Last night the pool room of the Young Street Hotel again welcomed the Awesome Newcastle crew as we gathered together to give away $1000 no-strings-attached cash.

This month we had four fabulous guest board members: Nic Minter from Soqual, musician and psychologist Li Laurent, Mel Histon of Got Your Back Sista and Jess Stuart of NIB.

We welcomed three finalists this month, James Bevin of Bangers on a Bike, Hannah Cheetham of Built in Kind (a returning finalist) and Tonya Kelly of Hands of the World.

DJ James went first. He showed us his impressively converted cargo bike with a full DJ setup and a car stereo. He built the bike himself via parts from Facebook Marketplace, and now he rides it around the city djing tunes and making people smile. At the moment he’s using a donated second hand heavy AGM battery that is only 60Ah which means it can’t be powered for more than an hour. Also the cargo bike is heavy, so he’d use the cash to get a new lithium battery which would power the unit for a few hours and save on weight.

Hannah went next. Hannah is the founder of  Built in-Kind, a social enterprise workshop operating out of The Soap Factory in Mayfield East. Buit in-Kind offers design, tool-use and construction skill classes to members of the community, with a particular focus on creating Trauma-Informed, welcoming and safe environments for people who may have experienced marginalisation and social disadvantages. Hannah wants to build a dedicated teaching space to be able to run classes (both for-profit and NFP) and equip it with work benches, tool-racks, storage space and great quality, well-made tools with which to teach classes. She would use the $1000 to purchase high-quality bench vices for their teaching benches.

Our final finalist of the evening was Tonya Kelly. Tonya is a travel agent and also speaks Auslan (Australian Sign Language). She is starting a travel business called Hands of the World which combines her two passions and creates an inclusive space for the Deaf community. She envisions Deaf people experiencing travel tours with guided interpreters. Clients will get to experience world travel for the first time as the majority rather than the minority. The cost is shared amongst the clients, enabling their NDIS plans to go further. She would use the money to pay a Deaf artist to design their uniforms. 
The judges had a difficult task ahead, but of course choices must be made. After a long discussion, we invited Jess to the front to award the money. Jess congratulated everyone and then invited Hannah to the stage to take the cash! Congratulations, Hannah! Also congratulations to all finalists for your great pitches.

A reminder that applications never expire, so we might get you back for another Awesome Newcastle. Also, don’t forget that (like Hannah) you’re always welcome to pitch a new idea too.

Thanks everyone! See you next month!