I’ve worked with Tami Tate from Triple T Consulting last year for Courtnall Celebrity Classis Golf Tournament. We were two of about ten women who helped as Silent Auction cabinet. After the successful event, we got together for a meal and I had an absolute blast meeting and connecting with powerful women in the cabinet.
So I was delighted to hear from Tami, asking me to model for a fashion show for WIN(Women In Need) fundraising gala on Friday, May 4th.
WIN has been in greater Victoria community for 20 years, supporting women and creating opportunity for self-sufficiency. It’s a cooperative; they work together with other organizations such as Bridges For Women Society, Transition House, and Inter-Cultural Association.
I was in WIN Cook Street store the other day to try on various outfits from the consignment store. You wouldn’t believe the quality. Shoko, who works at WIN picked some excellent items for me. I am dying to tell you what I’m wearing, but I’ll leave it as a surprise.
This was my first time to be in a WIN store, and I was reminded that I should shop there often; having a toddler boy means that you are constantly looking for new clothes for him as he wear them out very quickly. You’ll be supporting women in your community by shopping for what you need; it literally is WIN WIN.
I’m excited to be part of Fashion with Passion event – it will be held at Ocean Pointe this Friday, May 4th. Tickets are available online. I hope to see you there.
What: WIN’s fourth annual Fashion with Passion Fundraising Gala
Dinner, Live auction and fashion show
When: Friday, May 4th, 2012
Where: Delta Ocean Pointe Resort
Ticket: $80 for an individual ticket. Tables of 10 can be purchased.
As I mentioned in my last post, I was in Toronto last week for Blissdom Canada conference. I had many amazing conversations and connections with old and new friends. Some of them asked what I was up to these days. This was my answer.
“Three very talented women and myself are planning a conference for women, Breathe Now in Victoria in spring 2012.”
It is very silly of me that I had almost forgotten that Blissdom Canada has inspired me to do Breathe Now in Victoria. It was after I got back from last year’s Blissdom that I started talking to friends about having an event here. I really enjoyed the positive atmosphere of giant sisterhood of Blissdom Canada. Social Media is great, because you get to connect with virtually anybody in the world, but I craved that one-on-one, in-real-life connection with like-minded women. And I wanted to do it here in Victoria, my home town.
I believe it was January 2011, when Angela, Janni, Janice and I met and said “So, are we gonna do this?” Hell yes.
Breathe Now is a celebration of women. It’s not a social media conference, so we won’t be talking about blogging or branding. What we will focus is, “Why, us women, always put ourselves as last person to take care of?” “Why do we feel guilty about working and being successful?”
In case you didn’t know, Opening Keynote is by Rona Maynard, former editor-in-chief of Chatelaine Magazine. And Closing Keynote is by fabulous Bif Naked. How can this not be fabulous?
Yelp's interactive scrabble board. One of the many cool booths at SMCV11
I was again involved with Social Media Camp(SMCV) 2011 as Speaker Coordinator. Last year was the first annual SMCV.
Last year, I organized “Lunch with the Social Media Rock Stars” component etc, but my role this year was focused solely on communicating with the speakers and our accommodation and transportation sponsors. I’d like to thank all the sponsors who were patient with my many last minute changes and requests.
I loved the job because I love connecting and getting to know all the people who were coming to SMCV. I have been on the receiving end of this kind of service since I have participated in several projects in the past, (and they have been extremely positive. Thanks Disney and Ogivly) and I have tried my best to provide SMCV speakers the same experience. Guess we’ll find out how we did very soon from the survey.
The morning of SMCV11, I could not get over how big it has been since the last year. It’s over 2 days, and we had 650 people attend this year. It was bit of an organized chaos, but I loved the excitement and seeing all the familiar faces. Of course, there is ALWAYS that last minute crisis and drama, but having involved in enough events like that, it’s almost expected. Not a big deal.
