Something Awesome: Happy Mothers and Healthy Babies

What’s Awesome? Happy mothers and healthy babies! What’s not awesome? Parents of all kinds struggling to provide a basic necessity such as clean diapers for their children.

A baby uses on average 60 diapers per week, 240 diapers per month, or 2,800 diapers in their first year alone, costing approximately $850 per year. That’s equivalent to a month’s worth of groceries for a family of four!

The bottom line is that 1 in 5 Canadian families struggle to provide clean diapers for their kids. Some parents in these circumstances try to make ends meet by prolonging the use of both cloth and disposable diapers for as long as possible before changing them, which unfortunately can expose the child to many health-related risks and complications.

That’s why Kristina Prins started the Bare Bottoms Diaper Drive in 2013 as a way to raise awareness about the plight that some families face when it comes to providing something simple as clean diapers for their babies, as well as to inform the public that the Calgary Food Bank collects donations of both new and opened unused diapers for inclusion in their hampers all year long. The Food Bank relies on diaper donations from the public because their mandate dictates that any funds they raise must go towards food purchases.

The inaugural Bare Bottoms Diaper Drive received Awesome Calgary’s $1,000 micro-grant for March 2013, which helped Kristina cover some of the promotional and marketing costs needed to raise awareness of the diaper drive, the first of its kind and scale in the city. In the end, over 62,000 diapers were collected from generous Calgarians and were distributed to families in need, and it inspired four additional community health clinics to start year-round diaper collections to add to the existing three clinics that already collected diapers on behalf of the food bank.

Kristina’s back at it with this year’s edition of the Bare Bottoms Diaper Drive, hoping that Calgarians will step up and help more families in need by beating last year’s total. The flagship diaper drive event will be held again on Mother’s Day Weekend this year in partnership with The Calgary Zoo.

 

• What:  Bare Bottoms Diaper Drive 2014
• Where:  The Calgary Zoo (1300 - Zoo Road NE, near the Penguin Plunge exhibit at the North end of the Zoo)
• When:  May 10 and 11, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

New and opened packages of disposable diapers will be accepted, in addition to monetary donations. All sizes of diapers are welcome, with a particular need for sizes 5 and 6. If you drop by the Zoo this weekend with a diaper or dollar donation, you’ll also receive a 2 for 1 admission for a future visit!

If you can’t make it to the Zoo this weekend, diaper donations are being accepted until Sunday at:

• Glamorgan Bakery (3919 Richmond Road SW)
• Lynnridge Laundry (1603- 62 Avenue SW)
• Calgary Farmers’ Market (510 - 77 Avenue SE, from Thursday to Sunday).

Diapers are also accepted year-round at the Calgary Food Bank, various Food Bank donation boxes at grocery stores around town, and at all of the Calgary Community Health Centres, with the exception of the Sheldon M. Chumir Health Centre downtown.

If you’d like to know more about the Bare Bottoms Diaper Drive or would like to help volunteer, feel free to reach Kristina on Facebook, Twitter or by email.

We hope you can help Kristina out, either with a diaper donation or two this weekend, or by spreading the word about this great endeavour with all of your friends and family. Let’s make sure that as many parents as possible in this city won’t have to go without something simple such as clean diapers for their children!

In the meantime, here are some photos from last year’s flagship Bare Bottoms Diaper Drive event, courtesy of Saudah Chan:

Announcing our 3rd Anniversary Awesome Calgary Finalists!

Valentine’s Day Balloon Give-Aways, Speed Gaming 2.0, ‘Meat-Filled’ Zebra Piñata Parties and Cardboard Fort Days. It’s all been leading up to this: The re-launch of Awesome Calgary and our 3rd Anniversary Pitch ’n Party!

After an extended hiatus, we’re re-launching our Awesome Foundation chapter with a new mandate and vision:

We’ll continue to enable awesome in the community through our micro-granting program and facilitating connections within the community to help applicants execute their Awesome Ideas just as before, but we’re vowing to do more awesome in the community ourselves.

For those that’ve participated in our previous events this year as listed above (all inspired by projects that have received grants from AF chapters in other cities; yep, these are the sorts of things that we can also fund so if you feel that you can do better, submit your idea for consideration!), you will have already gotten a taste of the sort of awesomeness that we want to unleash on the city throughout 2014 and beyond, with the help of some fantastic community partners.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg! From Awesome Workshops that’ll teach you how to do Awesome Things, to a Speaker Series that’ll inspire you to do Awesome Acts yourselves, to possibly even an Awesome Concert Series that’ll promote some wicked-cool grassroots talent or talent you may never have heard about, we have a full slate and variety of different events and activities planned and in the works for throughout the year that are designed to help build community, make the city more vibrant and to showcase some awesome things, but most importantly, geared to help YOU do awesome things yourselves.

Many things are brewing in the background right now programming wise, so stay tuned over the coming months (sign up for our newsletter to make sure you don't miss a thing!) as we get ready to announce them!

In the meantime, we still have our 3rd Anniversary Thousand Dollar Thursday to get through tonight. In keeping with the theme of ‘3’s’ today, we’ve decided to go with a Top3 instead of a Top4, just for this month to change things up. Will we ever emulate Awesome Edmonton and go with a Top5 one month? Maybe. Stay tuned! Variety is the spice of life, after all.

For now, here are your Top3 Finalists for April 2014:

1. Rainbow Connection Dome by Stephanie Orr, Janelle Pansky and Lisa Sudeikat:  “Creating a beautiful dome to showcase the Rainbow Connections summer art show.”
2. Mealshare by Jeremy Bryant:   “Help Mealshare equip our street teams with awesome materials to help spread the word this summer.”
3. Acts of Fabulousness by Yiorgos Boudouris:  “Chronicle the individual stories of gender and sexual minority youth throughout Calgary.”

