Awesome Newcastle September is all art!

This Wednesday night we kicked off yet another digital Awesome Newcastle with our regular radiant board members and three exceptional guest board members. Because of its remote nature, some of us had drinks from our offices, some of us Zoomed together and some of us voted later in the night. Regardless we all found a way to make time for our community on a week night.

For this month we welcomed returning guest board member Amber Moncrieff of Hunter Plastic Surgery and two first time guest board members, Steve Denshire of Goodwood Constructions and Britten Thompson of Handyman Can. Our host sent the email to introduce the finalists, our board kindly and trustingly transferred money and then we all got comfortable watching the videos from our three finalists.

First up was author Kassia Klinger who told us about Sculptures in Newcastle Australia. She told us how SINA wish to create a public-walk featuring durable, inspiring sculptures along the Hunter Harbourside, through the CBD and beyond as a legacy for the city of Newy.

Next up we had Dino Dig. Dino Dig hides dinosaur artworks around Newcastle for the people to find. All works are posted to the dino.dig.newcastle Instagram account, which encourages community involvement, as well as supporting local businesses and artists. The project is also a big advocate for repurposing hard waste materials that would otherwise be heading to landfill.

And our final finalist for the evening was Jenny McCracken. Jenny would like to produce piece of pavement art to say ‘thank you’ to the community for keeping their distance and keeping us all safe over the last few months. She sees this as a positive public message to remind people of the need to still adhere to social distancing and hygiene practices.

The board were in for a tough one, especially with so many interesting local artistic endeavors. After discussions and votes, we decided that while we absolutely LOVED all the applicants, Dino Dig would get the $1000 this month. Congratulations, Dino Dig, whoever you are!

(Dino Dig contributed a special Awesome Newcastle Dino Dig after we told him he won!)

Thanks again to all the lovely finalists and board members who were involved this month. Remember, applications never expire and we’re always on the hunt for guest board members, so if you’d like to be involved just investigate our website.