Double the Pleasure, Double the Fun!

Here at AF-Calgary, we're starting to hit a few milestones. For example, we hit our one-year anniversary on Twitter back on January 31, and we're approaching the one-year anniversary of awarding our very first $1,000 micro-grant in April. Last night's Thousand Dollar Thursday, our second of 2012, hit another milestone, which was a historic one for our chapter but definitely not unprecedented throughout the Awesome Foundation.

February's Thousand Dollar Thursday took place at AcceleratorYYC, an early stage start-up tech incubator space located in Inglewood run by entrepreneurs Victoria and Christian MacLean. AcceleratorYYC really boils down to entrepreneurs helping other entrepreneurs become successful, which made it an ideal venue for awesome people trying to help other awesome people realize their ideas.

In fact, some of the folks at AcceleratorYYC made Top4 and pitched their idea to us back in October 2011, and while they didn't win the prize, they were able to connect with Trevor Gair from The SoJo (another Top4 Finalist from that month) and they are currently collaborating together to try to realize Trevor's idea. Truly awesome.

This month's AF-Calgary Thousand Dollar Thursday was hosted by Emma Grace May, a new AF-Calgary Trustee who joined us at the end of last year. She now has the honour of being the emcee to an important event in the history of AF-Calgary, and it was with this backdrop (and a lot of big TV cameras) that the Top4 Finalists for February 2012 took the stage for 90 seconds each to try to convince the Trustees and audience why they felt they were deserving of the $1,000 prize.

Pitch 1: Timmy's Only Delivery Service

First up was Tim Barber representing Timmy's Only Delivery Service. It's a delivery service that provides downtown Calgary employees the opportunity to get any food delivered from any downtown restaurant to their office or business, and they recently celebrated one month in business.

The delivery service is unique in that all of its employees are homeless. In fact, Tim and his business partner Chris were once homeless themselves (they are now housed) and they started this business to try to give themselves and other homeless people in the city an opportunity to get themselves off the streets.

Tim wanted to use the $1,000 to help launch a campaign to help promote and raise awareness of the program, cover some of the logistical costs involved in running the program, upgrade equipment to ensure that delivered goods remain hot, as well as to help grow the business by recruiting more employees and getting more people involved. He hopes to increase staff by at least 10 people in the near future.

Pitch 2: Gumsphere 300

Up next was John Frosst and his partner Shawn Petsche with Gumsphere 300. Like Ed Kusmirski from the Calgary Science Network last month, John was a former Top4 Finalist back in September 2011 who didn't end up winning the $1,000 prize, but decided to re-submit his idea again to AF-Calgary for consideration.

Gumsphere 300 is a 15,000 km, month-long North America-wide traveling road show and rally with 27 shows, three Alberta bands, four artists, a film crew, one photojournalist, one mechanic, one chef and eight Ford Festivas. The tour aims to promote Alberta bands around North America who may not get any other exposure otherwise.

The Ford Festivas would be used as the primary mode of transportation for the road show. Launching this summer in July, the Gumsphere 300 folks are still short one Festiva to pull off the project, so what they'd like to do with the $1,000 is purchase one Ford Aspire and one Ford Escort GT and smoosh them together to create a hybrid Franken-monster-type Festiva to finish off their fleet.

Pitch 3: River Surfing Wave

Third was Neil Egsgard from the Alberta Surfing Association with River Surfing Wave, a project that aims to build a world-class river surfing wave in Kananaskis that emulates the Eisbach Surf Wave in Munich, Germany.

River Surfing is unique in that there are no ropes and no boats involved and relies solely on the organic flow of the river to propel the surfers. Most of the work in designing the wave has been done as they have the structural diagrams direct from Munich and conditional government support for the program. The plans and any knowledge that the Alberta Surfing Association gains from completing this project will be posted online so that any other municipalities around the world who are interested in undertaking similar endeavours can learn from what happens here in Alberta.

While the entire project will ultimately cost around $200,000 to complete, the $1,000 micro-grant would be used to help kickstart the fundraising and engineering efforts needed to build the surfing wave, as well as to help promote the project.

Pitch 4: Art for Strangers

Up last was Aoife Baldwin-Maher and her partner Hillary with Art for Strangers, a volunteer-run community initiative directed at putting the local art community in direct contact with the larger Calgary community through publicly distributing free works of art to the public.

They will be putting out an open call to local artists to donate works of art to be distributed for free to passersby around the downtown core via bicycle courier on a pre-determined date (tentatively May 24) in the hopes of strengthening the personal connections and awareness of Calgary's vibrant art community with the community at large. The types of art available for distribution would range from traditional pieces like paintings and sculptures to new media and digital art like animated gifs distributed on CD or DVD.

Art for Strangers is heavily inspired by the Papergirl Calgary project (which itself was inspired by a project out of Berlin), but Aoife wishes to create a version that's more open to all types of art and all types of people and make things really accessible to all.