• What:  Awesome Calgary’s 3rd Anniversary $1,000 Thursday Pitch Event
• Where:  Endeavor Arts & Event Space (#200, 1209 - 1 Street SW)
• When:  Thursday, April 24, 2014. Doors open at 6 p.m., program starts promptly at 6:15 p.m.

We recognize that our event coincides with Day 1 of the Calgary Expo, and as we’re big fans of that event ourselves, we’ll try our best to keep things short and sweet for this one so people can take off and participate in those other festivities. But don’t worry; we have plans to throw a BIG celebration in honour of our Third Anniversary at a future date, along with the help of some fantastic community partners and other like-minded individuals and groups. So stay tuned for that! (Hint: It too may involve a piñata, among some other things)

In the meantime, here’s a bit of a look back at some of the cool things we’ve been able to pull off in the city over the last few years:

This video was created in honour of the first-ever Awesome Day in Canada last year on June 21, where Canadian Awesome Foundation chapters from coast-to-coast (and even a handful of chapters from the US as part of a Worldwide Day of Awesome that Canada had hosted) were invited to participate by doing something public facing in their communities. Coordinated from right here in Calgary, we had various AF chapters awarding grants, holding ‘Unlimited’ Picnics, giving away balloons and throwing frisbees in a park, just to name a few of the things.

We were originally supposed to do a big giveaway throughout the day downtown ending with a Pitch Night in partnership with the Calgary Public Library, but the floods last year threw those plans out the window. Instead, we held a Relaxation Station in support of the community of Mission where we offered amenities such as free cell phone charging, massages and a place to sit in the shade for flood evacuees and volunteers. It was a huge success and the inspiration for our new direction this year.

We hope you can join us tonight for our 3rd Anniversary event in support of three fantastic ideas, and even if you can’t, we definitely hope that you’ll join us at one of the many wacky events we have in store throughout the year. It’ll be…Awesome!

Deconstructing the Construction of a "Meat-Filled" Zebra Piñata - Part 2

Only a few days left until showtime and our Baby Zebra Piñata is virtually completed, save for a few final finishing touches and the stuffing of various meat-treats (generously provided by Big Chief Meat Snacks) and candies (for you non-meat eaters).

(And if you’re wondering why we’re hosting this crazy ‘Meat-Up’ event (get it?), read this.)

When last we left our Zebra Piñata, it was just about to be assembled. Piñata Experts Heather Ilsley and Derek Mah from ThePinataProject.com have been working furiously over the last couple of months to complete it in time for our “Meat-Filled” Zebra Piñata party this Sunday, spending at least 100+ hours on this project. We’re so grateful for the thought, effort and most importantly time they’ve put into this project on our behalf, and we hope you’ll support their efforts by joining us this Sunday!

And now on to the photos.

Here is our fully assembled but yet-to-be-decorated Baby Zebra. The head has already been mounted to the body and the whole thing has had mâché applied as well as a layer of white tissue paper to give it some uniformity. The ears were constructed out of white cardboard and the ‘feet’ are styrofoam balls.

To give you an idea of the scale of this thing, here’s Heather as she presents our piñata to the world. As you can see, it’s half the size of Heather and twice as thick. Or in other words: This thing is HUGE! The black markings on its body are where the stripes will be applied.

Heather as she applies the Zebra striping. The stripes were created by taking black and white paper streamers and folding them in half, then feathering them by making quarter-inch cuts perpendicular to the folds. It results in a great effect as it gives the piñata a bit of texture. Simple to do, but very time consuming to create; converting an entire roll of paper streamer can literally take a few hours. The stripes are then applied to the piñata using white glue.

Derek as he applies the googly eyes to the Baby Zebra. They initially thought to create their own as they were uncertain that they’d be able to find eyes at the correct scale, but in the end, they were able to find something close. To make the eyes look bigger than they actually were, Derek added some black striping around the eye sockets.

The snout and the feet are decorated with black and white hockey tape, to give those parts of the Zebra a different texture and look. Much thought and consideration has been put towards the visuals as the piñata takes more and more damage throughout the night, and a conscious decision was made to use different materials for the feet as Heather and Derek want to see them fly off as it takes more and more damage from the evisceration by our ‘lions’ for the evening.

We wanted to give our Baby Zebra a bit of an attitude, so we decided to go with a multicoloured mane and tail rather than a plain black one. Heather shows off the mane she created by taking multiple pieces of different coloured tissue paper, folding them over and feathering them similar to the way the zebra stripes were feathered using the paper streamers. To hold it all together, she broke out her sewing kit and stitched the tissue paper similar to how a book is bound to its cover.

Heather and Derek apply the mane to the piñata using hot glue. We decided to give our Baby Zebra a bit of a mohawk as well by attaching it closer to the forehead. The tail was created by taking various pieces of tissue paper, twisting them together and splaying the ends. It was attached to the piñata by poking a hole in its backside and securing it with more hot glue.

And there you have it, our (mostly) finished Baby Zebra Piñata! Isn’t it cute? Just needs a few more finishing touches and to be stuffed with candies and jerky-treats and then it’ll be ready for showtime!

If you're interested, more photos from our Baby Zebra’s construction can be found on our Facebook page.

• What:  Awesome Calgary Presents: A ‘Meat-Filled’ Zebra Piñata Party in partnership with ThePinataProject.com
• Where:  Endeavor Arts & Event Space (#200, 1209 - 1 Street SW)
• When:  Sunday, March 30, 2014 from 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.
• RSVP:  Facebook, Yelp

In order to accommodate the interest that seems to be brewing in the public eye for this project, we’re extending the hours by opening the doors at 6 p.m. rather than 6:30 p.m. That way, if you want to have your picture taken with our piñata before the festivities start, you’ll have some extra time to do so. Make sure to take plenty; once the evisceration starts, there’ll be no going back!

