2008 Sydney Harbour Week Awards

Lifetime Achievement

Professor Frank Talbot – Chair of the Board of the Sydney Institute of Marine Science at Chowder Bay.

• Talbot has worked tirelessly to establish the Sydney Institute of Marine Science (SIMS) at Chowder Bay. The not-for-profit Institute provides and promotes collaboration and research in urban marine ecology. Its facilities – including laboratories, lecture theatres, and conference/meeting facilities – are available to universities and government agencies, including 48 scientists and their students.
  
• Numerous PhD projects are currently being worked on at the Institute, including a study into the mysterious mourning cuttlefish, found in many Sydney Harbour locations.
  
• The facilities are helping us retain some of our best qualified marine biologists in Sydney, enabling them to study and work at their ‘front door’ rather than losing them to the likes of the Great Barrier Reef.
  
• Although officially retired Professor Talbot still devotes a good deal of his time to the Institute, its operations and funding as the Honorary Chair of the Board.
  
• Members of the public are invited to tour the Sydney Institute of Marine Science facility at 10am on the first Friday of each month. They will also have an open day on 2 March with a series of free lectures as part of Sydney Harbour Week.

Artist

Andi Mether – organiser of Chalk the Walk Urban Art Festival

• Mether is the brains trust behind The Chalk the Walk Urban Art Festival on Pyrmont Bridge.
  Chalk the Walk now in its fourth year is an extremely popular interactive festival which provides Sydney artists the opportunity to create their artworks in front of the public on the heritage-listed Pyrmont Bridge.
  
• Each work is constructed in chalk pastels on the bridge, with donation boxes collecting money for charities such Father Riley’s Youth off the Street. The festival creates a living art gallery and is able to engage people who wouldn’t normally visit galleries.
  
• Each year the festival grows in popularity. Approximately 120,000 people visited the most recent festival in which 40 artists created works and 20 musicians entertained. School excursions and sponsor programs visited and contributed to the works.

Environment

Angelika Treichler

• Manly-based retired teacher Treichler successfully lobbied Manly Council in 2006 to ensure unleashed dogs were banned from where penguins roost.
• Since 2006, Angelika has personally guarded the Fairy Penguin colony during breeding season – a dedication that averages four to five hours each night over eight months of the year.
  
• She also coordinates up to 30 volunteers to record penguin numbers for National Parks and Wildlife.
  
• Angelika is tireless in her work and I’m told is now lobbying against residential and commercial developments in the Manly area in order to protect the habitat of endangered species – including bandicoots, rare red-hooded toadlets and fairy penguins.
  

Heritage

Alan Simon, on behalf of the seven “No Frills” divers (Alan Simon, Phillip Hendrie, Anthony Hay, David Muir, David Arnold, Greg Kearns, Paul Baggott) responsible for finding the long lost M24 Japanese midget submarine on the bed of Sydney Harbour in 2006.

• They are not part of a diving club, rather a group of seven mates who have been getting together to dive in and around Sydney Harbour for many years.
  
• On Sunday 12 November 2006 they found the long-lost Japanese midget submarine M24 that sank after invading Sydney Harbour in 1942.
  
• The sub killed 21 sailors aboard the HMAS Kuttabul at Garden Island, but went undiscovered for 64 years.
  
• News of the find made headlines around the world. Before the guys found the site – about 6km from Newport and 60m under water - there have been more than 40 ‘false’ discoveries of the sub.
  
• The site is now protected for scientific and ongoing management.

Indigenous

Alexandria Park Community School

• The school is recognised for their unique project to create a traditional stringy bark canoe – known as a ‘nowey’ - in the tradition of the local Aboriginal (Eora Nation) craft. It is believed the last of these canoes was made more than 100 years ago.
  
• The canoe was launched and paddled around Cockle Bay by one of the students to an audience of more than 150,000 on Australia Day this year.
  
• In recognition of the historic Sydney maritime achievement, the nowey is being displayed in the Rocks Discovery Museum.
  