The group would like to use the $1,000 to help pay for promotional materials and campaigns online (like procuring a website and social media presence) and in the real world (like poster campaigns) to reach as many people as possible, purchase equipment like bike baskets and rear racks to help distribute the art to the public, and to help pay for additional expenses in terms of covering the logistics of the endeavour like renting a venue to facilitate the art donations.

And the winner is...

The original idea of the Awesome Foundation was to gather 10 people who'd be willing to put out $100 each and that would form the basis of the $1,000 prize. While it is a minimal requirement for any city or group hoping to start up their own official AF chapter, these days it has evolved into more of a guiding principle rather than a hard-and-fast rule (for example, the recently-launched Awesome Foundation - Halifax chapter recruited a whopping 30 founding Trustees).

Almost one year ago, Calgary initially brought on 10+3 Trustees (i.e. 13) in the hopes of using the extra money every month to give out two or three extra prizes a year for special occasions or in months where we have trouble deciding a winner. Because the only funding our chapter has access to is the money that the Trustees can put in out of their own pockets each month, we didn't award any extra prizes last year because we had to cover capital expenses like T-Shirts to give to the Top4 Finalists, business cards to help promote the program, and similar expenses like that.

That said, we managed to pay off the bulk of our bills last year and have finally had an opportunity to let the rainy-day fund grow a bit.

Every month is a tough one to decide a winner because all of the ideas that are submitted to us are stellar, and this month was no different. Day-of deliberations took the longest they ever had for us, and we even had to call back the Trustees to the back room a second time for more discussion.

In the end, we had such a hard time deciding on a winner that we decided to empty the bank account and award our first multi-grant in AF-Calgary history.

So, with that in mind, AF-Calgary's February 2012 joint winners are Tim Barber with Timmy's Only Delivery Service and John Frosst with Gumsphere 300. Tim and John will each receive a full no-strings-attached $1,000 micro-grant to help realize their respective projects.

That said, because we weren't planning on giving away $2,000 last night, we only had one money bag to give away, but if you're reading this John, rest assured that your check is in the mail. ;-)

John's win here also shows that it's worthwhile to re-submit an idea for consideration. While we can only afford to give away one (or so) $1,000 micro-grant a month (because bottom line, we ain't rich), even if an idea doesn't win one of the monthly prizes, it still doesn't detract from the merit of the idea. We have a saying around here: If it's worthy to be submitted, it's worthy for consideration, which is why we developed the Top4 Pitch format when we started up back in April 2011 (as well as choose to write long blog posts such as this one summarizing as much as possible) rather than adopt the traditional Scholarship-like format that some of the other chapters still use, as we want to highlight as many Awesome Ideas that are feasible for our small group of people to the public and anyone out there willing to support the projects we can't afford to support ourselves.

Congratulations Tim, John and Shawn!

Kudos to everyone who submitted (or re-submitted!) an idea or project for consideration this month, and congratulations to all of our Top4 Finalists and Honourable Mentions for the month of February.

And a BIG Thank You to our Awesome Support Team for February: Sarah Pynoo, Tara Prudhomme and Matt Braithwaite with the Twitter work for the night and Lonnie Taylor with photography duties.

We're still accepting submissions for the AF-Calgary March 2012 prize, and the deadline for that one is Saturday, March 10 at 11:59 p.m. To apply, fill out this handy-dandy web form!

Thanks to everyone who took time out of their evening to join us at AcceleratorYYC, and stay tuned for the announcement of our March venue!

February's Top4 Finalists and Honourable Mentions

It's that time of the month again!

Last night, AF-Calgary Trustees met to go through all the submissions for February. So without further ado, here's February 2012's AF-Calgary Top4 Finalists and Honourable Mentions (in no particular order):

Top4 Finalists:

1. Art for Strangers by Aoife Baldwin-Maher: "A community initiative directed at putting the local art community in direct contact with the larger Calgary community through publicly distributing free works of art to the public."
2. River Surfing Wave by Neil Egsgard: "Build a world class river surfing wave in Kananaskis"
3. Gumsphere 300 by John Frosst: "A North America-wide traveling road show and rally with three Alberta bands, four artists, a film crew, one photojournalist, one mechanic, one chef and eight Ford Festivas."
4. Timmy's Only Delivery Service by Tim Barber: "We deliver coffee, donuts, and food from downtown Calgary restaurants to downtown Calgary businesses."

Honourable Mentions:

• Family Village by Tara Yagos: "Create a stop-frame video of the current state of various social services buildings made of LEGO and morph it into a consolidated "one-stop shop" of services village."
• #R3BRANDYYC by Dax Justin: "The solution for Calgary's Identity Crisis? Our people. We're here to reclaim the pulse of the real west. RETHINK. REDEFINE. REJOIN. #R3BRANDYYC."
• Poetry in Politics by Alex Zisman: "To organize primarily via Twitter a Haiku festival focused on and spanning the period of the spring provincial election."
• We Can Rise Up! by Sunday Omony: "Youth Empowerment Workshops"
• Youth Can Help! by April McNamara: "Youth week celebrates AWESOME kids; so why not have kids do something AWESOME?!"
• Clothing Calgary's Community by Ian Wearmouth: "An event to encourage the growth of community through the international language of clothing."