So the final agenda for the evening now looks like this:

Agenda:

• Doors and “Last Chance” Piñata Photo Ops at 6:00 p.m.
• Eulogy at 8 p.m.
• Zebra Evisceration at 8:20 p.m.
• Lamentations, Reminiscing and After Party at 8:45 p.m.

A BIG THANK YOU to Heather and Derek from ThePinataProject.com for helping us with this project and for generously sponsoring our piñata. They’ve spent over 100 hours of their free time on it, bankrolling everything from the materials to the candy stuffing themselves as an official piñata for their piñata project for this year. It’s a beautiful piece of art (the very nature of this event will highlight its transient nature) and we certainly couldn’t have created such a magnificent beast on our own.

And another shout out to Big Chief Meat Snacks for their generosity in providing the jerky-treats that will be stuffed into our Baby Zebra, as well as for the meat-treat platters that we’ll have on display that people can enjoy before and after the evisceration. Without the support of this local Calgary company, our event would not be “Meat-Filled” at all.

As always, all of our events are free and open to the public. Hope you can join us this Sunday evening at Endeavor Arts and feel free to bring your friends. It’s going to be AWESOME!

Deconstructing the Construction of a "Meat-Filled" Zebra Piñata

The original Meat-Filled Zebra Piñatas project funded by Awesome Foundation - Boston in January 2013 was the talk of the Global AF sphere for a solid three months. It had been a while since a zany project such as that one had been funded by a chapter anywhere in the world, and it was a callback to our roots of funding things that no other traditional granting organization would fund (i.e. Funding Awesome).

So when we here at Awesome Calgary were looking for programming ideas to host during the lead up to our chapter relaunch in April based on ideas of projects that have been funded by The Awesome Foundation elsewhere in the world, something to honour AF-Boston’s original Zebra Piñata project was always in the back of our minds.

When we learned that there was a group of individuals in Calgary (i.e. Heather Ilsley and Derek Mah at ThePinataProject.com or TPP for short) that decided to make a piñata a month for fun (and this despite them never having built a piñata in their lives outside of their childhood), choosing to bankroll the whole thing themselves AND documenting the whole thing from construction to destruction (or deployment to destroyment, as they like to put it), we took it as a sign.

So we reached out to them to see if they’d be interested in working with us in some way this year and if we could commission them to create a zebra piñata for us. We were thrilled that they wanted to work with us on this project, and couldn’t be more grateful that they chose our AF-Calgary Zebra Piñata to become one of their official monthly piñatas for the year as part of their experimental Piñata Project. And that is the story of how our ‘Meat-Filled’ Zebra Piñata Party was born.

What follows are some behind-the-scenes photos from the early phases of the build; in fact, the actual piñata itself is much further along as we speak, and you can tune in to ThePinataProject.com later on to learn more as we get closer to our event on Sunday, March 30.

These are some of the materials that will be used in the construction of the piñata. In addition to the paper mâché, there’s newspaper, white glue, black and white coloured streamers (to give the zebra its striped body), black tissue paper, balloons, some twine to suspend the piñata from the rafters of its final home at Endeavor Arts and a paint brush to apply the paper mâché and glue. All-in-all, it’s basic piñata construction fare. The pink item is a Japanese paper lantern, whose use will be described later on.

 

 

 

These are conceptual sketches of the Zebra Piñata that Heather and Derek envision creating. Most of the Zebra Piñatas used by zoos in real life are created almost to scale in order to increase their authenticity to the lions. Because we’re paying homage to the original project that AF-Boston funded rather than going with a strict reimplementation, they decided to have a little fun with their design, choosing to go with a caricature of a baby zebra with rounded limbs. The tricky bit was figuring out how to create the elongated body; up to this point, TPP’s piñatas have used balloons to create the majority of their structures, which in this case, would not have been able to give them the shape they envisioned the body should have at this scale. According to Derek, the team at this point had already spent 20+ hours on figuring out how not to build the body. The first prototype body was too weak and the second prototype wouldn’t even fit through the door. The piñata body we’re talking about here is their third attempt.

As you can see, they envision building it so it cracks open like an egg when broken, rather than it opening randomly with bits flying everywhere. This implies putting some thought into how the body is constructed and which parts of it are reinforced. Because we’ll be holding our event at an art gallery, they’re also putting in some thought to how the ‘guts’ of the piñata fall out, or in other words, what the visuals of the evisceration looks like. The ideal is that things fall straight down because a) that would look more visually pleasing as the zebra starts slowly leaking its guts all over the place as it accumulates more damage, b) it’ll make clean up easier later on and c) there’s less risk of damage from flying debris to the other art pieces in the gallery. TPP is trying to practice responsible destroyment and we couldn’t agree more.

In order to give our baby zebra an elongated body, the team ultimately decided to go with two Japanese paper lanterns. That way, they could approximate the desired egg-like behaviour as the piñata cracks open down the middle by making each lantern one-half of the body, while still giving them something hollow enough to work with when it came to stuffing it full of treats later on. Of course, with the lantern being made of paper itself, it would disintegrate as soon as the paper mâché was applied. They solved this issue by waterproofing it first by wrapping it in plastic and then applying the paper mâché overtop of it.

Here is what the two halves of the baby zebra body look like after the paper mâché is applied. There’s at least three layers in this photo, although they may have added more since then to reinforce the structure (we want to make sure as many people in attendance as possible get a whack). Again, you can see how the body will try to emulate the breaking of an egg when everything is fitted together.

This will form the basis of the head of our baby zebra. It was constructed using a traditional balloon, while the snout was shaped and constructed using regular cardboard.

Here’s another headshot, with a bottle of wine and Derek’s finger for scale, along with the initial application of the neck piece which will later be mounted on the body. As you can see, the head alone is larger than a bottle of wine. Ears and other decorations will be added later, and the team hopes to custom-create 3D googly eyes that will react each time the piñata is struck. They believe that they’ll have to build those eyes themselves as they have been unable to find any that have been pre-made to the scale that they need.