• The school is now continuing the traditional Sydney bark canoe construction in its curriculum – for indigenous and non-indigenous students.

Tourism

Dominic Coleman - Sydney Harbour Escapes (pictured right)

• Coleman has built a successful boat chartering business from scratch, starting in 2000 with one boat which has grown to the current fleet of 70 self-drive and skippered vessels.
  
• Coleman has overseen the creation of educational packages, such as the Sydney Harbour History Tour – popular with international tourists.
  
• Sydney Harbour Escapes has more than 1000 pages on its website – providing access to information on Sydney Harbour’s natural beauty and attributes to people all over the world.
  
• Coleman is constantly thanked by people for his acts of kindness – saving animals, assisting people stranded on the water and donating countless self-drive gift vouchers to schools and other organisations.

Community – (joint ANMM)

Vivian Balmer and Paul Maile – volunteers with the Australian National Maritime Museum

• Balmer and Maile have been volunteers at the museum since 1991 and 1995 respectively, devoting their time and expertise in assisting with the preservation and documentation of maritime historical photographic material in the National Maritime Collection.
  
• They have been involved in a number of projects ie the Samuel J Hood Collection which captures shipping and harbour life in Sydney from 1890s to 1950s and consists of approx 7000 nitrate, acetate and glass plate negatives that needed to be inventoried, sorted, housed, assessed and identified. It was almost 10 years before the collection was made fully accessible to the public and future generations.
  
• The pair have tirelessly dedicated two days per week, for approx 10 years to volunteer at the museum.

Community – (joint ANMM)

Alfred Knight (pictured far right)

• Knight has been a volunteer at the Australian Maritime Museum since June 1999 - volunteering more than 2275 hours – as a guide with Senior Cruises and Harbour Cruises.
  
• He has managed and worked on various projects including managing tours of the museum’s fleet of heritage warships by junior officers from HMAS Creswell, RAN, Jervis Bay. These tours allow RAN recruits to be familiarised with the Navy of the past and are able to place their own careers in context.
  
• Knight assists in giving tours of, and providing maintenance to the museum’s vessel HMAS Vampire

 

Community – (joint SHF)

Bernie Norington (pictured below right)

• After a career spent as a fitter and turner and marine engineer – on land and at sea – Norington joined the Sydney Heritage Fleet in 1992, providing his leadership and service on all of the fleet’s operative vessels, and being appointed Engineering Superintendent.
  
• In the years from 2003 to 2007, he clocked up more than 2657 volunteer hours with the SHF.
  
• Norington lives on the waterfront at Birchgrove and, as a keen boat owner and proud Sydney Harbour resident, makes it his job to remove any rubbish that floats past the general area.

Community – (joint SHF)

Hilary Hansen (pictured left)

• 70-year-old Hansen’s entire working life, since the age of 15, has revolved around Sydney Harbour, continuing his contribution by volunteering three or more days each week for the Sydney Heritage Fleet.
  
• He retired from NSW Water Police as Snr Sergeant after training countless junior officers and other personnel.
  
• In his SHF volunteer work, he is able to pass on many skills – including rigging/ rope work, seamanship, boating safety, coppersmithing and pipe work.

 

Community – (joint SHF)

Bruce Hitchman of Sydney Heritage Fleet

• 80-year-old Hitchman began his association with Sydney Harbour in 1964 employed by the MSB as Sydney and Botany Bay pilot until retiring in 1987.
  
• He has done a lot of volunteer work with Sailability Australia.
  
• He is currently serving as First Mate aboard the James Craig’s second cruise to Melbourne, but often serves as Master. At the age of 78 he was still climbing the rigging. While still a Sydney Harbour pilot, he built, sailed and raced catamarans including the 18-footer Stingray, which became a national class.
  
• He participated successfully in the 1998 Sydney-Hobart and also in the 1991 Melbourne to Osaka short-handed race in his first mono-hull vessel that he only recently lost in the 2007 storms.

NSW Maritime is a proud supporter of the Sydney Harbour Week Awards.