This month's Thousand Dollar Thursday will be held at AcceleratorYYC in conjunction with GrowLab. As such, note the earlier start time this month: 5:30 p.m.

• Where: AcceleratorYYC (200, 1212 9th Ave SE)
• When: Thursday, February 23, promptly at 5:30 p.m.
• RSVP: Facebook and Yelp

Finally, we're currently accepting submissions for the March 2012 prize. If you have an Awesome Idea that you'd like to submit to AF-Calgary for consideration, fill out this handy-dandy web form! The deadline for submissions for the March AF-Calgary prize is Saturday, March 10 at 11:59 p.m.

Thanks to everyone who submitted (or re-submitted) an idea for consideration this month, and hope to see everyone at AcceleratorYYC this Thursday!

We're Back, Baby!

Last month's Thousand Dollar Thursday on Thursday, January 26, our first of 2012, took place at the UBU Lounge at Theatre Junction GRAND, a fitting venue as the Grand recently celebrated its 100th anniversary.

Thursday, January 26 was also what we dubbed "Awesome Alberta Day" as AF-Edmonton also held their monthly Pitch Night at the same time.

Hosted this time by Calgary Trustee of Awesome Ken Sedgewick, a diverse set of Top4 Finalists for January took to the podium for 90 seconds each hoping to convince the AF-Calgary Trustees that they were deserving of the $1,000 prize.

Pitch 1: The Awesome Science Road Show

First up was the Awesome Science Road Show by Ed Kusmirski. Loyal AF-Calgary followers may recall that Ed pitched the same idea at the last Thousand Dollar Thursday back in November 2011. Ed thought his idea was so awesome that it was worth re-submitting, and we thought it was awesome enough to highlight it and give it another chance.

Previous science road shows in the past have attracted up to 700 adults and children. Like last Pitch Night, the Awesome Science Road Show would showcase science experiments and demonstrations for kids, this time happening at the Fish Creek Library in March. Their hope is to attract 1,000 people to participate this time around, with eight different science topics and 16 interactive presentations, and the $1,000 would help pay for the consumables used in the road show, including such things as liquid nitrogen and dry ice, plus other logistical costs involved in running the event.

Pitch 2: Projection Bombing

Up next was Projection Bombing by Tyler Longmire. Tyler is a theatre artist, animator and self-professed tinkerer who wishes to build a device that would allow the public to create art all over the city by allowing citizens to paint blank city walls with interactive video or tag buildings with lasers.

The device would be an independently powered mobile video projection unit mounted onto a modified bicycle trailer complete with computer, projectors, lasers, lights and diodes that the public can interact with, as well as a power generator. The public could then use the devices mounted on the mobile projection unit to make quick, non-destructive visual art almost anywhere in the city.

As Tyler already possesses most of the video equipment needed for the project, the $1,000 would go towards building the portable rig, specifically to help procure the bicycle and trailer to be modified, power generator/battery system, and the lasers, diodes, sensors and other electronics to make everything work.

Pitch 3: Free Range Youth

Third was Free Range Youth by Kevin Hayes. Kevin's idea is to create a youth entrepreneur peer program that empowers youth aged 13-25 to plan, build and start their own businesses using the resources they already have by providing an environment for success, creative thinking, confidence building and collaboration. Graduates of the program would then be responsible to teach the next generation of students in the program, teaching all involved vital leadership skills and ensuring that the program remains sustainable.

The $1,000 would be used to start off the program with the first group of 20 youth. The money would help to pay for Business Starter Kits including the creation of business cards and other promotional materials, printed course curriculum materials including course guides and workbooks, and IT infrastructure such as web space and email services that participants can build their businesses on.

Pitch 4: R.A.P.S. (Railway Accident Prevention System)

Final pitch of the night went to R.A.P.S. (Railway Accident Prevention System) by Brad Blois. R.A.P.S. is a sophisticated system that aims to warn people and animals wandering or loitering on railway tracks of incoming trains. The mechanism to warn people on the tracks would consist of a device mounted to the front of the locomotive that would fire projectiles at objects on the track as a final-warning that a train is approaching, the hope being that alerting people on the tracks would give them enough time to get out of the way.

As the entire project is a large endeavour, the $1,000 would be used to help finance the creation of a 3D video demonstrating the R.A.P.S. system in action to be used in presentations to Transport Canada and the International Rail Safety Conference in Washington DC.

And the winner is...

It was another tough month to decide, with a wide array of projects and ideas crossing many industries and spaces.

But at the end of the day, AF-Calgary's January 2012 no-strings-attached $1,000 winner was Projection Bombing by Tyler Longmire. Tyler hopes to start construction of his device right away to be debuted in the spring.

