It was great to spend another Australia Day at our celebrations in Victoria Park last Sunday, on what was another warm summer's day.
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Congratulations firstly to our 24 new Australian citizens, and also to all nominees for the Australia Day Awards. This year Daniel Strickland was named Citizen of the Year for the mountain of community work he undertakes in Goulburn. Kate Easlea took out the Young Citizen of the Year, and the Lilac City Festival Street Parade was named Event of the Year.
I noticed a very strong theme right through our Australia Day official ceremony that I wanted to touch on in today's column, which was how important it is to give back to and be involved in community groups and organisations. Speeches from the Hon Angus Taylor MP, our Australia Day Ambassador Michael Prevedello and 2020 Citizen of the Year Daniel Strickland all focused on Goulburn's great community, and how it is critical that we all are actively involved. From the Rural Fire Service, to your local sporting club or the Lilac City Festival Committee - these events and organisations simply cannot run without us as citizens getting involved and helping out.
I myself spoke about our Local Emergency Management Committee which involves representatives of local police, RFS, SES, council, Local Land Services and the NSW Government. This committee has been actively working throughout summer to respond to the bushfire crisis and have done a wonderful job.
Michael Prevedello as ambassador set a challenge for those in the audience on the day and it is one that I would reinforce. He asked us all in Goulburn Mulwaree to make it the year you join a committee, volunteer or make some effort to be an active community member. We live in a brilliant region with a strong sense of community, but let's make 2020 the year that we go even further; the benefits you will get from volunteering your time are priceless.
Further indoor pool repair update
We are making considerable progress on the indoor pool roof repairs, with a target opening for the pool in the week of February 10. I visited the facility last week, and provide an update below.
- Installation of new support beams is underway, with the contractor undertaking this work expected to finish next week.
- The inflection of the roof was worse than first thought, it had sunk up to 300mm in some places
- Once the contractor finishes the roof repairs, Council will need to remove the support struts and assess the pool tiles for any damage. If any require replacing this will add a number of days as they need to cure before we can begin refilling. Staff will then clean the pool/pool hall and refill the pool with water.
- We are also using this as an opportunity to perform critical maintenance on this pool's expansion joint
Council thanks the community for their patience as this has proven a much more complicated project than initially expected.
