News

Renew Newcastle and GPT win Australia's leading business arts award [25.10.2010]

L-R Petra Hilsen, Amanda Pieriboni, David Sleet, Marcus Westbury, Rod Smith, Marni Jackson

Renew Newcastle and The GPT Group won Australia’s highest award for a partnership between a business and an arts organisation on Thursday 21 October 2010. Their partnership beat out some of Australia’s largest companies and arts organisations as winners of both the Toyota Community Partnerships award and the overall Partnership of the Year at the 10th annual Australia Business Arts Foundation (AbaF) national awards dinner.

After being announced NSW winners in the community partnership category in early September, the Renew Newcastle / GPT partnership was a national finalist at the function before an audience of hundreds of major business leaders and leading arts figures at Randwick Racecourse Pavilion. The award recognises a partnership between a business and an arts organisation which provides benefit to the community, and AbaF’s Gabby Talmadge described the partnership and the initiative as “truly exceptional”.

As National winners in their nominated category, Renew Newcastle and The GPT Group were then considered against the winners of eight other awards categories, to be declared the overall AbaF Partnership of the Year for 2010. The award was presented by Senator Kate Lundy on behalf of Federal Minister for the Arts Simon Crean.

Renew Newcastle Founder and Creative Director Marcus Westbury was proud of the award, which took him by surprise “The winning partnerships in all the other categories were between high profile companies, fantastic arts organisations and some of which involved very large sums of cash. I was shocked that our partnership – which has been done very much on the cheap by providing spaces for more than 60 groups of artists, brought life back to a once dead Hunter Street Mall and reactivated dozens of once empty buildings – could even be in the running.”

While GPT have recently withdrawn their plans for a redevelopment in the Hunter St Mall area, they continue to work comprehensively with Renew Newcastle to actively manage their properties around the site. According to Marcus Westbury although their development is not proceeding they have been “exemplary property owners in the city – they have not let their property’s sit empty and become derelict and instead have used them to incubate new creative enterprises. I hope many other property owners continue to take their lead.”

GPT representative at the awards, David Sleet, Development Manager, was pleased to be acknowledged for the partnership, which involved a leap of faith at the outset, “The GPT / Renew Newcastle partnership has delivered real benefit to the community of Newcastle as the process of CBD revitalisation continues. The initiative works on all levels – culturally, socially, financially and environmentally. GPT is incredibly proud of its association with Renew Newcastle and what we have collectively achieved in building social and cultural capital in Newcastle. There has been a real and positive improvement in this regard. "

We’ve also collected another gong this week – the Newcastle Business Club named us Organisation of the Year in its Annual Awards, for an organisation which has contributed most to what they call the Commonweal of Newcastle. Thank you NBC!