Newsletter - Issue 01
June 2018
Dear friends, colleagues and NewVote supporters,
I hope you have all had a great start to 2018. With the year now almost half way through, I thought it would be worth taking a moment to reflect and share with you just how far NewVote has come.
I am incredibly thankful for the support, advice and encouragement each of you have given to me and NewVote and our vision for the future of democracy.
Below I outline a few of the achievements from 2017 and 2018 so far...
we will endeavour to provide a monthly update from now on :)
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The prototype of our app is now fully LIVE. Our prototype was made possible by the 2017 Winter Random Hacks of Kindness competition and the tireless work of our CIT, Rohan, our IT adviser, Jay, and our
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coder, Daniel. They have done a magnificent job. If you need help with the prototype, check out our new help page here. Or feel free to email me directly. We need your input and your feedback!
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Organisational structure
We have a detailed business plan which has been reviewed by several start-up specialists. We are registered as an educational charity with the Australian Charity and Not-for-Profit Commission. We also had several discussions with philanthropists and foundations that may be able to provide seed funding this year.
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Our Team
Our team continues to expand. Markedly, we now have a team of coders that all share a strong passion for NewVote.
Pat Orme, the Senior Officer and RAP Engagement Advisor at Reconciliation Australia, has agreed to be our ACT Speaker, so we now have representation in our Nation's capital.
Check out the link on our website here to see who else is on board.
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Australian Collaboration
In November, we hosted the first "Digital Democracy Forum" in Melbourne. This was Australia's first forum that brought together:
NewVote emphasised the need for a more collaborative and unified approach for digital democracy in Australia. The forum was a great success, building the community ties and firmly establishing NewVote in the Australian digital democracy scene.
Special thanks to MiVote for hosting the event at their office!
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We have a Marketing Strategy Plan completed by Juanita Wheeler of Full & Frank, a not-for-profit focused marketing company.
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In September, SwissInfo, Switerland's Public Broadcaster, published my opinion piece. You can read it here.
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Also in November, I was one of eight social change entrepreneurs (out of 44 that applied) to perform a one minute pitch at TedXBrisbane. The video will be available for public viewing once the recordings have passed the Ted Talk review.
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Earlier this month I spoke at the Digital Democracy Forum hosted by RMIT, MiVote and Horizon State in Melbourne. This was a very successful and informative follow up to the first forum last year. You can see the video of my 5 minute pitch here.
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Two weekends ago, I hosted a panel, "Democracy on Trial" at Renewfest which considered the recent citizen jury there. The panel included the Mayor of Byron Shire Council, Simon Richardson, Professor Lyn Carson of newDemocracy Foundation and two jurors, Bobbi Allan and Richard Tarrant.
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Yesterday, my podcast interview by Uncommon was released. It is my first one, so please be kind! It's one hour long! You can listen to it here.
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Ways you can help us
If you would like to help us out, please share this email with your contacts.
And follow us on our socials:
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If you would like to help us even more, check out the list on our website of ways you can help us here.
(If you received this email from a contact, and not from me directly, please register for our newsletter on our website.)
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Thank you and speak again soon
Thank you again for been part of the NewVote story thus far. I look forward to working with each of you as we set out to write the next chapter of NewVote and push to make democracy more democratic.
Please feel free to forward this email to anyone that may be interested, and get in touch with me if you have any questions or wish to discuss the road ahead.
Kind regards
Dion McCurdy / Managing Director
dion@newvote.org.au
www.newvote.org.au
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