October 16, 2009
Tamworth residents are being asked to lend a hand in a giant city spring clean this week in preparation for the arrival of about 1,000 council and Tidy Towns visitors over the next two weeks.
Tamworth will play host to the NSW Local Government Association conference from next weekend and the State Tidy Towns conference on the last weekend of October.
About 630 people are expected to attend the LGA conference from over 80 different councils, mostly metropolitan or large urban centres, and the first of these will arrive next Friday night.
And another 280 visitors will arrive from October 30 for the three-day Tidy Towns awards conference for 2009.
Tamworth Regional Council general manager Glenn Inglis is appealing for the city to show off its best face for the two events – because the city will be on show and informally being judged for its leading roles in civic, community and corporate/council partnerships.
He says many of the delegates will be here to judge for themselves how Tamworth stacks up against their hometowns – and generally across the board when it comes to the awards and the development Tamworth has recorded in the past 12 months.
Mayor James Treloar says the city has the chance to show off just how proud it is of itself and its community and extending a helping hand to clean up a little bit more than their own backyards will add to the image we project.
Mr Inglis says community-minded citizens can help by picking up litter, tending their footpaths and clearing overgrown weeds or grass.
“We know we will be on show and we know we will be under the microscope when these two conferences are on,” Mr Inglis said.
“The LGA conference is bringing mayors, councilors and council general managers to this city. They will be judging us against themselves – and particularly we will be examined very closely by other regional bodies to see how we do things. The metro councils and the big urban ones will be looking to see just how we operate as a major regional centre. They’ll all be comparing what we do and how we look against what they know.”
“It would be nice to leave them with an impression that fits the image Tamworth aspires to – that is that we can rightly claim to be a leading regional centre, that is looking to the future, doing progressive business and improving the social capital of its people.”
As the state winner of the major Tidy Town award last year – and this year’s grand champion national winner – Tamworth will be on display for another 60 different centres or towns across NSW.
Mayor Treloar says the city can show how community-minded it is, and how much civic pride it has, by lending a hand to help the spring clean effort.