Drum roll please! The results are in and it’s time to announce the winners of Naracoorte Lucindale Council’s “Better by Nature” Community Wellbeing Short Film and Photo Competition.

Forty-four entries were received for the competition across all categories and entries were judged by a panel of four Elected Members.

Community members were also given the opportunity to vote for two People’s Choice Awards.

Short film winners were: Grace and Matilda Doolan for “Better by Nature” in the Under 10 years category; Liv Neagle for “The Nature of Naracoorte’s People” in the 10-18 years category; and Annabelle Haynes for “Love Where You Live” in the Over 18 years category.

Tayla Standley was runner-up in the 10-18 years category for her short film “Naracoorte By Nature”.

Photo winners were: Eddy Ottoson-Crossling for “Feathers” in the Under 10 years category; Rachael Bird for “Into the Woods” for the 10-18 years category; and Meg Clothier for “Silly Ewe” for the Over 18 years category.

Photo runners-up were: Eddy Ottoson-Crossling for “Koppamurra Colours” in the Under 10 years category; Mahalia Grigg for “ANZAC Morning” in the 10-18 years category; and Kelsie Moyle-Read for “Monday Morning” in the Over 18 years category.

First prize winners received $150 cash and a $150 voucher from any business of their choice located in the Council area, while runners-up received $100 cash and a $100 voucher.

Winners in the People’s Choice Awards were Annabelle Haynes for her short film “Love Where You Live” and Therese Oliver for her photo “Reflections by Day”.

Polling for the People’s Choice Awards was done on the Council’s Your Say website and attracted a huge amount of interest, with hundreds of votes submitted.

Community members could vote for their favourite photo and short film with the creator of the highest-polling entry in each category awarded a $100 voucher.

Competition voucher winners chose their vouchers from a diverse range of local businesses including Naracoorte Sportspower, Naracoorte Motorcycles and Mowers, Limestone Surf, Amali, Beauty at Rivoli, Tender Cuts, Hutchison’s Nursery, Office National, RM Electronics and Shearing World.

The focus of the “Better by Nature” competition was to drive community wellbeing, with the competition theme, “Better by Nature”, reflecting the district’s brand and sending a message of hope.

The entries were created during May and had to be original works depicting locations in Naracoorte Lucindale. They also had to tell us something about what it’s like to live in our area and what they enjoy about it.

Mayor Erika Vickery OAM, who was a member of the judging panel for the awards, presented the prizes at a presentation at the Naracoorte Town Hall this afternoon.

She said panel members were extremely impressed with the creativity and standard of the entries, and announced that Council would run the competition again next year following its success this year.

Mayor Vickery also thanked everyone for all the effort they had put into their entries and looked forward to seeing them feature in material promoting the Council area.

View the films and photos by clicking here.  To view the photo gallery of the winners click here.