The Shire is very proud to announce the graduation of three ESO staff at the recent graduation ceremony in Alice Springs. The ceremony was held at the Desert Lantern Restaurant on Friday 18 October.

Leston Spencer, Gibson Long and Marcus Briscoe were presented with their Certificate II in Remote Area Essential Services and enjoyed a lunch with their classmates and representatives from Charles Darwin University, Power Water and Central Desert Shire.

These men have been working for 18 months attending four blocks of training in Alice Springs and on site training and assessment on their communities.

Significant assistance was provided by a range of people including Derek Cooper from CDU, Jon Harris from PWC and Group Training Northern Territory. Glenn Irvine, Ian Jackson, Ashley Rice and Phil Littler from CDS also consistantly supported the training and development of the Trainees.

This qualification has enabled Gibson and Marcus to be appointed as the ESO's at Yuelamu where they look after the recently commissioned water treatment plant in addition to their routine ESO duties that includes looking after the airstrip.

The Shire is commited to training and the development of skills that enable local people to perform jobs in their community that are well paying and fulfilling at both vocational and emotional levels.

Please contact your RJCP provider if you are interested in working with the ESO in your community. Alternately you can contact Trevor Twyman, our Essential Services Supervisor, on 0458 447 746.

Central Desert Shire won 2 major awards at the Territory Tidy Towns Awards on Saturday night.

Our Central Australian Waste Management Program took out the Best Waste Management Initiative award, in conjunction with Mac Shire and Barkly Shire, for our regional partnership.

This recognised the great work all 3 Shires have done with landfill upgrades, and demonstrates the value of a collaborative regional partnership. This initiative was funded by the NTG Dept of Health, assisted by LGANT (the Local Government Association of the NT), hosted by Central Desert Shire, coordinated by Geof Taylor (using Dept Health funds) and enacted by our hard working Core Services staff in each community. Congratulations to all parties involved.

The Yuendumu landfill won the NT’s Most Improved Landfill (Tip Top Tip) award. This is a great achievement for a landfill that was looking rather sad at the start of this year.

The Shire developed a master plan at the start of 2013 which was enacted masterfully by the Yuendumu works crew, led ably by the RSM and the Yuendumu field with significant assistance from our Landfill Upgrade manager. The team filled and covered several open (full) rubbish pits, set up a recycling drop off area, locked the fenced compound, set up a cardboard disposal pit for the stores’ cardboard, set up a new car body area, set up a scrap metal area and are on the verge of opening an Asbestos disposal pit. This will be the very first Asbestos disposal pit for any Shire in the NT. All up, it has been an exceptional effort by all and the landfill is now ‘best practice’.

 Well done Central Desert Shire.