Special thanks to UBU Lounge for allowing us to host our event at their venue. Thursday nights are half-price sushi and Sapporo beer nights at UBU, which a) you should definitely check out, and b) many people partook after the night's festivities.

Kudos to everyone who submitted (or re-submitted!) an idea or project for consideration this month, and congratulations to all of January's Top4 Finalists and Honourable Mentions!

And a BIG Thank You to our Awesome Support Team for January: Elissa Lynn with photography duties, and Sarah Pynoo, Kelsie Fraser, Tara Prudhomme, Danelle Wettstein and Jenn Dunwoody with the Twitter work for the night.

Congratulations, Tyler!

February's Thousand Dollar Thursday will be held on Thursday, February 23 at AcceleratorYYC in Inglewood, right before GrowLab. As such, in order to help accommodate GrowLab, we'll be starting a bit earlier this time around, 5:30 p.m. rather than 6 p.m.

We're still accepting submissions for the February 2012 prize. The deadline is Friday, February 10 at 11:59 p.m. To apply, fill out this handy-dandy web form!

Thanks to everyone who joined us back in January, and we hope to see you again this month at AcceleratorYYC!

January's Top4 Finalists and Honourable Mentions

It's a new year and a new month here at AF-Calgary!

Last year we gave away $8,000 to help enable and implement various Awesome Ideas around town and this year, we're poised to add even more to that total as 2012 is the year that our Mayor Nenshi likes to call "The Year of Calgary."

So without further ado, here is AF-Calgary's Top4 Finalists and Honourable Mentions for January 2012 (in no particular order):

Top4 Finalists:

1. Free Range Youth by Kevin Hayes: "A youth entrepreneur peer program that empowers youth to be humans."
2. R.A.P.S. (Railway Accident Prevention System) by Brad Blois: "A system designed to warn people walking on the railroad when a train is approaching."
3. Projection Bombing by Tyler Longmire: "A bike-powered interactive mobile projection unit."
4. Awesome Science Roadshow by Ed Kusmirski: "Interactive science presentations for kids of all ages at Fish Creek Library."
   

Honourable Mentions:

• Fame Whore by Lizzie Carr: "Creating a satirical performance on the way women are portrayed in the media."
• Motion Gallery by Rob Dodds: "Expand and promote cooperative space for artists."
• Stage Festival by Alia Shahab: "Festival of interactive, installation, and performance art."
  

Astute AF-Calgary fans and followers will notice that the Ed Kusmirski pitching this month is the same Ed Kusmirski who pitched the Science Roadshow idea to AF-Calgary back in November 2011. It just goes to show you that perseverance pays and that an Awesome Idea is an Awesome Idea no matter what, even if it doesn't end up winning the $1,000 (as an aside, did you know that AF-Toronto's Attack of the 50-foot Rob Ford idea spent months on their chapter's short list before it finally won in June? Kudos to Ryan Ringer for continuing to submit his idea until he won!).

This month's Thousand Dollar Thursday will be held at the UBU Lounge at Theatre Junction GRAND. It's a fitting venue considering that 2012 is the GRAND's centennial (it officially turns 100 years old on Sunday, February 5). In fact, Theatre Junction GRAND will be holding a giant birthday bash on Saturday, February 4 from 2 p.m. to 2 a.m. to celebrate! You should definitely check it out if you can.

So here are the details on this month's Thousand Dollar Thursday:

• Where: UBU Lounge, Second level (608 - 1 Street SW)
  
• When: Thursday, January 26 promptly at 6 p.m.
• RSVP: Facebook and Yelp
  

Thursday nights are also Half-Price Sushi and Sapporo night at UBU, so make sure to take advantage while you're down there!

That said, the second level of the lounge has limited space, so make sure to come early to secure your spot!

Finally, we're currently accepting submissions for the February 2012 prize. If you have an Awesome Idea that you'd like to submit to AF-Calgary for consideration, fill out this handy-dandy web form! The deadline for submissions for the February prize is Friday, February 10 at 11:59 p.m.

Thanks to everyone who submitted (or re-submitted) an idea for consideration this month, and hope to see everyone at UBU this Thursday!

Wow! How did it get to be 2012 so soon??

My apologies - I have no idea where the past 6 weeks have gone.  I wish it was due to something exotic - like I was on an around the world trip as a roadie for The Planet Tour ... or that I'd run off and joined the Gumsphere300 - but alas, my life is not quite that awesome, I was just plain busy. 

To catch you all up ... 

The Holipalooza was incredible!  100s of amazing Calgarians, scads of really cool (I mean REALLY cool) silent auction items - that raised $1000s for local charities at Christmas and fantabulous food from 4 YYC food joints (can I tell you that the bacon fudgesicle from Charcut was a little teeny bit of frozen heaven on a stick!)

