Yesterday the Bathurst Family Fun Day was awarded ‘Community Event of the Year’ at the Australia Day Award Ceremony.
The Bathurst Family Fun Day (BFFD) is a family-focused community event celebrating the value and importance of all families in the Bathurst community during National Families Week.
The fun day is a Bathurst Child and Family Network initiative that began in 2012 to help connect community to build a sense of belonging and has grown to become a much loved annual community event.
Approximately 900-1000 people attend the free event throughout the day which is built on the premise of inclusion which includes children with additional needs, children and families from a culturally and linguistically diverse background, refugee families and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families.
Louise Taylor and Victoria Prior, who work as Inclusion Professionals for Gowrie NSW’s Inclusion Agency NSW West, sit on the Family Fun Day sub committee that assists in organising the event and helping on the day.
“Victoria and I assist with the initial planning, setting up, providing orientation for stall holders, working on the information stall, directing families around the venue, facilitating families with providing feedback and helping to tidy up at the end of the day,” Louise Taylor said.
Louise said Gowrie NSW is represented by providing information about the family-focused programs that is managed by the leading childcare organisation.
“The Child and Family Information Line is a project managed by Gowrie NSW and is a program that is publicised during the day,” Louise said.
“We have a strong presence within the early childhood community and having Gowrie NSW staff on the Bathurst Child and Family Network committee helps to further raise the family focused principle of which Gowrie NSW stands by and which the Child and Family Network was developed,” she added.