Shire locks in event calendar

THE Surf Coast Shire has locked in the calendar of events it will support throughout 2019.

At their meeting last week, councillors resolved to adopt the 2019 Council Events Calendar, which contains 14 events.

There are three tiers of events, each with a different allocation of planning time and staff resources from the shire.

The 2019 calendar includes five Level 1 events, which require significant input of staff time across multiple business units in the shire in their planning and delivery:
• The Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race on January 24-27 and the Welcome Wave on January 23 (which gets an extra $10,000 for its event budget)
• International Women’s Day on March 8
• A civic event for the Rip Curl Pro in April
• National Volunteer Week on May 20-26, and
• White Ribbon Day in November

There are six Level 2 events, which can generally be managed at a department level and in consultation and cooperation with other service providers or agencies:
• Australia Day on January 26
• National Youth Week on April 5-14
• NAIDOC Week on July 7-14
• The Seniors’ Festival in October
• Children’s Week in October, and
• The International Day of People with a Disability on December 3

There are also three Level 3 events that require lower levels of resourcing and may not require a significant event:
• IDAHOBIT (the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia) on May 17
• Mental Health Awareness Week in October, and
• Fire Action Week in November.

Citizenship ceremonies, festivals and community events are not included in this calendar and are subject to their own process and management criteria in the council’s events policy.