A resident for more than 30 years, Mr Hurley has been an active volunteer with many organisations including the Queenscliff Music Festival, Community Association, golf club, the Swan Bay Environment Association, Swan Bay Gardens for Wildlife, and Trinity Aid for Refugees.
He was also instrumental in establishing the Queenscliff Neighbourhood House and, more recently, has volunteered his time to support those living with Parkinson’s Disease.
“I am very honoured, but there’s also a lot of other people involved. This is a tremendous community for volunteers, it’s also a tremendous community for being involved with things like the music festival, or schools, the golf club,” Mr Hurley said. “It’s just so nice to be involved in a lot of those things.
Talented junior water polo player Alexandra Scorgie and Point Lonsdale Surf Life Saving Club junior captain Belle Kidd shared joint Junior Citizens of the Year.
Alexandra has been identified a future star of the sport. She has captained the Victorian U/16 team and was named most valuable player in the State Water Polo Championships.
Over the past two years Belle has reached 100 hours of voluntarily patrolling the Point Lonsdale back beach. She has assisted in Bronze Medallion and Cadet life saving camps and was instrumental in, and captained Queenscliff’s first all-girl football team. Belle is also a badged netball umpire and last season coached a junior Queenscliff netball team.
Queenscliff Primary School’s Biggest Morning Tea is the Community Event of the Year. The event raised more than $1,300 for cancer research.
Having removed 210,000 square metres of weeds from across 12 work sites in the Borough since 2013, Conservation Volunteers Australia was named Community Environment Project of the Year.