Awesome Calgary donated one of our uber rare (and supremely coveted) t-shirts and a guest trustee spot for our 1 year Anniversary pitchapolooza (I just made that up. Do you like it? :)  ... and the lucky winner (and donor of many dinaros to charity) is Jennifer Pollock (@jcpollock).  Many thanks Jen, we look forward to you joining us on April 26th to join in the awesomeness that is Calgary.  :)

We took December off from awarding our monthly $1000 cash prize and I really missed it.  I'm so glad January is here and with it a whole slew of new awesome ideas! 

And one holiday party to rule them all

My momma always told me, "Awesome is as Awesome does." Next week, on Wednesday December 7, Awesome is doing it up with some 18 other meetup and topical groups to throw one of the best Christmas / Hanukkah / Winter Solstice / Pancha Ganapati / Kwanzaa / Festivus parties that there is to find in this city.

HOLIPALOOZA will see the meeting and mixed merriment of a massive multitude of magnificent mortals. Five participating awesome businesses (Melrose Cafe and Bar, Ming, Charcut, Crave Cupcakes, and Skyy Vodka) will be presenting some delectable treats for the masses and there will be a killer silent auction to boot! Each of the five businesses have chosen a local charity to be their beneficiary of their share of the collected funds.

We would love to see all of our awesome friends, pitchers, proposers, and winners help us celebrate the season, mingling with creative and fun-loving people, and helping out five worthy local charities all the while. You can get all of the information at the Holipalooza website.

Everyone is welcome, so spread the word, bring your friends, and participate in the awesomeness that is Getting Together and Giving Together!

Details

Date: Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Where: Melrose Cafe & Bar, 730 17 Avenue SW
Time: 5:30 pm to 9:00 pm
Price: $25
(Price is for access to the delectable treats. You can attend the event itself for no charge, and can still make donations and/or bid on silent auction items.)


Twitter: #HPyyc and @Holipalooza
Facebook: www.facebook.com/Holipalooza
Web: www.holipalooza.ca

Want to be extra awesome?

Should you wish to be extra awesome and donate an item for the silent auction, please contact Awesome Foundation Calgary trustee John Smiley at misteryyc@gmail.com. All items for the auction should have a retail value of between $50 and $100.

Holipalooza is also looking for volunteers for the night of the event. Your volunteer shift will be no more than two hours. Please also contact John at the e-mail address above to inquire.

Happy Holipalooza, and hope to see you there!

Credit where due... I totally ripped off the blog title from @kaliereadwin

A Photo Essay of the final party at BJs Gym in East Village

A number of Awesome Calgary trustees and supporters joined the Annis and Hart families to give BJ's Gym a final Ring-a Ding-Dong Dandy send off as progress makes way for the new East Village Development.   Hugs, happiness, heart-feelings were wrapped up in great local music and brilliant local art.  A truly fitting final "ring of the bell" of WWE & Stampede wrestling in Calgary. 

If anyone has stories or photos to share from this historic evening, please send to me and we can share on the site.   Thanks!

~Lori
AF-Calgary Founder

Wrestling posters from by-gone days

Where blood was once shed, music is now made.

AF Calgary trustee Brian Singh and his new acquisition

Awesome can be found in everything in Calgary ... it just takes focus.

Read this wall!

Angie Annis gives the crowd a big thank you!

Amazing art ensconced the walls

beautiful instruments waiting to make beautiful music

Awesome Foundation Calgary - a proud sponsor

AF Calgary friends Mike Bowerman & Shannon Hoover - upstairs

The bands played on!

Janet Clarke Bell  - about to jam!

more fabulous art!

crowds rolled in throughout the night

Ring-a-Ding Dong, Dandy! 

We "Endeavored" to end the year on an Awesome high!

Another huge thank you to our great friends, Shannon and Maria, at Endeavor Arts Gallery for hosting our last Awesome event of 2011. Just where has the year gone??!

Reg Tiangha really upped the bar for emcee'ing our events. And special thanks to our live-tweeting crew of Kelsie, Sarah and Danelle. Great job ladies ... we were trending!

The evening was perfect, the venue incredible, the weather cooperative, the enthusiasm high ... but we were missing a Top4 pitcher. Who knew that traffic on the Deerfoot at 5:30 on a Thursday evening would be snarled??

We got under way a few minutes late but with a full complement of Top4 presenters.

First up was Ed Kusmirski pitching Science Road Show "Science experiments and demonstrations for kids." Ed walked us through the science shows of years past and explained that with a little sponsorship money and a boost from AF-Calgary he could get Calgary Science Show exposed to 100s of teachers and kids across Calgary. His pitch was first-rate and he set the stage for a night of strong pitches for amazing causes. What's better than kids and science?? (Ok, I'd say kids and math -- but I'm probably kind of alone in that thought).

