The long journey to bring the National Shearing and Wool Handling Competition to Jamestown last year has been further rewarded with the title of best community event for South Australia in 2023.
The competition, held in Jamestown in October last year, brought 170 competitors to the town from across Australia and New Zealand, and was attended by about 600 people.
After being honoured by Northern Areas Council for Australia Day, the event has also been named Community Event of the Year for state at the 2024 South Australian Citizen of the Year Awards, held at Government House in Adelaide on Friday, February 23.
Organiser Matt Scharkie and members of the committee behind the event attended the function to accept the award.
Mr Scharkie said when he received the phone call to say the event had won the state award, it was certainly a shock.
“It was a big effort, it took a lot of volunteers a lot of hours in the lead up, the biggest thing we had was it took six years in the making to make it happen,” he said.
The event was originally supposed to take place in 2021 but due to the Covid pandemic and cancellations, it would be another two years before it would take place.
The committee was determined for Jamestown to host the championships, which had not been held in South Australia for more than 20 years, but the event successfully taking place was a reward for all involved, and this award is the cherry on top.
“You don’t do these things for awards, but it’s really good and I think it should be something everybody should be proud of,” Mr Scharkie said.
He said the wider community also made the event a success with local pubs, hotels, service stations and takeaway shops among others all a part of it to serve the many visitors the championships brought to Jamestown.
There were many different elements that made the championships happen, including the volunteers and sponsors who got behind it.
“Volunteers are the backbone of making it all work, we had 5-6 sponsors come on board, money helps these events go ahead, and Sparks Farming provided 2000 sheep for the weekend which was great,” Mr Scharkie said.
Also attending the presentation in Adelaide was Northern Areas Council mayor Sue Scarman, who congratulated Mr Scharkie and the committee for all their hard work.
She said the council was really proud of all who organised and made the championships happen.
“When we selected it for Community Event of the Year, it was really a no brainer to put it up for the state award,” she said.
“It was a group effort, Matt is the driver and is a really good driver and they had really good support from the local community.”
