Melbourne’s Councilors and Mayors of Greek heritage were honored for their contribution to public life, by the Greek Community of Melbourne (GCM) in a special event organised, at the Greek Centre.
The event was presented by the former mayor and State minister John Pantazopoulos and was attended by councilors and members of the GCM Board of Directors.
During the event, Mr. Pantazopoulos and the President of GCM Mr. Bill Papastergiadis OAM welcomed the Councillors and congratulated them for their important work.
Welcoming everyone in the Greek Centre, Mr. Pantazopoulos said:

“On behalf of the Greek Community of Melbourne, I would like to welcome you all here
tonight. It is a pleasure to have you all here. We are all proud of your efforts. It is very
important that there are people of Greek heritage, with Greek names, in public life. This is
really a good thing about multiculturalism.”

He then congratulated the President of the GCM Mr. Papastergiadis and the Board of
Directors for organizing the event.
Mr Papastergiadis said:

“We are honoured to have with us today all the Greek councilors and mayors from the
Melbourne area and Victoria in general. From my perspective and I think of the perspective of
the entire Board, it is important to bring together the strong elements we have within our
community so that we can work cohesively and cooperatively in terms of what the big
pictures are, that we need to encounter, work on and hopefully will bring results. You all are
incredibly important parts of our community.
I don’t think we have done enough as a community to support you and also to reward and
thank you for the hard work you are doing. You carry a lot of the aspirations of our
community through the work you are doing.
What we want to do as a GCM is to make sure that the general Greek community knows
about you and have a face to the name of the people that they represent them. We are proud of the work you are doing, we want to cooperate in the future and to help you in any way we can.”

Then all councilors and mayors were called on the stage to receive a special plaque
presented to them by members of the GCM’s Board of Directors.