Julie Rivendell said the plan was “very much about linking Bendigo to the cities of the world”, something that was increasingly important in the current global environment.

The committee’s 2016-19 strategic plan outlines four goals.

Connecting with the community and encouraging it to become more involved in Bendigo’s sister city relationships is one of these goals.

Ms Rivendell said many people were unaware of the committee, nor of the contributions it and sister cites made to Bendigo, such as the Wanderer sculpture at the library, educational exchanges between schools and tourism promotion.

She said the committee provided funding to facilitate exchanges between schools and had developed the sister city gardens at Rosalind Park, while Penzance funded a memorial seat, built by the local men’s shed, in a show of solidarity following the Black Saturday fires.

Another goal outlined in the plan is to “review, strengthen, enhance, develop, and grow sister city relationships”, with the aim of developing a framework to review sister city relationships, increasing measurable outcomes from existing sister cities, developing commercial relationships and exploring potential new sister cities.

The plan also looks at fostering and strengthening strategic partnerships with other organisations within the Bendigo community, including schools and council, and ensuring the sustainability of the committee.

Bendigo has sister city relationships with Los Altos in the USA, Penzance and St Just in the United Kingdom, and Haimen in China.

Ms Rivendell said such relationships contributed to diversity, cultural understanding and more good will.

“The underlying philosophy of sister cities is if you understand other people, you’re less likely to get in conflict with them,” she said.

The first relationship was formed with Los Altos in 1987, after the US city approached Bendigo because of its similarities, both cities being of a similar size, with gold mining histories, universities, wineries, light industries and similar local government structure.

The relationship between Bendigo and Penzance in Cornwall, United Kingdom, was established in 1996 and joined by St Just in 2013, in recognition of the contribution of Cornish miners to the gold rush.

Haimen is the most recent of Bendigo’s sister cities, the relationship having been formally confirmed last year following the Chinese city’s association with Bendigo South East College and Bendigo Senior Secondary College.