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WORTHY WINNER: Mayor Clare McLaughlin with the 2019 Whyalla Australia Day Citizen of the Year Lesley Maxwell. Picture: Whyalla News
Wednesday, October 30, 2019
The search for Whyalla’s most dedicated and deserving community members continues with Whyalla Mayor Clare McLaughlin encouraging nominations for the 2020 Australia Day Awards.
The annual citizen awards celebrate the city’s many generous residents and achievers, who tirelessly give up their time to give back to the community.
The 2020 Australia Day Awards will feature 11 categories, with the citizen, young citizen, senior citizen, sports achievement, event of the year, and six community achievement awards to be presented.
Mayor McLaughlin said the awards recognise individuals and organisations that have made significant contributions to the Whyalla community throughout the year or demonstrated outstanding service for a number of years and are excellent role models irrespective of their age.
“Australia Day is a significant date on Whyalla’s calendar because it is the day we get to publicly recognise and say thanks to the people who do so much and mean so much to our community,” Mayor McLaughlin said.
“These people, who so thoroughly deserve these awards, generally aren’t the sort of people that seek this sort of attention so it is vitally important that others in the community nominate them.
“We all know people around us that go above and beyond for Whyalla and I encourage people to nominate them for any one of the categories in the Australia Day Awards.”
Award recipients will be presented with their awards at a private function on Saturday, January 25 prior to the Australia Day community celebration at the Whyalla Foreshore on Sunday, January 26, 2020.
Nomination forms are available from: www.whyalla.sa.gov.au/australiadaywhyalla as well as the council’s civic building on Darling Terrace and Whyalla Public Library.
Nominations close at 5pm on Friday, December 20.
LEADING CITIZENS: Mayor Clare McLaughlin with the 2019 Australia Day Award winners.
About the awards:
The citizen, senior citizen andyoung citizen categories reward and recognise individuals who have made a noteworthy contribution during the past year while having regard to their previous achievements and ongoing contribution over and above normal employment duties.
Outstanding contribution and community service include areas such as education, health, fundraising, charitable and voluntary service, business, sport, arts, the environment, or any other area that contributes to the advancement and wellbeing of the community.
To be eligible, the person must be an Australian citizen, and under 30 years of age on January 26, 2019 for the young citizen category and over 65 for the senior citizen award.
The community event of the year will be awarded to either a person or group that has staged the most outstanding community event during the past year.
The sports achievement award will be presented to an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to the sporting community during the past year focusing on volunteer involvements in preference to individual achievements. This may cover fundraising, club administration, helping around the club with weekly duties, club maintenance and umpiring.
Community service awards recognise residents who have given outstanding service to a single organisation or field of endeavour.