July 17, 2009
About 130 people from nearly 40 different cities and towns, including international visitors, will converge on Tamworth from Sunday for the national Sister Cities Australia conference.
Tamworth will play host to this year’s conference with 30 local government bodies sending delegates from six states to take part in the four-day program.
Most visitors will arrive in the city on Sunday (July 19) before the official program gets underway from 5.30pm that night with an official welcome at the Tamworth regional art gallery.
The conference delegates include councillors and council staff, Sister City committee members and a number of friendship and Sister Cities national and executive bodies.
Five Australian mayors from the Gladestone, Marrickville, Liverpool Plains, Gunnedah and Tamworth councils will attend, along with two deputy mayors from Port Stephens and Rockhampton.
About 32 are special youth delegates, aged from 16 years to 23, representing youth leaders and young citizens of the year from various councils, are part of the special youth section attached to the main conference agenda.
The 2009 Sister Cities Australia conference agenda gets underway with the official registration on Monday morning at the Tamworth Regional Entertainment Centre. The conference runs two parallel programs with the youth conference running separate workshops and activities to the main adult agenda. They come together as one for some formal functions and voting sessions.
About 50 Tamworth people, including community leaders, will also attend various sessions and social events.
The conference includes workshops, seminars, addresses, elections and the gala dinner and awards announcements on Tuesday night at TRECC but will include breakout sessions and social nights in a number of city and regional spots.
Two keynote speakers include a former Australian ambassador to Germany, Pam Fayle, and a world finalist debater and Gen Y celebrity speaker Dominic Thurbon. A former TRC engineering director Wilton Boyd will also return to Tamworth to speak at one conference session on how to convert non-believers to the Sister City cause.
A TRC spokesperson, Katie Alchin, says the conference will include 12 delegates from three of Tamworth’s international Sister City partners.
A delegation of six government officials from Chaoyang, in the Beijing province, will attend from China and give a presentation on Tuesday.
Three visitors from Sannohe in Japan, including the mayor and the president of the Sannohe friendship committee, will also attend. Tamworth’s Kiwi cousin, Gore, the New Zealand capital of country music, will send three delegates.