22 January 2010
Australia Day celebrations around the Tamworth Regional Council area will mark awards for homegrown community heroes and some typical Australiana party activities.
A number of local committees, set up under the umbrella of the Council community services banner, have organised local celebrations at Nundle, Bendemeer, Manilla, Barraba and Tamworth for Tuesday January 26.
Australia Day celebrations include everything from thong throwing and beer brewing, to sheep shearing, damper cooking, races and biscuit eating.
And in all the centres Australia Day citizens will be honoured for outstanding community service. About 50 people have been nominated across the region for special mention for their dedication during the year.
And four special Australia Day ambassadors will join the fun with an Olympic swimmer, a Paralympian cyclist, media personality and a country music treasure among the special guests.
The Australia Day events will see locals in the swim at Manilla and Barraba, where the town pools will be the party central.
Manilla
Manilla hosts paralympic gold medalist cyclist Lindy Hou for its Australia Day fun. It’s a family fun day that includes vintage machinery display, the traditional golden flipper relay and other swimming races and damper cooking. It gets underway from 10.30am and includes a cutting of the cake, morning tea and sausage sizzle, a Best Aussie Hat competition and jumping castle and lolly scramble as well as the awards.
Nundle
Nundle will have Olympic swimmer, corporate motivator and television commentator Mark Tonelli as its ambassador for the day. Celebrations get underway from 8.30am with a family breakfast, bush band, shearing demonstration, flag raising ceremony, biscuit nibbling competition, trivia questionnaire, treasure hunt, and presentation of Australia Day awards and civic awards. The venue is the Nundle Public School grounds.
Barraba
In Barraba, country music entertainer Jimmy Little is the celebrity guest with the party starting from 9am. The entertainment includes the Barraba Band, community singing, and the presentation of the Citizen of the Year, Frank Darlington Memorial Young Achiever Award and the Community Award. There’s a free morning tea. Lions barbecue, pool activities and water slide.
Tamworth
Media personality and television presenter Susie Elelman is the Tamworth Australia Day ambassador and will head to Bicentennial Park for the celebrations.
The day starts with the traditional church service at 7:30am followed by a community bush breakfast at 8:30am. The civic functions start from 10:00am with a special citizenship ceremony and the announcement of the Citizen of the Year, Young Citizen of the Year and Mitchell Brady Encouragement Award winner.
The day includes free pool entry from noon at the City pool – and you can pick up your passes in Bicentennial Park. From 3:00pm there are kids’ activities including jumping castle, mini train, merry-go-round in the park. The Australia Day Concert starts from 6:30pm and features Andy Golledge, Nicole Geddes, James Craswell and Mark Spano. The fireworks display is due to blast off at 9:30pm
The four finalists for the Tamworth Citizen of Year are Doreen Goddard, Valerie Godden, Margaret Finucane and Mary Chapman.
Bendemeer
At Bendemeer the celebrations start at 11:00am and go until 4:00pm and include a family fund day, flag raising, awards ceremony, square dancing, games and barbecue lunch. The venue is the Bendy pub riverside grounds.
Tamworth will see 11 new official Aussies after a special Australia Day citizenship ceremony on Tuesday at the Australia Day celebrations in Bicentennial Park.
The 11, five of them women including an eight-year-old girl, will take part in a ceremony to officially confer Australian citizenship on them in Bicentennial Park from 10am.
The mayor James Treloar will do the honours on the day. The new residents of Tamworth Regional Council come from Tamworth and list their countries of birth as South Africa, the UK, India, Thailand and China.
Their Australian citizenship status will bring the number of new dinky-di Aussies who have officially adopted their new home within the Tamworth Regional council area to 48 since July 2009. In the previous 12 months there were 47 people who took the Australian pledge and they represented some 17 different countries of birth.