Three years is a long time in the magazine world, so here at Sunny Days we’re thrilled to have made it to our third birthday in August this year.

In 1997, Tommy Leung - a guy who had worked with another local streetpress publication, Reverb - saw a gap in the local market. As a new father to Javonte, Tommy knew that local parents were looking for information and interesting stories which spoke to them in the unique voice of our region.

Tommy gathered together a small group of talented friends - under the direction of editor, Adrian Dodd (who is now doing great work with Essential Media Communications in Melbourne) and they set about creating Sunny Days.

And what a baptism of fire it was. Just a few weeks into production and Newcastle was hit by the June 2007 long weekend storms. That weekend is etched into the memories of most locals and it created the tone for the first ever issue in August 2007. This story by Joseph Frost captured the experience of being a parent at that time.

Issue two introduced us to Jodie McEwen with this great piece. Jodie’s talent was immediately obvious and she has gone on to be the longest serving regular Sunny Days contributor.

I grabbed Issue Two at my son’s pre-school. At a career crossroads, I was looking for a way to kickstart my writing career. Seemingly from out of nowhere came the perfect publication for me: I was a mum, I was a Newcastle local, I had journalism qualifications gathering dust in a drawer somewhere. A quick email to Adrian and I had pitched my first piece. With a son who was fixated on superheroes at the time, writing this story really helped me to work out ways of managing his obsession.

In Issue Four, PhD student Rachel Buchanan wrote this lovely piece about the journey of education, while Jodie’s story about grandparents was a highlight of Issue Five.

During this first year Sunny Days suffered a blow when Tommy’s son, Javonte, was diagnosed with haemophilia. The entire office was devastated and Adrian wrote about it at the time in a heartfelt editorial. As Tommy devoted himself to his wife and son Sunny Days looked for support from outside and welcomed on board Copeland Publishing - the company responsible for the ‘Child’ magazines across Australia and the WebChild website.

With Copeland on board our magazine went full gloss and started taking the shape you see today. I came on board as editor and consider myself incredibly fortunate to be one of the team responsible for producing this beautiful and unique free publication.

We’re a little smaller these days but, with the addition of this website, we believe we remain an entertaining and informative resource for local parents. We hope you agree.

To read more of our fabulous stories from the past go here.

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