Australia Day is an opportunity to momentarily pause from our busy lives and reflect on what makes this nation the greatest in the world to live in.

I invite all our residents to Victoria Park on Monday to join your fellow citizens and celebrate Australia. 

We will start the day from 7.30am with a free barbecue and the official ceremony will start at 8.30am. The Australia Day Council has assigned Janine Perrett to be our ambassador for the day and I am certain she will deliver an interesting address.

Perhaps the greatest thrill will be the Citizenship Ceremony where we will have 31 people from 12 nations become Aussies. 

It will be incredibly exciting for these 31 people but I also see a real thrill in an Australia Day audience when they realise that so many people want to adopt Australia as their home.

I look forward to seeing you there on Monday – and bring your swimmers as the pool will be allowing entry for just a gold coin donation for an hour after the ceremony. 

While it is a thrill for me to see new citizens coming to Australia and then choosing Dubbo to live, I also get a thrill out of the medical students who choose Dubbo as the place to continue their medical studies.

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THIS Thursday night I will have the opportunity to welcome the new intake of students attending the University of Sydney School of Rural Health here in Dubbo. 

The data shows, quite conclusively, that medical students who study in regional areas have a propensity to live in regional areas once they are fully qualified.

Not only does this bode well for the future of medical facilities in Dubbo but it also benefits the region.

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WHILE I was away last week I read with interest some of the discussions involving Evocities.

In my opinion, Evocities is the greatest regional marketing activity that I have seen in my time on Council.

The brand was only launched just over four years ago and so far the results have been fantastic.

I hope that our Council, and our other six partners, continue to back the Evocities brand for many years to come.

It is important that we keep measuring results and seeing the outcomes from the marketing but as a group of seven cities we can achieve much more than seven individual cities trying to market ourselves.

Mayor Mathew Dickerson