Nominations for the annual Shine Awards – a joint initiative between rural and regional newspaper, The Weekly Times, and Harvey Norman – are now open.
For the next three months, audiences are being asked to share their stories and nominate outstanding women for the annual accolade.
The Shine Awards, now in its seventh year, celebrates the achievements and contributions of women across rural and regional Australia, recognising unsung leaders and innovators who are making a real difference in their communities.
Audiences will be encouraged to share stories and nominate women through print, digital and social. The campaign will be supported with digital and print advertisements across The Weekly Times, The Mercury, NT News, The Townsville Bulletin and The Toowoomba Chronicle.
Last year’s overall winner, Emily Riggs was honoured for establishing Iris & Wool, a fashion brand that showcases sustainable wool from Australian growers, including from her family’s farm at Burra in South Australia.
Riggs’ business also commemorates her mother, who passed away after battling breast cancer, and gives a slice of profits to charity to help other families who are fighting the disease. She said taking part in the awards was an amazing experience.
“The award has been a massive professional development opportunity. I can start to feel people in the industry are starting to take me seriously with what I am trying to achieve – being a global brand showcasing the fabulous qualities of Australian Merino Wool along with shining a light on breast cancer and childhood cancer awareness,” Riggs said.
The Shine Awards honours women in six categories: Belief, Courage, Dedication, Grace, Passion and Spirit. A special Youth award is also given to a nominee under the age of 30 who shows great potential to become a leader in her rural community or industry.
Penny Fowler, Herald and Weekly Times chairman and News Corp Australia Community ambassador said: “Stories of Shine nominees have shown how vital women’s efforts are to helping rural communities through some of the toughest times, from drought to bushfires, pandemic to floods.
“We are so proud to share these inspirational and extraordinary stories from across the country, in partnership with Harvey Norman.”
Harvey Norman CEO Katie Page said: “Seven years is a relatively short period and yet in that time drought, bushfire, Covid and floods have been such dominating, inescapable forces.
“The brilliance of the women of Shine is that these collective challenges are not their story; their stories are one of triumph, determination and camaraderie.”
Over the next three months, The Weekly Times, The Australian and other News Corp Australia titles across print and digital, will highlight the outstanding work by women on farms and off them, in rural towns across Australia, in community groups and sporting clubs, in businesses, schools and homes.
Readers will be encouraged to nominate rural and regional women from across the nation.
The awards will culminate with a special 32-page Shine magazine in The Weekly Times on Wednesday November 22 and in The Australian on Thursday November 23, sharing stories of all the category finalists and announcing the six category winners, Youth award winner and overall winner.
Each category winner and the Youth award winner will be awarded a $2500 voucher from Harvey Norman. The overall Shine winner will be awarded $5000.