I could not attend many of the sessions but met some fabulous people for the first time – I really do appreciate meeting new people and making the connections in real life. It’s the encounter like that that turns into something real and meaningful in the future. I was SO excited to see my friend Marty McPadden, who I met at BlogWorld last October. Marty and I met in Vegas, when we were both trying to go to a “secret” party at Luxor. It was so secret I couldn’t find my way to the party! In comes Marty and his friends to the rescue. We caught the same elevator to the suite, and the rest is history. He has been a great friend online for me since then, and he came to SMCV11 all the way from Connecticut! How cool is that!
It was great to see Jay Baer again too. He is such a “What you see is what you get” kind of guy – (it’s a complement in case you are wondering) and it meant a lot to me and Russel that we got to film an episode of Getting Engaged with him. (He is the only recurring guest on our show!)
Wonderful to meet the other keynote, Amber Naslund as well. We kind of hit it off as we are both single moms, and had some awesome time at the after party.
Love this shot of Amber, Russel and me. Photo by Derek Ford
Oh, and did I mention I won “Most Likely to Become A Social Media Celebrity” West Coast Social Media Awards? Despite the fact I do a video show weekly I do not handle public attention very well, so I was mostly embarrassed at the award ceremony. Sorry I couldn’t make any witty speech. But I am very much humbled.
Actually, it meant more for me that late Derek K. Miller won the ‘Most Inspiring Social Media User” award….I did not know him very well, but I was deeply inspired by his his blog and I was so happy Raul was there to receive the award on his behalf. (By the way, Raul, I know you know this, but you are absolutely fabulous. You saved me couple times during the SMCV11 and I thank you dearly for it.)
I know there are a lot of constructive criticism about SMCV11 and I’m sure we will be tackling them soon to plan better SMCV12….Congratulations to founders/organizers Paul Holmes and Chris Burdge for the successful Social Media Camp and thank you so much for making me a part of it!
PS: Special edition of Getting Engaged….we asked SMCV11 Heavy Hitters – “How do you define Engagement?”
So last few weeks have been a bit crazy.
There was Uvic LipDub- it was an absolutely amazing experience. I was there with my son around 7am, and we lip-synced out hearts out, lots of waiting around (but we knew that), I stayed until 3pm and was absolutely exhausted…but all I did was just waiting and a little bit of singing. Compared to what Shawn and the crew from Aclara promotions had to go through, my exhaustion is nothing.
By the way the video is not yet ready….of course I will post it here once it is!
There was Social Media Camp-ya, so a week after LipDub was Social Media Camp, Victoria’s first social media conference. Again, I was there at 7am and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t stressed out….but honestly, I enjoyed every minute of it. I helped out as a speaker coordinator and I got to meet so many great speakers from Scott Stratten(He probably doesn’t remember this, but a small thing he did for me meant so much, I am a huge fan of him ever since-was great to finally meet him), Julien Smith(Was my first time to meet him but I LOVED this guy), Dave Olson(We had a good talk about his love for Japan), and so many more.
460+ people attended and it was a great success.
What I learned from this event was nothing new, but meeting people in person and getting to know them, engage with them, building a relationship with them… is the true purpose of social media for me. Yes I do have lots of online/virtual friends and they are all fantastic, but meeting them in person really enhances the relationship for sure.
And in between those two events, I moved.
Now I am slowly settling into my new house, I’m still lacking some furniture so the place looks somewhat empty, but I do enjoy having my own place. My kids came over to stay with me this long weekend, and we’re slowly getting used to this new lifestyle.
Then this week, I will be heading to Las Vegas for BlogWorld conference.
I’ll be listening to Scott Stratten’s keynote, and looking forward listening to Jay Baer (He’s coming to Victoria in November and I am organizing a tweetup) and Amber Naslund‘s talk as well…but more than anything I am looking forward to connecting with my online friends and hopefully make lots of new friends there too.
And Russel and I shot another episode yesterday. It’s about customer loyalty. Have a look and let me know what you think.
Not a big deal.
