BEFORE the family fun day at Gordon Park, hundreds of locals attended the Nambucca Heads 2019 Australia Day Awards Ceremony at the RSL.
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The awards are designed to showcase locals who have made an outstanding contribution to the community, whether that be as an individual or group.
The proceedings were opened by Master of ceremonies Mike Ryan and followed with the welcome to country by Aunty Raylene Ballangarry.
Mayor, Cr, Rhonda Hoban inducted four new citizens into our great country and community, Yongxia Ge, Zhenying Zhang, Elaine Platt and Chophaka Munmanat can now call Australia home.
Our ambassador Jane Rutter expressed pride in being an Australia Day ambassador and welcomed our 4 new citizens with open arms.
“I want to welcome our new citizens to this great country,” she said.
“I’m very proud to be part of the program. A very special thing about today is we are free to celebrate Australia Day, have a BBQ with friends and family, or have some downtime.”
Ms Rutter then took some time to talk about issues she is passionate about in the hopes of raising awareness.
“I've been campaigning against plastics in our oceans, the oceans are the lungs of our planet and need to be protected from waste.”
“If we could all just give up one piece of plastic a day, we could prevent millions of pieces of plastic entering our environment.”
She finished her ambassador address with some wise words for everyone and a special piccolo performance.
“Even if you are a shy person, I encourage you to go out and get outside your comfort zone,” Ms Rutter said.
“Happy Australia Day everyone.”
Mayor Rhonda Hoban with the assistance of Australian Day ambassador Jane Rutter presented the following awards:
Citizen of the year- Wendy Mills
Young Citizen of the year- Jack Sullivan
Senior Citizen of the year- Jeanette Welsh
Cultural Achievement- Lissa Argue
Good Neighbours:
- Pauline McShane
- Greg and Heather Welsh
- Brett and Lisa George
- Nola Ryan
Services to the community by an individual:
- Noel Short
- Barry Noble
- Melody Ng
- Judy Ward
- Dorothy Channells
- Dee Daley and Neil Green
- Noel Mackay
- Paul Laverty and Ronald Neaves
- Ivan Noble
- Sandra Gaddes
- Lauren Riddington
Services to the community by an organisation- Lions Club of Nambucca Heads
Junior sportsperson award, Male- Declan Sutton
Junior sportsperson award, Female- Leah Pickvance
Sports Achievement, Senior sports, Male- Macksville Men’s Pennant Team
Sports Achievement, Senior sports, Female- Macksville Falcons under 20’s Women's Representative team
Environmental Award- Gai Nowland
For the full citations and listing of the awards click here.
