BILL Jones is no stranger to Ararat.<\/p>\n
For a lifetime, Bill has been working towards the betterment of his local community and this week was recognised for service with an Australia Day Award.<\/p>\n
William Richard Jones OAM was this morning named as one of the recipients of Australia Day Awards from the office of the Governor General.<\/p>\n
Mr Jones was recognised as a \u201csignificant contributor\u201d to the Ararat community through a variety of organisations including his stint as President of East Grampians Health Service, Freemasons Victoria and Ararat Rural City Council where he did two terms as Mayor.<\/p>\n
He also served as Chair of Ararat Cemetery Trust between 2014 and 2021 and remains an active volunteer maintaining lawns and gardens.<\/p>\n
He is also an active and long serving member of East Grampians Health Service building for the Future Foundation, an Archivist at Ararat Primary School and a former Chair of the Community Advisory Group at Hopkins Correctional Precinct.<\/p>\n
Mr Jones told the Ararat Advocate this week he was humbled by the award.<\/p>\n
\u201cI actually feel pleased for the community as much as anything because I would never, ever have been able to earn this recognition without mentors and without community people and colleagues who were able to go along with me or assist me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mr Jones said his notification came to an old email address which isn\u2019t often checked.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey had an old email address I no longer use and it was just serendipity I suppose that I looked in that account to clear it out and there was this letter.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was about three days before I had to give them an answer so it became a bit of a comedy of errors.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t helped by the fact I was in the outback of South Australia at the time where reception wasn\u2019t great,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mr Jones said the award will go down as one of the great moments of his life.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a lovely way to be recognised. I have invested a lot of time and effort into this community and it is really nice for other members of the community to support this recognition.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have always been of the opinion I\u2019ve been blessed having the right people around me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very proud of this community because back in the late 80s and early 90s this community was punished by recession, the retreat of government departments, the closure of Aradale and there was a view that Ararat was in meltdown and my view always was the community has always proven itself to be more resilient than that.<\/p>\n
\u201cA whole lots of people worked hard to turn that (perception) around and just look at Ararat now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Governor General David Hurley congratulated recipients of the year\u2019s awards.<\/p>\n
\u201cCongratulations to the outstanding Australians recognised in today\u2019s Honours List. Recipients have made a difference and had an impact at the local, national and\/or international level. Individually, they are inspiring and collectively they speak to the strength of our communities,\u201d the Governor-General said.<\/p>\n
\u201cRecipients come from all parts of the country.\u00a0 They have served and had an impact in just about every field you can imagine; their stories and backgrounds are diverse. We value their service, thank them for their hard work and selflessness and, today, celebrate them,\u201d Governor General Hurley said.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo each recipient: know that you have the thanks and respect of your nation. In my experience most are humble and often try to deflect attention or praise \u2013 please enjoy the moment because your country has decided that you deserve recognition,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mr Jones will officially receive his Australia Day medal at a ceremony at Government House in a few months time.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BILL Jones is no stranger to Ararat.
\nFor a lifetime, Bill has been working towards the betterment of his local community and this week was recognised for service with an Australia Day Award.<\/p>\n
William Richard Jones OAM was this morning named as one of the recipients of Australia Day Awards from the office of the Governor General.
\nMr Jones was recognised as a \u201csignificant contributor\u201d to the Ararat community through a variety of organisations including his stint as President of East Grampians Health Service, Freemasons Victoria and Ararat Rural City Council where he did two terms as Mayor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2194,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[31],"class_list":["post-2193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/IMG_6221-Copy-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdqUu4-zn","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2193"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}