The first official function held in the new room, the 2018 iteration saw Dayne Pool from Hunter Area Plumbing named as the overall winner in a competitive field that generated more than 1000 nominations.

In giving his acceptance speech, Mr Pool said that he had always tried to go above and beyond when it came to his business adding that he was “stoked” with the win.

“Our mission is to push great customer service and strive to be a point of difference especially with tradespeople – we try to be better at everything that people don’t like about trades.”

The awards are run by the Cessnock Chamber of Commerce and this year saw eight categories listed – Trade, Hospitality, Business Owner, Team, Retail, Professional, Community Services and Overall.

Lotus Holstein from Burgerfiend won the Hospitality category, while Ebony Keley from Exquisite Cakes by Lennert was named runner-up.

The Trade category went to Karisha Norley from Vivid Hairdressing while Sign Style’s Donna-Marie Pringle was awarded runner-up.

Vanessa Alder from Kurri Kurri Community Centre took home second place in the Community Services category, a close second to Kerri Auld from Kurri Kurri Library.

In the Retail category, it was Tara Herring from Sports Power Cessnock who nabbed top honours while Richelle Stirrat from West End Pharmacy took home second place.

Dayne Pool won the Business Owner category, with Simone Palfreyman of Palfreyman Chartered Accountants named runner-up while the Commonwealth Bank and Baume were named runner up and winner in the Team category respectively.

The Professional category was won by Rachel Bailey from Belle Property while Beyond Bank’s Amanda Wyborn was named runner-up

Chamber President Clint Ekert said the night was a roaring success.

“Its been such a great year, especially with more than 1000 people nominated it was really really exciting. Also the increase in the team nominations from 40 to 120 that just goes to show that’s what people want,” he said.

Mr Ekert added that choosing winners in each category was nigh on impossible for the judging panel with the bar set high for 2018.

“All of the nominations were incredibly close,” he said.

“This year was the first year we did a number based score and for the most part there was only one or two points between them.

“When you get a list of finalists and there’s two points between seven people, it becomes very difficult.”