3. Firstly I wish to acknowledge the
Ngunnawal people as the traditional
owners and custodians of land on which
we meet today.
From the southern limestone cliffs of Port
Campbell to historic Skipton in the north,
Corangamite Shire has a diverse environment of
internationally recognised wetlands, volcanic
cones, rolling hills and a lush hinterland of fertile
grasslands. Its spectacular coastline included
the Great Ocean Road, the 12 Apostles and
kilometers of world renown National Park.
Corangamite Shire is situated in the middle of
Victoria’s Western District, covers 4,600 square
kilometers and has a population of 16,504.
4. Corangamite Country has a rich history and produced many great Australians, their achievements and contributions have helped
form the foundation of our present day community champions.
Skipton: Population 885 – Celebrating 175 years in 2014 and will be hosting Council’s Australia Day celebrations to start their
yearlong celebration.
Henry Bolte
the longest serving Premier of Victoria.
Silent movie start Claire Adams and her husband Scobie Mackinnon,
Australia Test Cricketer – Alan Connolly
5. Noorat :
The township is located at the base of Mount Noorat, a dormant volcano, which is considered to have Australia's largest dry
crater.
Birthplace of Alan Marshall, author
I Can Jump Puddles (picture)
Derrinallum Population: 506 Mount Elephant
6. Derrinallum home to Hephzibah Menuhin – sister of Yehudi. She moved with Lindsay
Nicholas to his grazing property "Terrinallum" near Derrinallum where she spent the
next 13 years. She started a travelling library for children and families in the district.
8. Terang Population 2,283 John Robertson Duigan MC – pioneer
aviator who built and flew the first
Australian made aircraft
Home of Australian Immunologist
and Nobel Laureate Sir Frank MacFarlane Burnet
Bernard Salt – was educated in Terang Author
AFL & VFL Footballers, Chris Heffernan, Dick Wearmouth, Ronnie Wearmouth
And also
13. Port Campbell
population 774
A beautiful seaside
fishing town, Port
Campbell. And is
home to the iconic 12
Apostles
The Twelve Apostles
is a collection of
limestone stacks off
the shore of the Port
Campbell National
Park, by the Great
Ocean Road in
Victoria
15. Geoffrey Wickham AO Cardiac pace maker pioneer,
Sir Chester Manifold AFL footballers, Norm Sharp, Paul Broderick,
Ross Thornton and Ken Hinkley and Scott Lucas, Olympians Bill
Roycroft, and sons Wayne, Clarke and Barry and Cameron Rahles-
Rahbula
16.
17.
18. This is snap shot of our district and just some of our local champions be it from Education, the Arts, Sports, Science and
Research, our Returned Service Men & Women, but a continuing involvement our community volunteers, individuals,
organisations, like the Lions, Rotary CWA’s the CFA, SES, Surf Life Saving Corangamite has a lot to be proud of.
19. Time for Change
The One Council, One Event, the Ten Towns Model
• Council has hosted Australia Day Awards and Celebrations for
many years prior to amalgamation Corangamite Shire consisted
of 3 LGA’s The Shire of Hampden, Heytesbury Shire & the
Town of Camperdown .
The Result, Rotate and Celebrate what’s Great
20. A renewed Interest from Communities and increased involvement on Australia Day
• With the ever growing popularity of the Australia Day Celebrations
• and the opportunity to include the Australia Day Ambassador program
• helped create change, interest started to grow and communities
• Now embrace the rotational concept and started to plan and look forward to being the host
town.
21. Budgets
• Council’s budget of $1,000.00 for the Australia Day Awards and Celebrations needed to be increased, $5,000.00 was
allocated. The momentum of the event was growing at a very fast rate and soon the Budget allocation to $10,000.00 to
help celebrating our National Day.
Why more dollars?
• Taking our Australia Day Celebrations around the shire can be a logistical nightmare!
22. Nominate your local champion, Citizen of the Year, Young Citizen of the Year and Community Event of the Year
Councils advertising for nominations using the regular means of letters, radio advertising, newspaper and direct mailing and
more recently the electronic highway to community organizations has seen increased in local nominations.
How we Celebrate Our Australia Day celebrations
Inclusive and Active encouragement to nominate
community groups
24. • 2013 Australia Day Celebrations
In 2013 we held our Australia Day Celebration at the historic Dalvui homestead in Noorat one of our smallest towns on
Australia Day Noorat’s population increased from 167 to nearly 650 on Australia Day.
