Last night another spectacular Awesome Newcastle came and went in the Young Street Hotel in Carrington. We munched and mingled in the Pool Room, welcoming back some familiar guest board members including Adrienne Donnelly of Organised By Adrienne and Alex Brennan of Hunter iF. First time guest board dog Wolfgang also joined in for the fun!

Our phenomenal finalist this month were Marlenn Guihot of Tubes 4 Boobs, Marina Weitz of One Thread Road, and Lee Illfield of Newy friends.  Our host Alex Morris welcomed everyone, explained how Awesome Newcastle and The Awesome Foundation works, and then we got down to business of giving away $1000 no-strings-attached cash.

Tubes4Boobs went first. Surfer Marlenn brought to the front of the room fellow Tubes4Boobs advocate and surfer Matty Rawson. Marlenn explained that his wife Courtney’s mother was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2012 at age 47 followed by her grandmother shortly after. Inspired by Marlenn’s love of surfing, she organised a longboard surfing competition in Newcastle to raise awareness and funds to help in the fight against breast cancer. The event holds seven surfing divisions, featuring the crowd favourite tag team event where surfers don bras to raise awareness and support for Cancer Council. Since it began in 2015 , Tubes4Boobs has raised more than $80,000 for Hunter Cancer Council. They would put the Awesome money  towards the costs of running their next event. Marina went next. She explained that her new business, One Thread Road is an online, peer-to-peer platform for lending and renting quality fashion. Her mission is to reduce fashion waste by circulating clothes that people already own. She believes everyone has items in their wardrobes that they don’t want to sell, but they aren’t currently wearing (or don’t wear enough). A vast amount of resources go into producing apparel, and the amount of wears an item gets directly influences its environmental impact. The more times an item gets worn, the less its impact! She would use the money to pay for platform fees and marketing costs to help get her business off the ground.

Last but not least was Lee! Lee bounded onto the stage to tell us about her new initiative and mission to help people find friends the old-school way!  She’s created kind, intentional, inclusive bi-monthly picnics where people get to know each other face-t0-face rather than from behind a screen. This is Lee’s fun and friendly solution to the loneliness epidemic. She would use the money to buy food and drinks on the day, to purchase resources such as picnic blankets and a speaker system and to create merch to help promote the event in the community.

The judges took their time deciding, but at last they had to make a decision. We welcomed board member Brooke Stevenson to the stage to announce the winner. Brooke shared a story with the board about how at the age of 4 she competed and won in the tandem long board Steel City Malibu Competition with her dad. It was the perfect story and segue to announce our winner this month, Tubes4Boobs! Congratulations to Marlenn, Matty, Courtney and all the Tubes4Boobs team. Good luck for the next competition.

Thank you as well to all our wonderful finalists and good luck with your great ideas. Remember, applications never expire. There’s a chance we might get you back again for another Awesome Newcastle!