And that was a sneak-peek at some of the earlier aspects of our piñata build, courtesy of Heather and Derek. They started building our piñata back in February, and things have progressed greatly since then. Another update detailing more advanced phases of the build will soon be posted over at ThePinataProject.com, so make sure to keep an eye on them over there, or follow them on Twitter at @PinataProject for all the latest details!

In the meantime, here again are the details on our “Meat-Filled” Zebra Piñata Party:

• What:  Awesome Calgary Presents: A ‘Meat-Filled’ Zebra Piñata Party in partnership with ThePinataProject.com
• Where:  Endeavor Arts & Event Space (#200, 1209 - 1 Street SW)
• When:  Sunday, March 30, 2014 from 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.
• RSVP:  Facebook, Yelp

Agenda:

• Doors and “Last Chance” Piñata Photo Ops at 6:00 p.m.
• Eulogy at 8 p.m.
• Zebra Evisceration at 8:20 p.m.
• Lamentations, Reminiscing and After Party at 8:45 p.m.

Heather and Derek have spent an INSANE amount of hours on this project up to this point (not counting the 20+ hours on the failed prototypes), with many, many more hours to go until completion, so we hope you can make it out to our event on March 30 to show them your support for this massive undertaking!

And a BIG THANK YOU to our friends over at Big Chief Meat Snacks as they’ll be providing some meat-treats for us to make our Zebra Piñata truly “meat-filled” (and if you’re not a meat eater, don’t worry as we’ll also have traditional piñata fare like candies and toys). So make sure to come join us if you can; this event promises to be Awesome!

Awesome Calgary Presents: A 'Meat-Filled' Zebra Piñata Party!

As we countdown to our chapter’s relaunch in April 2014, we’ll be hosting various events and activities during the lead up inspired by Awesome Foundation grants awarded in other cities around the world.

Thus far, we’ve performed a Valentine’s Day Balloon Scavenger Hunt on Stephen Avenue Walk and Barclay Mall in partnership with Downtown Calgary in honour of the Valentine’s Day Love Letter Scavenger Hunt project funded by AF-San Francisco back in January 2013 (as well as the Poetry+QR Codes project funded by AF-Chicago back in November 2011), and a “Strings-Attached” Speed Gaming event inspired by the Speed-Gaming! project funded by AF-Ottawa back in January 2013.

Up Next: Our take on the Meat-Filled Zebra Piñatas project that Awesome Foundation - Boston funded in January 2013.

The original AF-Boston funded project contributed to the creation of meat-filled zebra piñatas as a way to engage lions at the zoo in various animal enrichment activities to help stave off cabin fever (yes, apparently, it’s A THING).

Our Awesome Calgary ‘Meat-Filled’ Zebra Piñata Party will pay homage to the project that AF-Boston funded with us creating our own GIANT-SIZED Zebra Piñata (oh no, this ain’t no store-bought piñata at all) in partnership with the piñata experts (i.e Heather Ilsley and Derek Mah) over at ThePinataProject.com. You’ll also be able to follow along in the creation of this special piñata over on their blog.

In fact, meticulous thought is being put into the creation of this piñata as we speak, including how it’ll break, the impact of the visuals as its guts get eviscerated onto the floor, and even what the ‘meat’ filling will be (and we’re DELIGHTED to announce that there will be meat-treats (in addition to traditional piñata fare like candies and toys) courtesy of our friends over at Big Chief Meat Snacks! Mmm…BITE ME! :-) ) The ‘lions’ will be people (wearing lion-themed blindfolds, of course) and the evisceration will take place using baseball bats (or possibly hockey sticks), but after seeing this piñata in the flesh, you’ll agree that it’s less a piñata and more a form of art, and an experience so rich that you’ll regret missing out on it if you don’t attend.

This will also be an opportunity to meet the creators and experts behind ThePinataProject.com and learn more about why they’re creating a piñata a month and documenting it from construction to destruction (or deployment to destroyment, as they like to put it), as well as to pick their brains about all things piñatas in case you were interested in creating one yourself.

Finally, you’ll also be able to meet some fantastic people and learn more about Awesome Foundation - Calgary directly from the people involved with it in a fun, casual environment.

So yes, it’ll be a “Meat-and-Greet” event with the folks at Awesome Calgary and ThePinataProject.com. And as always, all of our events are free to attend and open to the public. We hope you can make it down!

 

• What:  Awesome Calgary Presents: A ‘Meat-Filled’ Zebra Piñata Party in partnership with ThePinataProject.com
• Where:  Endeavor Arts & Event Space (#200, 1209 - 1 Street SW)
• When:  Sunday, March 30, 2014 from 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.
• RSVP:  Facebook, Yelp

Agenda:

• Doors and “Last Chance” Piñata Photo Ops at 6:00 p.m.
• Eulogy at 8 p.m.
• Zebra Evisceration at 8:20 p.m.
• Lamentations, Reminiscing and After Party at 8:45 p.m.

More programming details to come as we get closer to the event (although in the meantime, feel free to read up on our behind-the-scenes feature Deconstructing the Construction of a “Meat-Filled” Zebra Piñata (as well as Part 2) for a look at the early stages of construction of this thing), so stay tuned and make sure to save the date! It'll be...Awesome. :-)

And in the meantime, thanks again to Big Chief Meat Snacks for sponsoring the meaty bits that we’ll be stuffing into our Zebra Piñata! Mmm…Bite Me!

Awesome Calgary Presents: A 'Strings-Attached' themed Awesome Hours at Speed Gaming 2.0

As we countdown to our chapter’s relaunch in April 2014, we’ll be hosting various events and activities during the lead up inspired by AF grants awarded in other cities.

Up Next: Our take on the Speed-Gaming! project granted by Awesome Ottawa back in January 2013.

