Our event experience ranges from large-scale outdoor, music, sporting and cultural celebrations to smaller community-based events.

Council is committed to delivering diverse, sustainable, accessible events which appeal to a wide audience.

We are now planning for our first event of the year - Australia Day on January 26.

On this day, everyone is encouraged to reflect, respect and celebrate our nation and our people - especially our strong sense of community as we work towards reconnecting.

It is a time to recognise the resilience of all Australians and to focus on what we can achieve when we move forward as a community and a unified nation.

The day means different things to different people and everyone is encouraged to acknowledge Australia Day in a way that's meaningful to them.

We acknowledge the significant contribution that everyone makes to our nation, from First Nations people who have lived here for 65,000 years to our newest citizens who call Australia home.

Celebrations this year will include an award and citizenship ceremony at 9.30am at BMEC where we will welcome 14 new citizens while the awards recognise community achievements throughout 2021.

There will also be a free barbecue lunch in Stevens Park at Rockley from 11am and free entry to the Manning Aquatic Centre between 11am and 5.30pm.

Our Australia Day Ambassador this year is Tiffany Kane, a Paralympic gold medallist in swimming.

Tiffany started learning to swim at age three and has won many titles, including:

I invite everyone to come and celebrate with us.

For more information, visit www.bathurst.nsw.gov.au

WELCOME to a new year and I know that everyone is looking forward to a brighter 2022.

The past year has certainly presented us with any number of challenges to which we have all been able to respond and together move forward.

It's also been a big year for the Bathurst electorate, with many major announcements made and important projects getting underway.

But the good news is that more announcements are in the pipeline in 2022 and I'm really looking forward to getting them finalised and delivering the good news to the community.

Some exciting initiatives we'll be seeing include the start of up to 300 IBM jobs coming here to Bathurst at Charles Sturt University to establish a Regional Innovation Centre; starting work on the $50 million Gardens of Stone project, creating the largest adventure and eco-tourism project here in the state in Lithgow; and starting works on the $4.5 billion Great Western Highway project.

Many of these projects are about providing jobs, boosting the local economy and building a safer and stronger region.

COVID jabs for juniors start this week

VACCINATIONS for children aged five to 11 have started this week and parents and carers are urged to book their children an appointment as soon as possible.

The Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine (Comirnaty) will be made available for the roughly 720,000 children in that age group across NSW.

More than 18,000 kids aged five to 11 have caught COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, which highlights why vaccination is so important.

We saw a great vaccination response for children aged 12 to 15 years, so we hope parents will book in their younger children before they start or go back to school.

I want to also encourage anyone who has not yet received a COVID-19 vaccination to do so.

This includes adults who had their second dose four months ago and are now due for a booster.

NSW Health has so far delivered more than 326,027 booster doses of COVID-19 vaccines, in support of the Federal Government's vaccine program.

People aged 18 years and older can get a booster at least four months after receiving their second dose of any of the COVID-19 vaccines registered for use in Australia.