Last week
myself, Mark , Jess (from Changing Futures) and a few of the Student
Ambassadors headed to the Baltic in Newcastle for the POSBOs awards ceremony. An
event that we held in June known as Game-con won an award for the best youth
event in 2016.
The GameCon event
first started in 2015 and was created as an event that students would enjoy
running. Students Thomas Black, Andrew Smales, Sam Henderson, Rory Williamson
and Student Services team leader Mark Lee devised the idea when thinking about
ways to engage with students and the wider public:
'We wanted
something that would appeal to people of all ages and be very unique. We are
all gamers with lots of retro and modern gaming systems, so it seemed like the
perfect opportunity to run a gaming event.'
Changing Futures
was picked as a charity for the event due to their inspirational work with
young people; particularly teenagers from the Hartlepool area.
'The team at
Changing Futures were fantastic in 2015 and again in 2016. Jess Watson really
helped us and promoted the event across the town. Our fundraising also made a
big difference to their cause which was great to see.'
This year we
managed to gain sponsorship from Hartlepool Domino’s Pizza, the college
providing their Aerospace flight simulator and Teesside University Game Design
tutors, students and Virtual Reality games in attendance.
We managed to
smash last year’s total by raising a massive £208! It was a fabulous event and
we couldn’t believe it when we were nominated for a POSBOs and the fact we won
it was even better!!
We're already
planning GameCon 2017 and this has given us the confidence to make it our
biggest, best one yet!'