We hosted one of these last year during a Gamer Sunday at Dickens Pub, and we’re doing it again…but this time with a twist!

(and good news for any of you that attended our Speed Gaming 1.0 event last year, or played with us at our Relaxation Station in the community of Mission last year during the flood aftermath: Doktor Stephen has agreed to host a GIANT game of Werewolves at the end to cap off the event. Friendships can be made/broken based on the outcome of these games so you know that a fun time is essentially guaranteed!)

 

• What:  Awesome Calgary Presents: A ‘Strings-Attached' themed Awesome Hours at Speed Gaming 2.0
• Where:  Dickens Pub (1000 - 9 Avenue SW)
• When:  Sunday, March 9, 2014. Check-in/Registration starts at 1:30 p.m., event from 2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
• RSVP:  Facebook, Meetup, Yelp

Agenda:

• 1:30 p.m. - Check-in/Registration
• 2:30 p.m. - Game #1
• 3:00 p.m. - 15 minute break
• 3:15 p.m. - Game #2
• 3:45 p.m. - 15 minute break
• 4:00 p.m. - Game #3
• 4:30 p.m. - GIANT game of Werewolves moderated by Doktor Stephen
• 5 p.m. to Whenever - Event Ends/After-Event Gaming

Tentative Game List:

• Cards Against Humanity
• Apples to Apples
• Quorudor
• Tsuro
• We Didn’t Play Test This At All
• Fluxx
• Carcassonne
• Mr. Bacon's Big Adventure
• Jenga
• Werewolf
• Ricochet Robots
• Telestrations
• Assorted Card Games

...and more!

How Speed Gaming Works:
The intent is that perhaps you’ll be exposed to a fun game that you’ve never played before while meeting some fantastic new people. Various stations will be set up with different games you can play. We’ll randomly assign you to a table, where you’ll have 30 minutes to play. After the 30 minutes are up, we’ll take a short break where you’ll be randomly assigned to another table and then you’ll have another 30 minutes to play the new game. We’ll do this three times and afterwards, everyone is invited to stay and play some other games (the bar has an assortment, or you can bring your own) until the pub closes at midnight. Who knows, Werewolf was a huge hit last year but took too long to cram in a complete game in 30 minutes. Maybe Doktor Stephen will be willing to host a giant game after the event? We’ll see…

What are Awesome Hours?
We’re ramping up operations here at Awesome Calgary as we lead up to our chapter’s relaunch in April 2014. Awesome Hours are a great way to meet people involved with The Awesome Foundation to learn more about our micro-granting program, some of the events and activities we’ll be up to throughout the year, and learn about the various Trustee and volunteer opportunities that are available. And if you ever wanted to pick our brains about what kinds of projects we like to grant or what makes for a successful pitch, now’s your opportunity to do that from the source!

Our Twist:
We’re very proud that our $1,000 micro-grants come no-strings-attached. It encourages people to take risks when pitching an idea they have to make Calgary just a bit more awesome to live in.

However, sometimes strings can be a FUN thing! So, if you have any questions about Awesome Foundation - Calgary or The Awesome Foundation in general, look for the people with ‘Strings-Attached’ (to pink balloons) and feel free to assault them with your curiosity.

And if you want your own balloon name tag, we might be able to accommodate you (while supplies last)! BUT: You’ll need to know the secret phrase and it’ll be up to YOU to figure out what it is using all of your intelligence and ingenuity… ;-)

Something Awesome: Hi-Tech and High Fashion in Calgary

In November 2012, Awesome Calgary awarded a $1,000 micro-grant to Make Fashion, a collaboration of great minds who want to demonstrate that the convergence of Technology and Art can result in a form, fashion and community brand new to Calgary.

Fashion, jewelry and accessories designers were united with software and hardware engineers as well as technology enthusiasts to create innovative artistic pieces that demonstrated the convergence of fashion and technology.

100% of our micro-grant went towards paying for the materials needed to create the pieces, which included things such as electroluminescent wire, LEDs of various colours and an assortment of battery packs to power everything. All-in-all, the materials purchased with our grant contributed to the construction of about 10% of all of the creations.


The event was a HUGE success, putting Calgary on the map and at the forefront of wearable technology and high fashion around the world, and local creators Laura Dempsey and Angela Dale were even invited to show some of the pieces they developed for Make Fashion 2013 at the FashionWare show at this year's International CES in Las Vegas in January.

This year, the folks behind Make Fashion are ready for their second annual gala. Entitled the Make Fashion Show & Gala 2.0, the organizers plan to go bigger and better than last year's show, with a larger venue and by bringing in some of the top designers in this field from all over the world. Headlining the show this year are Erina Kashihara from Japan, Tricia Flanagan from Hong Kong and Rainbow Winters from the UK, alongside a plethora of Canadian designer teams.

• What: Make Fashion Show & Gala 2.0
• Where: WestJet Campus (22 Aerial Place NE)
• When: Saturday, March 1, 2014 from 7 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.
• Tickets: Advance Purchase Here, General Admission (i.e. Standing Room) only to be sold at the door

As a special THANK YOU to everyone in The Awesome Foundation network for the support of their inaugural show last year, the organizers behind Make Fashion would like to offer everyone a special 20% discount off the cost of Advance Tickets (5% more than the early-bird special which expired on Feb 14; Yay!) for any of the various ticketing levels. To take advantage of their special offer, use this ticket link or navigate to MakeFashion.ca and use promotional code LoveAwesome20 during check out to redeem. Advance tickets (while available) will be on sale up to the day before the event, so make sure to get yours before they sell out!

Make no mistake: This event is world class, and Awesome Calgary is proud to have helped kickstart such a show right here in our own backyard. If you’d like to learn more, check out our piece on the International AF Blog.

Hope to see you there!

