Lots of reasons to celebrate

While winter has settled in, the wet weather hasn’t dampened the level of activity happening in and around the City. We recently picked up some major awards, made lots of groundwork on a couple of exciting community events headed your way and welcomed some of our newest residents.

Every few months, the City hosts Newcomer Tours to showcase Aboriginal culture as well as share information about local services, facilities and popular destinations like Trigg Beach. Each tour includes visits to the Wadjak Northside Aboriginal Centre, Mount Flora Museum and a local recreation centre.

About 50 people took part in a tour last week, which included a stop at the City’s Administration Centre to provide information about the role of local government and Council. It was great to meet and welcome so many people from faraway places like Myanmar, Iran and Syria who were excited to make the City of Stirling their new home.

Still talking about our newest residents, it was a proud moment when we recently had the honour of accepting a national honour for the City’s Kaleidoscope Initiative. The program won the overall Excellence Award at the National Awards for Local Government. Considering how many local governments around Australia are delivering innovative programs that make a difference in their communities, it was hugely rewarding for the City of Stirling to take the top prize.

For close to two years, the Kaleidoscope Initiative has provided a range of resources to newcomers and employers, including an online information hub, an employer partnership program and more. The initiative also offers the Kaleidoscope Mentoring Program, which connects skilled newcomers – known as mentees – with a local mentor from their profession/industry to help them become job ready.

The program has delivered lots of success stories with eight of the 13 mentees in the pilot round finding a job in their preferred field within six months of wrapping up the program. The follow-up mentoring round resulted in another 10 mentees securing a job before they had finished the three-month mentoring cycle.

Prior to winning the overall award, the Kaleidoscope Initiative picked up the ‘Multicultural Australia - Cohesive Communities’ category award and the City’s Moorland Street Bicycle Boulevard (MSBB) project won the ‘Excellence in Road Safety’ category award. Huge thanks goes to the City’s dedicated teams that delivered these award-winning projects and to the City of Canning and Metropolitan Migrant Resource Centre who worked with the City to make the Kaleidoscope Initiative a reality.

Lake Gwelup recently provided a magnificent backdrop for the 2019 Reconciliation Walk. After a short commemorative walk around the beautiful surrounds, there was plenty of entertainment to enjoy including some fascinating talks from Elders about local flora and fauna. Hamersley Ward Cr Karlo Perkov took part in the symbolic event that shows our commitment to fostering unity and respect between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and non-Indigenous Australians.

Speaking of great events, we have two big ones coming to the City of Stirling this month. On Monday 8 July, the City’s annual NAIDOC event celebrates the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Held at Stirling Leisure Centres – Herb Graham Mirrabooka, the free event from 10.00am to 2.00pm will offer lots of great entertainment for all ages including Aboriginal dancers, live bands, giant slide for kids, Aboriginal-themed face painting, bouncy castles, animal farm and more.

We are also very proud to be bringing the amazing KATENA luminarium to Carine Regional Open Space from Monday 8 July to Sunday 14 July. A temporary art installation, the inflatable luminarium will offer a dazzling maze of winding paths and soaring domes that create a sense of wonder and enchantment for all ages and all abilities. Social media is already buzzing about this exciting and free event. While some queuing is expected, it will be worth the wait to see this impressive attraction that has wowed visitors around the world. Visit the City’s event page for more details.

In other award news, the City has added to its collection of MobileMuster awards thanks to the community’s remarkable efforts recycling old mobile phones. In June, the City picked up the Top Recycler Award for WA in the 2019 MobileMuster Local Government Awards after previously winning the title in 2015, 2017 and 2018. Up from last year’s recycling grand total of 244kg, the City collected a big 300kg of mobile phones to take the honours this year.

Wrapping up award news, the City also received a Gold Award for its 2017/18 Annual Report at the Australasian Reporting Awards (ARA) in Sydney last month. The awards provide an opportunity for organisations to benchmark their reports against best practice criteria set by the ARA. The City continues to produce annual reports of a high standard and it was great to be recognised by the ARA.

I’d like to wrap up this entry with a thank-you to all our JPs. Throughout the year, local JPs provide a highly valued service to the community at the City’s Administration Centre and at Stirling libraries in Karrinyup and Mirrabooka. Whether it’s witnessing official documents, administering an oath or taking an affidavit, the dedicated JPs are at the ready to help.

To acknowledge their efforts, the City hosts an annual dinner. Crs Boothman, Italiano, Lagan, Perkov, Proud, Re, Sargent and Spagnolo were all on hand at the recent function to extend a big thank-you to our valued JPs.