Last night we enjoyed our second Awesome Newcastle at The Criterion in Carrington. After months of bouncing around Newy, we’re so happy to have found a new home for Awesome Newcastle. We munched on tasty chippies and sipped on bubbly bevvies and settled in for a night of great ideas.

Along with our fabulous permanent board members, we welcomed three guest board members including first timer Emily Wilson of Rumble Social Media. We were happy to see returning guest board members Jacqui Daley of The Measured Marketer and Amber Moncrieff of Hunter Plastic Surgery.

For June we had diverse collection of ideas from three inspiring women. We introduced Brittany Bloomer from Pound Paws, Artist Jess La Croix from NoBadDays and Photographer Jo Miller.   Brittany drove up from Sydney to attend Awesome Newcastle (LEGEND), and she was first up. She told us her plans for her charity Pound Paws to present ‘Honeysuckle Dog Day’, a community place-making initiative which would raise awareness about pet adoption. The event would have with 15 stalls, dog shows, acoustic music, food and dogs available for adoption. She would use the money towards event management/planning, PR/Marketing, staging, public liability insurance.Next up was artist Jess. She takes on a range of creative endeavours including building and designing skate decks and hand painting them. She told us about her passion project, NoBadDays, where she offers tshirt silkscreening and pop-up art classes free of charge for children with special needs. She would use the funding to pay for art supplies, costs for venue hire and rental of space to provide art shows for children as well as to produce hand-silkscreened tees and artwork to go towards this.    

Jo was our final finalist. She told us about an iconic spot at the top of a hill in her suburb in Merewether. A few year ago a kid built a seat into the railings and made a small astro turf lawn in front. Then this year locals installed a street library next to the seat. Jo has been taking photos of happy people using the seat; the photos tell the story of a place and a community. She would use the money  to print 100 copies of a 20 page photo book to distribute across the community.

The judges had a tough task ahead of them, but they were up for the challenge. They deliberated, debated and reached a conclusion.We welcomed guest judge Amber up to announce the winner, and she passed the cash along to Brittany from Pound Paws. We love her idea and can’t wait for her event. We’re stoked to see more pet adoptions happening in the Newcastle region! We reminded our fabulous finalists that applications never expire, so there’s a chance we might see them again at another Awesome Newcastle!

If you have an Awesome idea for Newcastle, please apply via this website. (Remember we’re a fan of applications under 15o words.) Also, we’re always on the look out for guest board members to make a difference, and you can apply for this via our website as well. Thanks for reading, and keep watching Awesome Newcastle.