(700 scones baked the night before)
• 2014 Australia Day goes to Skipton
• The Town will celebrate 175 Years
• January 26th 2014 will kick start a year of
Celebrations.
• Planning has already started for Corangamite Shire’s 2014 Australia Day Celebrations.
Notas del editor
Corangamite’s townships include, Camperdown, Terang, Port Campbell, Cobden, Lismore, Derrinallum, Skipton, Princetown, Simpson, Noorat, and Timboon.
To understand our present day and how we celebrate Australia Day let’s visit our past. I want to share today some of our history, our towns and the people who have made a difference whilst living and growing up in Corangamite.(Horse Racing Mackinnon Stakes) gifted their home Mooramong Homestead to the National Trust and their philanthropic Trust continues to support the Skipton community and many other charitable organisations.
The Elephant is a 240 m high conical breached scoria cone formed by an extinct volcano, located 1 km from the town of Derrinallum it is a prominent landmark.
Lismore – Sheep and Cropping Country just down the road from Derrinallumand home to Gordon Bryant – Labor Politician in the Whitlam Government and also Tony Street Liberal member in the Fraser Government.
Gammalite (1976-2006) was an Australian bred Standardbredracehorse who was the first Standardbredto win A$1 million in Australia. He was regarded as one of Australia's most successful pacers with 16 Group one wins.Terang is our second biggest town.
He settled in the Heytesbury forest area on a small creek not far from where the present day Cobden lies. Dr.Curdie, so overcome by its beauty, christened the area Lovely Banks. The Cobden Township was established in the late 1860sAlastair Lord played as a centreman and debuted in 1959. He won theBrownlow Medal in 1962 He retired at 26 and returned to the family farm at Cobden.[1]Football Champions: Thorold Merrett some 63 years later great nephewJackson Merrett – Essendon Football club and Gary Rohan, Sydney SwansToday Cobden and its surrounding area claim to be the "Dairy Capital” of the world, a claim based on the over 140,000 head of cattle in and around the area.
The town is named after Les Simpson, the first chairman of the Soldier Settlement Commission. Prior to the formation of the Soldier Settlement Commission in 1946, the large bush land tract known as the Heytesbury Forest . Simpson is a thriving little town surrounded by Dairying farms
Soldier Settlement area - Prime Dairy producing country
Timboon Population 1,178Paul Couch - VFL/AFL footballer for Geelong and 1989 Brownlow Medal winner.Hugh Worrall (born 8 November 1948) is a former Australian rules footballer who played with Fitzroy in the Victorian Football League (VFL). (Picture at Port Campbell Torch Relay)Rich Dairy country and Lime deposits mined for the production of high grade pharmaceuticals. (picture rolling hills ?)
Created by constant erosion of the limestone cliffs of the mainland beginning 10-20 million years ago, the stormy Southern Ocean and blasting winds The Loch Ard The only two survivors of the wreck were Eva Carmichael, who survived by clinging to a spar for five hours, and Thomas (Tom) R. Pearce, an apprentice who clung to the overturned hull of a lifeboat. Tom Pearce came ashore first, then heard Eva's shouts and went back into the ocean to rescue her. They came ashore at what is now known as Loch Ard Gorge and sheltered there before seeking assistance. Insert Pictures – (12 Apostles, Peacock and Port Campbell township)Corangamite shires only Surf Life Saving Club is based in Port Campbell, together with the SES Unit specializes in ocean and cliff rescue.
Central is the 103-foot (31 m) high Gothic Manifold Clock Tower, built 1897, which sits in a wide Elm lined median between the dual carriageways of Manifold Street, Notable Citizens include: Isabella Dawson James Dawson and his daughter, Isabella Park Taylor (1843-1929), shared a deep interest in Aboriginal civilisationand studied the languages and cultures of the indigenous peoples of the volcanic plains, and to which in 1881, he published the work Australian aborigines: the languages and customs of several tribes of aborigines in the western district of Victoria, Australia, He vigorously defended Aboriginal interests against government officials, politicians, his fellow squatters and others, a crusade that he kept up until his death in 1900 at Camperdown at the age of 93.The last surviving man of his tribe and friend of Dawson.Picture Dawson and Camperdown George
Camperdown is my home town and also Corangamite Shire Civic Centre, Camperdown is our largest town in the Shire.
