Awesomely, the accidental theme at last night’s Awesome Newcastle was family. Held in The Edwards cushy and comfortable front bar, July’s Awesome Newcastle was all about looking after yourself and your loved ones. From caring for children to caring for mums to carefully outfitting them all, each finalists sounded very… familiar!

We welcomed three lovely guest board members Daniel Kemp, the general manager A.P.Eagers, Courtney Jones from Your Spirit Journey and Sharon Magin. We enjoyed wine, discussed ideas and then determined which finalist would take home $1,000 no-strings-attached cash.

July’s lovely finalists are Anne Kempton from Be Calm, Peta Purcell from Mother and Joey and Anastasia Dunstan from More Than A Mumma.

Anne spoke first, and she’s actually a previous Awesome Newcastle winner. She won this February’s Awesome Newcastle with her Deeper Voice of Textiles project. She runs the local Timeless Textiles Gallery. Now she’s awesomely returned to July’s Awesome Newcastle with another finalist from February! She teamed up with Christy White from Firstchance who runs a play group for children with intellectual disabilities called Little Ones. Timeless Textiles has adopted a community project called Be Calm, and together the two women are going to create approximately 100 weighted comforters to be auctioned to raise funds for the Little Ones Playgroup. An additional 20 weighted comforters will be made for each of the children in the playgroup. These comforters help calm and relax the children. 

Next up we welcomed Peta from Mother + Joey. A mother of three children under five, Peta has, with a friend, created an Australian-made fashion label dedicated to family. Not only does she create matching outfits for mothers and children, but she’s also supporting the “slow fashion” movement. Her business works to keep the traditional skills of pattern designing, dress making and high-quality tailoring alive. She shared with us how far she’s come in her journey and her big dreams for Mother and Joey in the future.

Our final candidate for the evening was Anastasia’s More Than A Mumma project which is an initiative committed to strengthening the mental health and overall wellbeing of mums by increasing their opportunities for connection. Anastasia came up with the idea to organise events where mums could gather to learn about self worth and self love. She told us if she won the money she would use it for venue hire and facilitator hire of experts to deliver the content.

Then the heated deliberations began. After much discussion, guest board member Dan gave an elegant speech thanking all our finalists. And then he handed the cash along to July’s Awesome Newcastle winner, Anastasia! The group gave a big round of applause to her and all candidates. We reminded them that applications never expire, and, as the case last night, there’s more than one opportunity to be a guest at Awesome Newcastle.

Stay tuned for August’s Awesome Newcastle winner. If you have an awesome idea, apply today!