Up next was Lisa Demers pitching for Haysboro School "Dream Catcher" Edible Garden. Lisa played with our heartstrings and brought a team of young people (dressed as vegetables, no less!) to do a 90 second live, fully choreographed performance - including talking parts from no less than 6 children and 2 adults. That's an awful lot to cram in to 90 seconds - but they did it! And they had other little people go through the audience handing out fresh carrots from baskets. No fair, low blow! :)

Lisa and her crew are building an edible garden at their K-6 School in Haysboro and the garden is in the shape of a "dream catcher". The award-winning design will be a shining example to other schools of how to create livable art for kids to participate in and learn from. I think the entire BOD of the Haysboro School was in attendance to cheer as Lisa pitched that a grant from Awesome Foundation would go to buy boards to create the garden (and protect it from those munching bunnies).

Susan Cunningham was up next and she said what we were all thinking "wow, that is a hard act to follow!". Sue and Barb are huge advocates for kids and sports (ok, kids & science, kids & gardens, kids & sports ... all we're missing now is kids & math!) and are organizing Kids Zone Sports - a training program for kids, and their teachers alike, to teach them how to Run, Jump & Throw ... like Olympic Athletes. In conjunction with the 2012 Canadian Track & Field Championships (also the Canadian Olympic qualifying event), Kids Zone Sports will engage Canada's elite athletes with kids.

Sue then invited the Haysboro School kids to demo her training kit equipment. Ok, what's more fun than kids running and jumping in front of an audience of 100 awesome people?! (not even math can beat that!).



****
Rossbina Nathoo drew the last spot by virtue of having been stuck on the Deerfoot and was relieved that we held the event for her. And I have to say "Wow!" - what an amazing lady doing great things for the seniors of the city. Rossbina started FOCUS on Seniors - a program for empowering seniors by engaging them in community, helping them get board training and reducing isolation and dependance by keeping their minds and bodies active. Rossbina had us mesmerized with her work with seniors and her single-handed efforts to raise this foundation from the ground up (beginning with finding a need with her own mother to now providing support and programs for over 200 seniors). I'll admit it - I shed a tear of admiration while was she was talking.

****
Ok, now what?? How on earth can we pick only 1 of these 4 awesome projects that are all more than deserving of our grant? As the last Awesome event of 2011, we were ending the year on a high note but also a low note. How can so many great groups of people, supporting so many causes for this city, possibly need our money? What does this say about what has gone missing in our communities to send these incredible people to us looking for funding. How can we, as a city, do more? How can we, as individuals do more? Rhetoric for now ... but a goal to strive for indeed.

****
After some lively and heated discussion, fisticuffs, and a lot of "wow, how do we decide this one??" It was a close race and a very tough decision but in the end it was Haysboro School Edible Garden that won out and won the $1000 cold, hard cash! The kids were so excited at winning and at the vision of $1000 cash as it emerged from the Awesome loot bag. They each got to hold a good chunk of money for the photo that ensued. Awesome times!

Don't forget to check out BJ's Gym final hurrah Nov 25th and 26th at BJ's Gym in East Village.

And don't forget to get your ideas in for the first $1000 cash award of 2012 -- submission deadline is Jan 10. Happy Holidays to everyone ... see you at the Holipalooza on Dec 7th!

****

Special thanks to our own Awesome Correspondence Officer - Elissa Lynn for the great photos tonight!

Announcing AF-Calgary's November Top4 Finalists

Another month, another Top4! And what a doozy it was to narrow down the short list this month as there were so many stellar submissions. I have to say that Trustee blood was definitely shed.

That said, since we're taking December off this year (the fourth Thursday of the month falls on December 22, which is really close to the holiday season), this month's Top4 Finalists also have the distinction of being the final Top4 for 2011 as well!

So without further ado, here are AF-Calgary's Top4 finalists and Honourable Mentions for November 2011, in no particular order:

Top4 Finalists:

1. Science Road Show by Ed Kusimirski: "Science experiments and demonstrations for kids."
2. Haysboro School Dream Catcher Edible Garden by Lisa Demers: "In the spring of 2012, a veritable army of volunteers will build the most unique edible garden in Calgary."
3. Sports Festival Kids Zone by Susan Cunningham: "Organize a community orientated sport and culture festival to encourage people attending the Canadian Track and Field Championships in Calgary 2012 to get involved in sport and stay active."
4. F.O.C.U.S. on Seniors Board Training by Rossbina Nathoo: "Offer multi-cultural seniors a variety of programs to enrich their lives by empowering them and reducing isolation."
   

Honourable Mentions:

• Bondai by Tristan Zastrow: "A visual interface to bring organized structure to the internet."
• The Cost of Lost by Jon Lord: "A series of succinct videos, each summarizing a great Alberta opportunity that was lost as a result of an inability to acquire local funding and/or Venture Capital - and speculating on what might have happened instead."
• Voice Up by Kerry Girling: "Creating an impact. Voice is the world's first anti-bullying page that allows anyone whom has been bullied to share their experience online."
  