A snap shot of our Australia Day Celebrations, the crowds , the people and our community champions from all over the shire.
The One Council, One Event, the Ten Towns ModelCouncil has hosted Australia Day Awards and Celebrations for many years prior to amalgamation Corangamite Shire consisted of 3 LGA’s The Shire of Hampden, Heytesbury Shire and the Town of Camperdown .After the amalgamation of the 3 municipalities in 1994 Council worked with the communities to develop a new format and how to celebrate our National Day and this was achieved after a lengthy community consultation process. The desire was to bring the past formats into present and equity across our large shire. The Result The Council would rotate the Australia Day Celebrations and Civic Awards annually around the Southern, Central and Northern townships within the shire. A new concept was hatched and in the first couple of years was hard to encourage neighbouring townships and communities because they saw the Australia Day celebrations as a more localized local event rather than a whole of shire event. A renewed Interest from Communities and increased involvement on Australia Day With the ever growing popularity of the Australia Day Celebrations and the opportunity to include the Australia Day Ambassador program helped create change, interest started to grow and communities started to embrace the rotational concept and started to plan and looked forward to being the host town. Budgets Council’s budget of $1,000.00 for the Australia Day Awards and Celebrations needed to be increased, $5,000.00 was allocated. The momentum of the event was growing at a very fast rate and soon the Budget allocation to $10,000.00 to help celebrating our National Day.
the smaller townships need additional support with infrastructure, making sure we have seating, marquees, toilets, sound, staging, catering and entertainment. You need well planned and be well equipped to handle this event because has been the case that the Australia Day participants converging on a smaller host town may well triple the total population of that community on Australia Day.
With increasing crowd numbers from a couple of hundred attending, and our host towns venues being filled to capacity to now hosting several hundred citizens attending the Awards and joining in the of Australia Day celebrations.the smaller townships need additional support with infrastructure, making sure we have seating, marquees, toilets, sound, staging, catering and entertainment. You need well planned and be well equipped to handle this event because has been the case that the Australia Day participants converging on a smaller host town may well triple the total population of that community on Australia Day.
At Corangamite we receive many nominations from all over the shire and once the selection of our Citizen of the Year, Young Citizens and Community Event of the Year, our council recognizes every nominee by acknowledging their contribution to their local communities on Australia Day. On average in the past (5 ) years the nominations have been on average 30 these numbers swell depending on the Community Event nominations. Council invites our Citizen of the Year and Young Citizens to be included during the year to play key roles in Council functions and civic events.Bystarting with a very formal beginning, Flag Raising ceremony using young people from the local Scout / guide groups, our National Anthem with a local artist, Council’s formal welcome, our Ambassadors Australia Day speech always well received and very interesting, then the Awards, and Citizenship ceremonies followed by local entertainment and a very big free community morning tea and or a BBQ or lunch
Start promoting your Australia Day Celebrations – put stories about the nominee’s in the lead up to the Australia Day Celebrations – Don’t announce but list all the folk who are receiving awards. Press releasesLet the rest of the community know what the local people have done
The day was fantastic with the backdrop of the beautiful gardens, families and loved ones coming along to celebrate our National Day. After the Awards the public stayed on for homemade scones jam and cream, cakes a hot cuppa and cold drink whilst touring the gardens enjoying the music provided by the Lakes and Craters Band and the Tune-a-Week group.The Australian way was formed in the early days of settlement, and started this great sense of mateship and many good deeds, it continues today, in the here and now, not just in Corangamite but all over Australia we have been a very fortunate nation with the many ordinary people just a few clicks down the road and even next door doing extraordinary things by supporting their fellow Australians working to ensure that we continue to live in the lucky country. Our community champions continue to work in their own towns supporting and strengthening local projects, helping people and working to improve their community.I am grateful that I was asked to speak about Australia Day and Corangamite country, we have a time honored history in Corangamite, with many great people who have been high achievers and many, many more who help make their community a better place to live. The Corangamite community look forward to celebrating our local Australia Day Awards and celebrations.It never ceases to amaze me the caliber and quality of the nominations that come in each year. It really does consolidate to me how lucky we all are, it doesn’t matter if you are in outback Australia, or Moonee Ponds or Camperdown in Western Victoria, we all live, work and strive to be part of our own community and what better way to acknowledge our people then on Australia Day.