Cook Shire to celebrate 100 years on Australia Day

AUSTRALIA DAY 2019




Cook Shire will be celebrating Australia Day and the Shire’s centenary in Cooktown’s Botanic Gardens with special guest speaker Tasman Bain.

The winners of the Cook Shire’s Australia Day awards will also be announced at the celebrations at Nature’s PowerHouse in the Botanic Gardens from 9.00am on Saturday.

The official proceedings and award presentations will be followed by a free morning tea provided for attendees to enjoy.

The Australia Day Awards recognise members of the Cook Shire community and the contributions they have made to the improvement and wellbeing of the region and its people. 

The award categories are:
- Citizen of the Year
- Young Citizen of the Year
- Volunteer of the Year (Group or Individual)
- Sports (Group, Individual or Event) 
- Arts and Culture (Group, Individual or Event)
- Environment (Individual)

Eighteen individuals and groups have been nominated for the awards with the winners to be announced at the ceremony on Saturday.

The nominees for the awards are:
- Desmond McIvor
- Melissa Gunton
- Maureen Liddy
- Leanne Rayner
- Phoenyx Seagren
- Alan Wilson
- Ayla White
- Dale Tan
- William Bliss
- The Cooktown Junior Rugby League Club
- Coen Community Care
- Cooktown Historical Society
- Dylan Gilmore
- Marilyn Morris
- Jennifer Midgley
- Kristina Davidson
- Jim Kelton
- Ella Hartwig.

This year’s awards will also include a display celebrating Cook Shire Council’s Centenary, which fell on January 16, 2019.

The guest speaker for the event this year is Tasman Bain, the Co-Founder of Meri Toksave, a youth-led gender equality initiative in Papua New Guinea.

Mr Bain is also Chair of the Australian Red Cross Queensland Youth Advisory Committee, a Youth Commissioner of the National Youth Commission into Youth Unemployment and a Youth Delegate to the CSIRO National Outlook Project.

 

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