• Enhanced Education Calgary by Liam Finn & Michael Manzano: "Fostering creativity and innovation in Calgary youth by allowing them to learn practical life skills from leaders in the community."
• Maker Faire Calgary Launch by Ben Reed: "We are bringing a Maker Faire to Calgary in June 2012 and we need a community launch party!"
• Rink Rat by Robert Smith: "To purchase a snowblower for the Killarney outdoor rink."
• Senior Lion Dance Club by Lisa Chan: "Seniors promoting multiculturalism to a wide variety of service organizations."
• Youth Rock Camp by Darren Ollinger: "A program for musically inclined youth to meet with others at their age and level of skill to create bands and really showcase the immense talent."
  

Obviously, since this will be the final no-strings-attached $1,000 grant that we'll be awarding this year, we had a lot of submissions to pour through, and much Trustee blood was shed in determining a Top4 as well as Honourable Mentions from so many submissions.

For those who have projects or ideas that are not time-sensitive, we invite you to apply again (whether it was this month or in months previous)! The next submission deadline for the January 2012 prize is 11:59 p.m. on Tuesday, January 10. To submit an idea for consideration (old or new), fill out this handy-dandy web form.

AF-Calgary's November 2011 Thousand Dollar Thursday, the final one of 2011, will be held at the same place where we began back in April to help close out our first calendar year: at the Endeavor Arts Gallery.

More details in this post here, but to sum up:

• When: Thursday, November 24, 2011
• Where: Endeavor Arts Gallery (1209 1st St SW #200)
• Time: Doors open at 6 p.m., show starts at 6:15ish

Hope to see you there!

And the circle is now complete

It all started about 10 months ago thanks to a fateful trip down Bow Trail.

Since then, with the help of ordinary Calgarians donating money each month out of their own pockets, AF-Calgary's given away seven no strings attached $1,000 micro-grants (that's $7,000 to date!) to enable fellow Calgarians to pursue their awesome ideas, and helped bring exposure to many more ideas, with connections or even additional sponsorship being made or found through our monthly Pitch Nights and other avenues.

We've accomplished a lot in 10 months. We've helped show ordinary Calgarians a new way to get into philanthropy and to help make the community better, we've helped mentor new Awesome Foundation chapters around the world, most recently in Edmonton, Alberta and Kingston, Ontario, and we've helped pioneer an awards process that some other AF chapters are starting to experiment with.

We're about to award our eighth $1,000 micro-grant next Thursday, which also has the honour of being the final micro-grant awarded by AF-Calgary for 2011.

You see, typically we hold our Thousand Dollar Thursdays on the fourth Thursday of the month, just to keep things consistent. However, since the fourth Thursday of December falls awfully close to the holidays (December 22), we figured it'd be difficult to get people out. So we're going to do something a little different for December (stay tuned for details!) and instead, we've decided to close out 2011 this month where we began.

That's right, our venue for November's Thousand Dollar Thursday and AF-Calgary's final Pitch Night for 2011 was also our very first: The Endeavor Arts Gallery. We figured that a great way to close out our first calendar year of operation would be to do so where it all began.

Located on 1st Street and 12th Ave SW and directly across the street from Hotel Arts, the Endeavor Arts Gallery is a contemporary mixed media and new media gallery that provides "a space that first of all caters to the new ways that art is generated today, as well as the new ways in which we consume it."

In the short time it's been around, the Endeavor Arts Gallery has quickly become a community hub in the area, hosting many events open to the public for free or low-cost such as potlucks, Geek Movie Nights, First Thursday Artwalks, We Should Know Each Other parties, build-your-own robot nights, and so much more.

So please join us next Thursday, November 24 at the Endeavor Arts Gallery for AF-Calgary's final Thousand Dollar Thursday of 2011. Doors open at 6 p.m. and the show will start around 6:15ish. We hope to see you there! And if you're coming, RSVP on Facebook and Yelp!

And finally, if you're looking to submit an Awesome Idea for consideration for AF-Calgary's January $1,000 prize, our next submission deadline is Tuesday, January 10, 2012. That's a lot of time to get your thinking caps working, so get started!

The B.J.'s Gym Show is moving along nicely!

Just a quick status update from Angie Annis and her team, winners of AF-Calgary's October $1,000 prize.

They've been spending the last few days getting B.J.'s Gym all prettied up for the big farewell bash on the last weekend of November.

As you'll see from the following pictures, artists have been hard at work painting and decorating both the interior and exterior in preparation for the party at the end of the month.

There's still lots of work left to be done of course, but things are moving along nicely!



As more details become available, we'll share them with you here so stay tuned. In the meantime, make sure you save the date (November 25 & 26) and we hope we'll see you there!

It was a Ring-a-Ding-Dong Dandy!

Last night's Thousand Dollar Thursday took place in the Kasian Gallery in the Faculty of Environmental Design at the University of Calgary.

According to Wikipedia, Environmental Design is the process of addressing surrounding environmental parameters when devising plans, programs, policies, buildings, or products, which made the location an ideal venue for an AF-Calgary Pitch Night.

Of course, what made it more awesome was the presence of a Pterodactyl.

