Australia Day committee chair Jan Lemon said it’s always a difficult decision to pick the award winner in each category, and she looks forward to having a similar challenge this year. She did stress, however, the importance of providing details of all the nominee’s community contributions on the nomination form, as the decision is made solely on this information.

“We judge nominees by what’s on the form,” Mrs Lemon said.

“Our personal knowledge of the nominee cannot be taken into account.”

Mrs Lemon said it’s important to put some effort into getting the background on the person someone wishes to nominate, to give them a fair chance of being recognised on January 26. She said to follow the rules, or the nominations will have to be discarded.

“We need details, of how long they’ve been with organisations, what positions they held, what they achieved, to help us make decisions.”

Mrs Lemon said if multiple nominations are received for the same person or event, the information will be collated so that all is taken into account.

While she’s not able to put in nominations herself, Mrs Lemon said she can look around and see people she knows that have been volunteering since they were teenagers. She’s hoping for an embarrassment of nominations, for those volunteering their services to sport, the community, to the elderly, outside their professional responsibilities.

With 2015 being designated the ‘Year of the Soil’, she said it would be timely to be looking at volunteer groups that help people on the land.

Mrs Lemon said although people can’t be recognised for what they do in their employment, if they go above and beyond the call of duty in their own time, they can be nominated for that.

Next year it’s the village of Glen Elgin’s turn to host the Australia Day breakfast. The special guest won’t be known until December, but Mrs Lemon is still shouting the praises of this year’s Australia Day Ambassador James Pittar and his helper Peter Duncan, and the impact they made of the day’s celebrations.

“They were very special,” she said, “the most beautiful pair of young men.”

There will be a fresh state flag at local Australia Day formalities with member for Northern Tablelands Adam Marshall handing over a new flag to committee member Malcolm Schumacher recently, but Mrs Lemon put out a call to locate the flag bases which have been borrowed from the committee’s storage facility and now gone missing.

“Does anyone know where our flag bases are?” Mrs Lemon said.

With 2015 also being the centenary of the landing at Gallipoli during World War I, the day’s celebrations will also include a special presentation and display with an Anzac theme.

Australia Day nominations close December 12, and nomination forms are available from Glen Innes Severn Council either on-line or at Town Hall.