Youth Awards T.E.A.M looks to later date

ALTHOUGH this month’s Ballarat Youth Awards have been postponed, young volunteer organisers are working to ensure all nominees are recognised, and get their moment to shine.

Seventeen-year-old Together Enhancing the Achievements of Many Committee member Halinah Cobbledick said her group’s promotion of the 2021 Awards process has already seen exciting results.

“We had quite an overwhelming response to the nomination period this year, with 120 nominations in the end which is a record number,” she said.

“The leadership in sport category was very popular with community clubs backing a certain coach or young volunteer helping with younger athletes.

“Our young entrepreneur award was one of our smaller categories, and even then, we had a nice variety of nominations.”

The T.E.A.M Committee is now working to confirm how they will safely deliver the postponed Awards event, but in the meantime, they’ll jump on Ballarat Youth Services’ social media channels to announce all category nominees and the event sponsors.

“With the postponement, we have more time to do training and development, and hone our skills in marketing, promotions and media as a committee,” Halinah said.

“We’re trying to pull in lots of our young influential artists from the community to perform at our event or offer artwork. We want to make the event bright and colourful once it happens.

“We’re looking at various delivery options, whether we have a virtual event like last year, or whether we’re lucky enough to have it in person. The T.E.A.M is working towards a later date, with more time to plan, and check in with each other.”

The Ballarat Youth Awards are supported by the Western Bulldogs, Buninyong and District Community Bank Branch, Basketball Ballarat, The Y, Highlands LLEN, the Ballarat Foundation, Ballarat Tech School, Committee for Ballarat, BYSN, Wendouree Centre for Performing Arts, the Centre for Multicultural Youth, Voice FM, and Compassionate Ballarat.