” he said.

Mr Cooper said after returning to Casterton around 12 months ago, he was keen to give back not only to his employer, but to the community, to ensure it maintained its world-renowned event.

“I was here in the late 80s before moving to Deniliquin in ‘89 … we were in our 25th year in Ararat when the position came up with Elders down here and I thought I’d try and give something back to the business that looked after me so well,” he said.

“Now we need to do what we can to keep this event going … it’s been a great thing for the town and every town needs more things like this and it just made sense to take it on … it goes hand-in-hand with what we do every day with livestock and real estate.”

And while it’s his first time running the show, Mr Cooper is no stranger to the working dog auction.

“I was here last year, I was going to watch for half an hour and go to the pub and have a beer,” he said.

“But as I was stepping over the fence to talk to someone, this bloke came up that I did not know from a bar of soap and said ‘Radar, will you take some bids for us?’.

“I spent the next hour and a half out in the crowd … I was taking bids and I really quite enjoyed it.”