Awesome Newcastle was virtually vivacious and digitally dynamic again last night, for the third month in a row. Despite distance, board members checked in, gave money, watched pitches, discussed, debated and voted to make a difference.

We welcomed three returning guest board members last night: Becky Kiil of Newcastle Afoot and previous winner of Awesome Newcastle, Anna Lundmark of Hunter Water and previous board member and Jacqui Daley of Measured Marketer and frequent guest board member.

Our three finalists were Sheona Malcolm-Green from The Re: Club, Jason Newell with his Predation board game and Ashleigh Campbell with her Zeitgeist exhibition.

Sheona went first.

Founded in January, The Re: Club are Sheona and her friend Jasmine. The two are on a mission to keep clothing out of landfill. Their goal is to create a new way of shopping for reloved fashion through beautifully styled pop-up events, educational workshops and their newly launched online shop. The Re: Club offers a new way to trade in the clothes you no longer wear via a membership program and be rewarded with points on an account to spend on lots of new re-loved items from their online shop or pop-up events. They want to expand from Newcastle and have members nation-wide, and they would use the money to facilitate courier services to do so.

Next up Jason explained Predation.

Jason is a high school teacher and puppet designer. Predation is a board game he’s been developing for several years now. In the game, you take the role of a group of predatory animals (wolves, bears, crocodiles, etc) and attempt to be more successful at thriving through the hunting of prey species. He would use the money to create a professional looking prototype for the game and to cover transport and accommodation to display the game at gaming conventions.

Last but not least we had Ashleigh

Ash is an unpaid intern at Newcastle ArtSpace curating 2020’s art exhibition for Octapod for Newcastle’s annual ‘This is Not Art’ festival. This show, Zeitgeist, will exhibit emerging artists in the Hunter Valley area and cover all types of mediums (fine art, abstract, sculpture, ceramics, interactive audio, installation, etc). It will challenge the idea of what art is and demonstrate the types of art coming out of the area in 2020. She would use the money to pay for the two week period she’d have Zeitgest exhibited at the Newcastle ArtSpace Gallery.

Some judges joined a zoom call, others just made a solo call, but together ballots were cast and a decision was reached. Congratulations to Jasmine and Sheona from The Re: Club for being this June’s Awesome winner! We wish you the best moving forward, but we’re also happy to learn about Ashleigh and Jason’s projects, and we hope you all keep in touch.

Awesome Newcastle is always looking for guest board members and good ideas, so if you’re interested in getting involved, please apply today via our website.

Thanks for reading. We’ll see you next month; maybe even in person!