Random Acts of Awesome 01 - Valentine's Day Balloon Scavenger Hunt

With our chapter’s relaunch in April comes a new direction as well. We’ve always helped to enable Awesome in the city, through our micro-grant program as well as helping people make connections through the AF network to help make their projects and ideas a reality.

However, starting in 2014, we’re going to work harder to do more Awesome in the city as well. Our Awesome Calgary Relaxation Station in the community of Mission last year during the aftermath of the flood as part of our contribution to Awesome Day in Canada was a huge success, and we’ve been trying to figure out how to do more of it given the constraints on our resources (all of our grants are entirely self-funded out of our Trustee’s pockets, which doesn’t leave much left over for extras).

So in the lead up to our chapter’s re-launch in April, we’ll be hosting our own Awesome Events and Activities in partnership with some fantastic groups and individuals in the community, many of which are inspired by projects that have received grants by AF chapters in other cities, and we’ll continue to do these sorts of things throughout the year.

The first of which is happening today, and it was inspired by the Valentine’s Day Balloon Scavenger Hunt! project funded by AF-San Francisco, as well as the Poetry+QR Codes project funded by AF-Chicago.

We’re calling it our very first Awesome Calgary Random Act of Awesome.

Today, we’re partnering up with Downtown Calgary to seed a large number of pink balloons across Stephen Avenue Walk (from Olympic Plaza to 3rd Street SW) and Barclay Mall (i.e. 3rd Street SW from 9th Avenue to 2nd Avenue SW) with a special Valentine’s Day message attached. We’re encouraging you to find (or rescue, if the weather is too cold; they should re-inflate once they’re back somewhere warm) these balloons over the lunch hour and to either keep them for yourself or to give them to someone Awesome in your life.

• What:  Awesome Calgary Presents:  Random Acts of Awesome #01 - Valentine’s Day Balloon Scavenger Hunt in partnership with Downtown Calgary
• Where:  Stephen Avenue Walk (from Olympic Plaza to 3 St SW) and Barclay Mall (3 St SW from 9 Ave to 2 Ave SW)
• When:  Friday, February 14, 2014 from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

We’re also hoping that Calgarians will help us kickstart a Global Wave of Awesome this Valentine’s Day. We’re encouraging people to post a selfie of themselves on Facebook and Twitter along with a Valentine’s Day message of love & justice and to tag the whole thing with #LoveAwesome. Other AF chapters in other cities have promised to monitor the feed and re-tweet or share the more interesting messages in order to inspire people in their city to do the same. We’re hoping to get this thing trending worldwide, and it’d be great if Calgary helped instigate that.

In fact, you don’t even have to participate in our balloon campaign to take part. Just post a positive message to Facebook and Twitter using #LoveAwesome and you’ll have done your part to try to start a rolling wave of Awesomeness around the world!

If you’re in the downtown core during the lunch hour, we hope you’ll help us ensure that each and every one of these balloons finds a good home. Leave no balloon behind!

(PS: There’s free chocolate too)

And for anyone out there who has no one spend this Valentine’s Day with, The Awesome Foundation recently awarded a grant to author Tamara Levitt to fund the creation of a picture book and video that celebrates singledom. “You Are Enough” is a special gift to those who have no one to celebrate this year’s Valentine’s Day with, courtesy of your friends at The Awesome Foundation:


Happy Valentine’s Day from all of us here at Awesome Calgary!

Brace Yourselves...Awesome IS Coming!

After an extended hiatus, Awesome Calgary will be relaunching in April 2014, just in time for our Third Anniversary. In the meantime, throughout the year we’ll be hosting various events ourselves, many of which are inspired by Awesome Foundation projects that were funded by other AF chapters around the world!

Here’s a taste of some of the Awesomeness that you can look forward to in the next couple of months (and as always, all of our events are free to attend and open to the public):

• Fri, Feb 14: Random Acts of Awesome #01: Valentine’s Day Balloon Scavenger Hunt (or ‘Rescue Mission’ if it gets too cold) in partnership with Downtown Calgary (inspired by projects funded by AF-San Francisco and AF-Chicago)
• Sun, Mar 9: Awesome Calgary Presents - A ‘Strings-Attached’ themed Awesome Hours at Speed Gaming 2.0 (inspired by a project funded by AF-Ottawa)
• Sun, Mar 30: Awesome Calgary Presents - A ‘Meat-Filled’ Zebra Piñata Party in partnership with ThePinataProject.com (inspired by a project funded by AF-Boston)
• Sun, Apr 20: Awesome Calgary Presents - Cardboard Fort Day! in partnership with Calgary Mini Maker Faire (inspired by a project funded by AF-Toronto)
• Thurs, Apr 24: Awesome Calgary’s Third Anniversary Thousand Dollar Thursday Pitch Night Event

More details to be released closer to the events, but in the meantime, make sure to save the dates and we hope to see you out at some of these!

We’re also accepting idea submissions for our third anniversary event. If you have an Awesome Idea that you’d like to submit for consideration, fill out this form.

Finally, we’re always on the lookout for new Trustees and volunteers. We’re switching to a quarterly minimal commitment for Trustees, which makes things a little more accessible (of course, we also have a limited number of Guest Trustee slots every month if people would like to try out being an Awesome Trustee with no further commitment). If you’re interested in learning more about what opportunities exist at Awesome Calgary to help out, fill out this form.

Announcing our FINAL set of Top4 Finalists & Honourable Mentions for 2013!

Don’t you hate it when you run the numbers through three times and get three different results?

