Golfers, chook fanciers, shooters, runners, pony clubbers and BMX riders are just some of the recipients of the second round of community grants announced this week.
Every year council offers two rounds of community grants for clubs to purchase equipment, repair facilities or promote and stage events.
Deputy Mayor Cr Gail Godwin-Smith was part of the assessment panel for round two and said she was impressed by the quality of the applications and the depth of community involvement in the region.
‘This was the first time I’ve been involved in assessing the grant applications and I found it a very robust process and thoroughly enjoyed being involved. One advantage was that I was able to get a better understanding of all the different clubs and their capability throughout the region.
‘But what’s been really great to see is the amount of projects being planned or carried out. I think there’s come really terrific projects that have been funded, which is great value for our region,’ she said.
The Central Highlands Triathlon Club was successful in securing $5000 to launch parkrun in Emerald, an extremely popular regular community running event.
Over in Blackwater, the clay target club is looking forward to hosting a significant carnival in February 2017 and will now have some more traps to shoot and a bain marie to serve up some hot snacks.
The Miners Common Museum Arts and Cultural Centre at Rubyvale is looking forward to improving their storage capability with a grant of $3565 to build a lean-to shelter to protect their equipment.
While the pony club kids at Bauhinia will be able to ‘have a go’ as their project to enable young riders to experience different horse sports by purchasing some jumping saddles, polocrosse racquets, dressage letters and other equipment received a $5000 grant.
Thirty-four applications were received for round 2 and 18 were successful totalling $81,382.80.