Tidy Towns titleholder — again
COLLIE is one step closer to being named the tidiest town in Australia.
It won the overall South West Regional Tidy Towns — Sustainable Communities Award on Monday, ahead of Busselton, Walpole, Yarloop, Waroona and Greenbushes.
Collie was presented with the award at a ceremony in the Collie Bowling Club. But Collie Tidy Towns committee chairwoman Nola Green was missing. She was in hospital because of a disabling back condition and missed the celebration.
Yesterday, still in hospital, she said she was proud of the whole town because the win was not just due to the Tidy Towns committee’s efforts.
Collie shire president Wayne Sanford said the Collie Tidy Towns Committee had been rewarded for its hard work. “The committee has once again worked hard to prepare an entry that was obviously well done,” he said.
“To win the regional award again is testament to the vast commitment and hard work that Nola Green and all of the committee members have done.
Winning Tidy Towns is more than just keeping Collie clean and litter-free.
“The awards are judged these days on a whole-of-community approach and assessed on a range of sustainability criteria and an ability of the community to demonstrate that all organisations are working together for the betterment of the Collie community. All organisations and community stakeholders are to be congratulated for the outstanding efforts. This is once again a great opportunity to promote the positive things that the whole community is working hard on.
“The exposure that winning the regional award (and subsequently being a finalist in the state award) brings enables us as a community to showcase what is good and exciting about Collie and so people will visit and potentially see Collie as a great place to live, visit and invest.”
Collie had a good chance of winning the state and maybe even the national title, Cr Sanford said. “Having been a state winner in 2003 and 2005 and national winner in 2006 gives you the confidence that it is something that is achievable,. “If we were to win the state award, I would have no reason to believe we couldn’t win nationally again.
“It is a credit to the committee and all community stakeholders that they have not rested on past success . ”
Collie Shire chief executive Jason Whiteaker said Collie’s success came from a “whole-of-community effort by community members, schools, businesses, and volunteer organisations, as well as the shire”.
Rather than focusing on one area — recycling, or water conservation or community in action — Collie showed high-level initiative across all sections of the Tidy Towns Sustain-able Communities competition.
He thought the win would create a justifiable sense of pride, a sense of a job well done and was well- deserved recognition of community efforts.
“It is also a good opportunity to pay tribute to the Tidy Towns Committee who have worked tirelessly on their submission and on generating projects and community support/interest,” he said.
Keep Australia Beautiful WA Tidy Towns state program manager Gail Dodd said the judges had been particularly impressed by the community effort across a range of projects, including keeping the town litter-free, planting trees, and conserving cultural and natural heritage.
“Collie won the regional title due to their consistent results across all categories judged,” she said. “It is estimated more than 1000 volunteers were involved contributing some 14,658 hours. This was outstanding given the town’s population, she said.
Email a friend
Favourites
Del.icio.us
Facebook
Digg
StumbleUpon
MySpace
Reddit
Newsvine
LinkedIn
Kwoff
Twitter