Regardless, the people have spoken and here are our final Top4 Finalists and Honourable Mentions of 2013, in alphabetical order according to YOU the voters:

Top4 Finalists

1. Girls Gone Wilde by Urban Curvs:  “Girls Gone Wilde Late Night Cabaret is a tongue in cheek evening of performances created by female artists or with a strong female perspective.”
2. Kmitt by Sunrise Community Link Resource Centre:  “To raise awareness about poverty in Calgary through the sale of locally knitted mittens by folks who have experienced poverty firsthand themselves.”
3. The Potluck Pageant by Mark Jeffery:  “An event to disarm then overwhelm around eating healthy while creating community. Local business prepares and shares healthy food - you will eat well and leave inspired!”
4. YYCShows by Cheryl Johnson:  “Comprehensive Calgary concert listings at www.yycshows.com. Links to bands & ticket sales, a show calendar, and information on music venues, blogs and promoters.”

 

Honourable Mentions

• Dinosaur Dance Party by Brendan McGuigan:  “A youth-friendly, all-ages outdoor dance party featuring young electronica artists…and dinosaurs.”

Once again, a BIG THANK YOU to everyone above for volunteering to participate in our first-ever Audience Participation selection process. It’s not something we’ll do every month, but variety is the spice of life, as they say. Did you enjoy it? Should we do more things like it? And if so, what or how? Let us know in the comments or hit us up on Facebook or Twitter. We might just incorporate some of them when we re-launch sometime in 2014.

Our final Pitch Night of 2013 will be on Wednesday, December 18 at 6:30 p.m. at the Endeavor Arts & Events Space.

 

• What:  The FINAL Awesome Calgary Pitch Night of 2013, featuring Top4 Finalists selected by YOU!
• Where:  Endeavor Arts & Events Space (1209 - 1 Street SW)
• When:  Wednesday, December 18, 2013 at 6:30 p.m.
• RSVP:  Facebook

So please join us in supporting our four great ideas this month (especially if you voted for one of them!) before we break until the new year.

Awesome Calgary's 'YOU be The Trustee' 2013 is now LIVE!

The pool of submissions that have agreed to be part of this month’s special Top4 selection procedure have all been posted!

To sum up, a BIG THANK YOU to the five people and organizations below who agreed to take part in this special format to end our calendar year here at Awesome Calgary, a first for our chapter:

• Submission 01:  Dinosaur Dance Party by Brendan McGuigan
• Submission 02:  YYCShows by Cheryl Johnson
• Submission 03:  Kmitt by Sunrise Community Link Resource Centre
• Submission 04:  The Potluck Pageant by Mark Jeffery
• Submission 05:  Girls Gone Wilde by Urban Curvz

To reiterate, we need YOUR help to figure out which four submissions to invite to our final Pitch Night of 2013, so this month, we’re crowdsourcing the Top4 Finalist selection process, which means that YOU get to try being an Awesome Calgary Trustee for a month, and without the financial commitment!

So to sum up:

1. We’ll post this round’s submission pool here at awesomecalgary.org on the morning of Monday, November 18 for your perusal.
2. You’ll read through all of the submissions and pick (and most importantly, rank) your Top4 favourites, or in other words, the four submissions you’d like to see be invited to pitch at our final Pitch Night of 2013.
3. You’ll submit your ranked Top4 picks to us no later than midnight on Saturday, November 30 through an online ballot form to be released alongside the idea submissions on Nov 18.
4. We’ll tally up the results and announce the final set of Top4 Finalists for 2013 here on the blog along with our Pitch Night date and venue on the morning of Monday, December 2.

For more information on how this all works (including FAQs), check out our blog announcement.

All eligible submissions can be found here. Make sure to read through them all!

The deadline for voting is midnight on Saturday, November 30 and the online ballot form can be found here.

Which four ideas would you like to see pitch for a $1,000 no-strings-attached micro-grant? Now’s your chance to make your voice heard!

Submission 05: Girls Gone Wilde

 

Idea:

Girls Gone Wilde by Urban Curvz

Summary:

Girls Gone Wilde Late Night Cabaret is a tongue in cheek evening of performances created by female artists or with a strong female perspective.

The Project:

Girls Gone Wilde is awesome because:

• We will involve over 30 artists, a huge cross section of the emerging talent in Calgary, in a supportive environment to create, develop, and perform new work. 
• The process includes dramaturgical support, production support, and mentorship by professional artists.
• It’s a fun night of theatre to see- it’s like going to a tapas restaurant where the dishes tantalize your palate, leaving you wanting more!
• Urban Curvz is Calgary’s professional feminist theatre company whose work reflects the wit and intelligence of women to counteract the underrepresentation of females in popular culture, and we’re extending this year’s Cabaret to two weekends because last year’s sold out!

 

How the $1,000 will be spent:

• Lunchbox Theatre and rehearsal space.

 

Ready to vote?

Again, to sum up:

1. We’ll post this round’s submission pool here at awesomecalgary.org on the morning of Monday, November 18 for your perusal.
2. You’ll read through all of the submissions and pick (and most importantly, rank) your Top4 favourites, or in other words, the four submissions you’d like to see be invited to pitch at our final Pitch Night of 2013.
3. You’ll submit your ranked Top4 picks to us no later than midnight on Saturday, November 30 through an online ballot form to be released alongside the idea submissions on Nov 18.
4. We’ll tally up the results and announce the final set of Top4 Finalists for 2013 here on the blog along with our Pitch Night date and venue on the morning of Monday, December 2.

For more information on how this will all work (including FAQs), check out our blog announcement.

All eligible submissions can be found here. Make sure to read through them all!

The deadline for voting is midnight on Saturday, November 30 and the online ballot form can be found here.

Which four ideas would you like to see pitch for a $1,000 no-strings-attached micro-grant? Now’s your chance to make your voice heard!

Submission 04: The Potluck Pageant

 

Idea:

The Potluck Pageant by Mark Jeffery

Summary:

An event to disarm the overwhelm around eating healthy while creating community. Local business prepares and shares healthy food - you will eat well and leave inspired!

