In what is now a long and established tradition, Australia Day will be celebrated in Taylor Park on Monday, January 26 of this year.

The ceremony has traditionally drawn large crowds to help celebrate the anniversary of the original European settlement in Australia by Captain Arthur Phillip and twelve little ships loaded to the gunnels with soldiers, sailors, convicts and a few civilians along with stores and provisions including livestock.

The whole nation commemorates this fantastic feat of perseverance by those few hundred hardy souls (although the convicts had “no say, no say in it at all” – as the old song goes) who made that epic 12,000 mile trip in little wooden sailing vessels, each not much larger than a Manly Ferry.

The world has dramatically altered since that time and were any of those brave souls able to return to see what we have done with their legacy they, no doubt, would be astounded at the achievements made in their absence. That trip, in 1788, took over 6 months to complete. Their descendents can do it in less than 48 hours in a passenger jet.

When viewed in that light, it shows just how much change has occurred in our nation and what European settlement has achieved in a little over 200 years.

Man’s desire to own and settle the land is also recognized on Australia Day, especially by rural and remote communities who are still engaged in wresting a living from the land, and have been doing so since the early 1800’s.

Which brings us all the way to 2009, and, the reasons as to why the Weddin Shire Australia Day awards and celebrations are so special to the whole community.

This year the nominations received are:

Citizen of the Year – Nancy Logan (nominated by Grenfell Lions), Margaret Charlesworth (nominated by Jed Nowlan), Judy Mitton (nominated by Kath Smith and Deidre Carroll) and Anthony Cass (nominated by Australia Day Council for Christie Chapman).