The paper won the Media Monitors Australia Award for best Locally Produced Mono Advertisement (circulation over 4500).

The innovative ad - for loyal Goulburn Post clients Morton Bros Toyworld - was the brainchild of graphic designer Mark Soley and sales representative Brian Hill.

Despite competing against larger, daily papers, judges described our winning entry as a stand-out.

"Morton Bros Toyworld like to think outside the square and they gave us free rein to design something for them that was not product specific," Mr Hill said.

"We came up with a pretty simple, yet eye-catching design (see the picture) that was published in the paper over a three month period, and it proved to be particularly effective."

In the editorial section, the Goulburn Post was lauded for "having a good eye for a story", particularly with regard to our investigative pieces on health and the Kenmore development.

As such, we received a "commendation" in the EC Sommerlad Memorial Award for Editorial Leadership and Community Involvement (which we won in 2000/01 and 2002/03 - and this year won by the Singleton Argus).

As runners-up in the EC Sommerlad Memorial Editorial Writing Award (to the Western Advocate, Bathurst) our pieces on the brothel proposal and water, or the lack of it, were described "well-balanced and even handed".

"The Goulburn Post is a standard bearer for quality editorials for more than a century and it didn't disappoint again," the judges said.

Goulburn Post editor Gerard Walsh praised his team for upholding the newspaper's fine and longstanding tradition of editorial excellence.

"Special mention must also be given to Louise Thrower for her role in preparing the award entries," he said.

The 2005/06 Country Press NSW Awards were staged at the Swissotel Hotel in Sydney on October 27.