To celebrate NAIDOC week, all Shire offices with the exception of Lajamanu will be closed on Monday 8th July, 2013.  Lajamanu office will be closed on Friday 19th July 2013.  The theme for this year's NAIDOC celebrations is We value the vision: Yirrkala Bark Petitions 1963 and proudly celebrates the 50th anniversary of the presentation of the Yirrkala Bark Petitions to the Federal Parliament.

For more information please visit http://www.naidoc.org.au/celebrating-naidoc-week/2013-national-naidoc-week-theme/. 

Have you seen the amazing talents of the Central Desert Shire Council's Youth Tune Roadshow? Check out the local talent in this short video.

Talented Central Desert Shire Musicians were on display in the Youth Tunes Roadshow in April through a series of Concerts. From West to East the musicians travelled through Yuelamu, Laramba, Ti Tree, Engawala and Atitjere to perform and give other local talent the chance to impress.

Carl Inkamala (Engawala), Ronston Campbell (Laramba), Elwin Daniels (Laramba) and Raymond Reef (Atitjere) were the core roadies who travelled to help local teams in each community to setup, practice and perform.

It was a tiring schedule for all involved with five concerts in five communities in five nights with almost two thousand kilometres of driving in between. Each day the crew would wake up, clean the facility from the previous night, pack the car and trailer, travel to the next venue, setup, teach a few musical chords to community members, practice and then perform till late in the night.

When night fell and each concert began whole communities went to the venues to dance, cheer and enjoy the sausage sizzles. The best musician from each community was awarded a highly prized ipod. Congratulations to Josiah (Yuelamu), Lawrence (Laramba), Ti Tree (Richard), David (Engawala) and Michael (Atitjere) for winning in their communities. There were also a lot of great prizes given to the best dancers.

The Central Desert Shire event was run by the Sport and Recreation program with support from the NT Government and Beyond Blue as a Youth Week event.