The City of Belmont recently presented its prestigious Opportunity Awards to Dr Noel Nannup OAM, Cameron Aitkenhead and Peter Stone.
The Opportunity Awards recognise the achievements of an individual, group or organisation that has enhanced the amenity and quality of life in the City of Belmont, or have assisted the City to achieve its objectives.
According to City of Belmont Mayor Cr Phil Marks, Dr Noel Nannup OAM was awarded for being integral to presenting and promoting the City’s Indigenous significance to the City’s community and beyond.
“Noel has been involved with the City of Belmont since 2013, when he started assisting the City with hosting cultural tours, including for the City’s
Sister City delegations from Adachi,” Mayor Marks said.
“Since November 2016, he has been engaged by the City to lead annual cultural bus tours for the community, and the feedback from these tours has always been positive, as a result of him generously sharing his knowledge of the local area,” he said.
“He was engaged to do the audio presentation for the Welcome to Country which welcomes visitors on entry to
Belmont Museum in the City’s new community centre Belmont Hub.
“He also assisted the City’s with planning the interpretative signage for the new Riverbank display, and was engaged to create the audio for the Six Seasons ceiling projection in the new Museum.”
The second Opportunity Award for 2021 was awarded to local Belmont business owner Peter Stone from The Big Picture Factory for his innovative thinking and work in assisting the City produce 4000 Belmonster-themed jigsaw puzzles that celebrated the launch of Belmont Hub.
“Peter’s Belmont based business printed, stuck, cut, boxed and labelled more than 4000 individual Belmonster-themed jigsaw puzzles specifically made to celebrate the launch of the City’s new community centre, Belmont Hub,” Mayor Marks said.
“He went above and beyond to ensure that these 204-piece puzzles were delivered in time for the Mayor and Councillors to distribute to schools throughout the City,” he said.
“When the die cut stencil he ordered did not fit the machine he was to press the puzzles in, to avoid missing the City’s deadline, he came up with an ingenious solution of bending metal rulers to create his own stencil to cut out the puzzle pieces.
“Without his innovative thinking the City could not have achieved its vision of providing an affordable and unique commemorative gift to give to each primary school aged child in the City to celebrate the opening of the Belmont Hub.”
The third Opportunity Award was presented to illustrator Cameron Aitkenhead for his valued and ongoing collaboration with the City to develop and adapt
The Belmonsters characters to enhance the City’s programs and initiatives in engaging ways for the community.
”Cameron has collaborated with the City since 2015 when he was first engaged to facilitate a community art project that resulted in the production of the City’s first children’s book titled, The Adventures of the Belmonsters,” Mayor Marks said.
“As part of the development for the book, the Belmonsters characters were created using Cameron’s talents as an illustrator.
“Following the success of the first book, he has worked with the City as the illustrator on a range of Belmonster initiatives and activities including: artwork to commemorate the opening of Belmont Hub; a commemorative artwork to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the City’s Sister City relationship with Adachi-Ku in Japan; the illustration of a second book in the Belmonster series ‘The Belmonster and the Bear’ and its subsequent animated short film; an adventure trail map to guide young families to explore and be active in the community; illustrations for a children’s game; and is currently designing graphics for an AI project to celebrate the first anniversary of Belmont Hub later this month.”
The City of Belmont’s Opportunity Awards were established as part of the City of Opportunity Marketing Strategy and first presented in 1998 to recognise an individual, group or organisation for the significant contribution they have made to the City over the past year.
The winners will be added to the Opportunity Awards Honour Board which hangs in the City of Belmont Civic Centre.
Pictured: 2021 Opportunity Award Winner Peter Stone from The Big Picture Factory and City of Belmont Mayor Cr Phil Marks.