The Project:

• We're an event which empowers people in their diet! The event gives you the confidence to prepare simple recipes that you've tried and know you enjoy!
• We're creating community between local business with the audience who seeks their advice and expertise in eating well. 
• We want to have a fun night out without the bars! People try every dish and vote for their favourite recipe which will be crowned, Best in Show! A fun drag queen performance entertains after crowning a winner! Why not?
• You leave with a cook book containing the recipes you tried with the contact information of the business which prepared it so you may find them at a later date!

 

How the $1,000 will be spent:

We will use the $1000 to book a venue and cover some signage costs (the rest being sponsored by participants).

About:

I am passionate about creating fabulous juice bars/gathering places and to help cut the confusion around food. I want to enliven Calgary and to support individuals in their well being!

Ready to vote?

Again, to sum up:

1. We’ll post this round’s submission pool here at awesomecalgary.org on the morning of Monday, November 18 for your perusal.
2. You’ll read through all of the submissions and pick (and most importantly, rank) your Top4 favourites, or in other words, the four submissions you’d like to see be invited to pitch at our final Pitch Night of 2013.
3. You’ll submit your ranked Top4 picks to us no later than midnight on Saturday, November 30 through an online ballot form to be released alongside the idea submissions on Nov 18.
4. We’ll tally up the results and announce the final set of Top4 Finalists for 2013 here on the blog along with our Pitch Night date and venue on the morning of Monday, December 2.

For more information on how this will all work (including FAQs), check out our blog announcement.

All eligible submissions can be found here.

The deadline for voting is midnight on Saturday, November 30 and the online ballot form can be found here. Make sure to read through them all!

Which four ideas would you like to see pitch for a $1,000 no-strings-attached micro-grant? Now’s your chance to make your voice heard!

Submission 03: Kmitt

Idea:

Kmitt by Sunrise Community Link Resource Centre

Summary:

To raise awareness about poverty in Calgary through the sale of locally knitted mittens by folks who have experienced poverty firsthand themselves.

The Project:

Our mission is simple; to raise awareness about poverty in Calgary. For every pair of mittens we sell, we give a pair to a person in need, right here in our city. We use locally sourced wool, and every pair is hand-knit by amazing volunteers through our organization.

How the $1,000 will be spent:

We will use the funds to purchase more supplies in order to keep our knitters occupied with our weekly knitting circles as well as to expand our project into items that may include toques and scarves. The same idea will apply to these new items - that for every item sold to raise funds to maintain this project and raise awareness about poverty, one item will be given to a person in need through our organization.

About:

We're all about awesome and Kmitt is a project that was founded by two young people who have recently joined our Board of Directors - Joanna Gee and Nick Meehan - two very awesome individuals.

Ready to vote?

Again, to sum up:

1. We’ll post this round’s submission pool here at awesomecalgary.org on the morning of Monday, November 18 for your perusal.
2. You’ll read through all of the submissions and pick (and most importantly, rank) your Top4 favourites, or in other words, the four submissions you’d like to see be invited to pitch at our final Pitch Night of 2013.
3. You’ll submit your ranked Top4 picks to us no later than midnight on Saturday, November 30 through an online ballot form to be released alongside the idea submissions on Nov 18.
4. We’ll tally up the results and announce the final set of Top4 Finalists for 2013 here on the blog along with our Pitch Night date and venue on the morning of Monday, December 2.

For more information on how this will all work (including FAQs), check out our blog announcement.

All eligible submissions can be found here.

The deadline for voting is midnight on Saturday, November 30 and the online ballot form can be found here. Make sure to read through them all!

Which four ideas would you like to see pitch for a $1,000 no-strings-attached micro-grant? Now’s your chance to make your voice heard!

Submission 02: YYCShows

Idea:

YYCShows by Cheryl Johnson

Summary:

Comprehensive Calgary concert listings at www.yycshows.com. Links to bands & ticket sales, a show calendar, and information on music venues, blogs and promoters.

The Project:

YYCShows is awesome because it makes it easy for Calgary music fans to find out about and attend concerts. The aim of the site is straightforward: to provide a one-stop-shop of Calgary concert listings. For each show, we identify the bands, ticket prices and where they’re available, music genre, all ages/18+ and doors/set times if available.

How the $1,000 will be spent:

With $1,000 we could make YYCShows a more accessible, faster and user-friendly concert information source. The money would contribute to improving the usability of the site by filtering by each characteristic of the concerts. We would hire a programmer to allow each show to be “tagged” by band, venue, genre, and whether it is all ages or 18+. Then, visitors would be able to search by each characteristic to find specific types of shows they are interested in, without losing the value of an overall comprehensive list of upcoming concerts.

About:

I love attending concerts, and believe it’s a great way to be involved in your community – especially seeing local acts. When I returned to Calgary last year, I found that while there are impressive music resources, the information is widely spread. I started keeping track of upcoming shows and sending my friends bimonthly mass texts on concerts. Eventually I realized that the real value was in the sources for finding out about shows and the listings that I was tracking – if I had all this information in a document, I might as well share it with other Calgary music fans.

Ready to vote?

Again, to sum up:

1. We’ll post this round’s submission pool here at awesomecalgary.org on the morning of Monday, November 18 for your perusal.
2. You’ll read through all of the submissions and pick (and most importantly, rank) your Top4 favourites, or in other words, the four submissions you’d like to see be invited to pitch at our final Pitch Night of 2013.
3. You’ll submit your ranked Top4 picks to us no later than midnight on Saturday, November 30 through an online ballot form to be released alongside the idea submissions on Nov 18.
4. We’ll tally up the results and announce the final set of Top4 Finalists for 2013 here on the blog along with our Pitch Night date and venue on the morning of Monday, December 2.

For more information on how this will all work (including FAQs), check out our blog announcement.

All eligible submissions can be found here. Make sure to read through them all!

The deadline for voting is midnight on Saturday, November 30 and the online ballot form can be found here.

Which four ideas would you like to see pitch for a $1,000 no-strings-attached micro-grant? Now’s your chance to make your voice heard!