Holroyd Heritage Awards and Grants 

The Holroyd Heritage Grants and Awards promote good management and culturally aware design.

Awards

The Heritage Awards congratulate and recognise those in the community who have made a contribution to preserving heritage in the Holroyd area.

There are four categories of awards:

• Best Maintained Heritage Property awards private owners for maintaining his or her property.
• Best Restoration Project awards private property owners for good restorations undertaken in the past 2 years.
• Special Heritage Work open to any type of work including written and art works, physical works to a heritage property, heritage studies, archaeological preservation and any other efforts in the heritage field.
• Keeper of the Stone Children between the ages of 5 and 15 are invited to enter. This award seeks stories, research projects, poems, drawings, paintings, videos or anything similar based on this years theme of astronomy: Our Place in Space. Parents, school teachers or others can nominate a child's work.

Winners of the first two categories receive an engraved bronze heritage plaque valued at $500 and prize for the winner of the third category is also to the value of $500. The Keeper of the Stone award winner is made custodian of the Holroyd Heritage Stone for one year and receives a $200 book voucher.

Entries in the Holroyd Heritage Awards must be accompanied by an official entry form or Keeper of the Stone entry form and specify the category being entered. There is also a brochure and guidelines for entrants.

Should you have any enquiries about the Heritage Awards program, please contact Amberley Moore on 9840 9808.

Grants

Holroyd wishes to encourage owners of heritage buildings and items to undertake positive work to their items. Private owners of buildings can apply for a maximum funding of $2000 per project.

For details explaining how the grant works and what may or may not receive funding please read the Local Heritage Fund Guidelines before completing an application for financial assistance.

2009 Heritage Award Winners

The presentation of the 2009 Heritage Awards took place before the Council Meeting on Tuesday 1 September 2009. Seven awards were presented.

Each year Council calls for entries in the five categories that form the Heritage Awards including Best Maintained Heritage Property, Best Restoration Project and the Keeper of the Stone.

This year the focus of entries was on the student awards, the Keeper of the Stone Award, with one nomination received for Best Maintained Heritage Property, and 34 nominations for Keeper of the Stone from three schools (Cerdon College, Our Lady Queen of Peace and Parramatta West Primary School) in the form of tapestries, drawings and written work.

Best Maintained Heritage Property

Certificate of Merit: Joseph and Josephine Assaf, for Harborne, 24 Boundary Street, Parramatta

Keeper of the Stone

Overall winner and Keeper of the Stone: Remona Mekdessi, for a portrait Arthur Todd Holroyd.

Secondary School Group:

• Artwork runner-up: Mary George and Krystal Marie Fares for a poster Holroyd - Our Place.
• Written Runner-up: June Ho for a historical article Our Heritage - Sherwood Scrubs.

Primary School Group:

• Winner: Emily Stoove for a tapestry Our Place in Space (orange and green planet).
  
• Artwork runner-up: Tayla Noble for a tapestry Our Place in Space (Earth plus rocket).
• Written runner-up: Yura Sin for a story Our Place in Space (Professor Neila).

Presented with their awards by Holroyd Mayor Clr Greg Cummings (left to right): Remona Mekdesi, Mary George, Krystal Marie Fares, June Ho, Emily Stoove, Tayla Noble and Yura Sin.