It was with that backdrop that Calgary's Top4 Finalists for the month of October took the stage in order to attempt to WOW the AF-Calgary Trustees within 90 seconds and convince them why they should be awarded the $1,000 prize.

Hosted this month by our very own Trustee of Awesome Jeff Wielki, he started off with a brief overview of the Awesome Foundation, and even plotted a map showing how Awesome Foundation chapters are starting to pop up around the world. He mentioned that AF-Calgary, despite being only seven months old, is leading the Awesome movement by mentoring new chapters such as Edmonton, Alberta and Turin, Italy, and that many chapters are experimenting with adopting some of the concepts that were developed right here at AF-Calgary, like Pitch Nights.

Jeff, wanting to demonstrate that we do indeed eat our own dog food here at AF-Calgary, launched into a 90 second pitch of his own describing who he was and why he's excited to be a part of Team AF-Calgary. In this writer's opinion, I think he summed it up quite nicely at the end when he said the reason he sticks around is because he "drank the kool-aid, and it was delicious," although he forgot to mention how "awesomely delicious" that kool-aid truly is.

And with that, the night began in earnest with October's Top4 Pitches:

Pitch 1: The SoJo

First up was Trevor Gair, speaking on behalf of his SoJo project, an online destination that would help inspire and empower youth to dream big and engage in social entrepreneurship, providing them with the tools and resources to help turn their ideas for social change into reality.

Trevor spoke very passionately about his project, and according to him, his SoJo project is all about people with ideas, giving them a platform to connect and the tools they need to launch their social programs, projects, ventures, and enterprises that, through execution, will ultimately improve the quality of life for people in communities around the world.

The $1,000 would be used to help further develop the SoJo online web portal, which is currently in closed beta phase, as well as help the team expand the outreach of the program.

Pitch 2: AcceleratorYYC

Up next was Christian MacLean, speaking on behalf of AcceleratorYYC, an entrepreneur lead co-work space tailored to the unique needs and challenges of pre-launch and pre-product startups. They aim to be an incubator and accelerator space for early-stage technology start-ups based in Inglewood that the community can draw resources from.

In their original submission, they indicated that they would have liked to use the $1,000 to help with setup costs, to bring in knowledgeable speakers that people can learn from, and to help fund other community events in their space.

However, come pitch time, in an act of generosity, they decided to change up their pitch at the last minute after seeing and connecting with Trevor Gair as he pitched his SoJo idea, saying that if AcceleratorYYC won the $1,000, they would match it and donate the funds to the SoJo project and allow Trevor use of their space to help implement his idea.

Connections such as this one are routinely made at AF-Calgary events, which is one of the hopes that we had when we originally came up with the whole Pitch Night format (which at the time, wasn't done at any of the AF chapters around the world). Knowing that there are so many Awesome Ideas here in Calgary, we wished to expose as many of them as possible to anyone who's watching or paying attention. As there is only one $1,000 prize that we can award (mainly because the prize money comes out of our own pockets each month, and since many of us are ordinary Calgarians ourselves, we ain't rich), by exposing the ideas to others, the hope was that someone somewhere might see those ideas and offer to help those people bring it to fruition in whatever way they can.

So thanks AcceleratorYYC for donating your pitch time to SoJo and for being so generous!

Pitch 3: The B.J.'s Gym Show

Third up was Angie Annis, wishing to put on a community event entitled the B.J.'s Gym Show, an event that would celebrate over 40 years of history at the historic B.J.'s Gym in Calgary's East Village.

For long-time Calgarians, B.J.'s Gym plays an integral role in Calgary's wrestling history. Many famous Stampede Wrestlers trained and performed here over the years, and those who know about the lineage of B.J.'s Gym and how it came to be knows how tightly strong that gym is tied to the Hart family, a family known around the world for their contributions to professional wrestling (the gym was founded by B.J. Annis, Angie's father, who married Georgia Hart).

Angie wishes to throw one last big hurrah at the gym before it's torn down, celebrating over 40 years of rich history at the gym as well as honouring Stu Hart's legacy, while at the same time, looking forward to the future. With live music and artists showcasing their work, plus hosting some very special guests who've all had an important role in the history of B.J.'s Gym, Angie hopes to throw one giant bash that all Calgarians can participate in at the gym over the final weekend of November.

Angie and her team submitted a detailed cost breakdown of how they would use the $1,000. Most of the money would go to advertising and marketing materials, while the rest would go towards attaining the proper city permits and licenses, as well as be spent on logistical items such as equipment rentals and other items needed to host and run the event.

They also brought a Pterodactyl.

Pitch 4: L.E.G.A.C.Y.

Final pitch of the night went to Shana Ng speaking about the L.E.G.A.C.Y. Program.

L.E.G.A.C.Y. stands for "Lift, Empower, Guide, and Advocate for Calgary Youth" and wishes to pass on valuable skills and knowledge to generations of high risk youth so they can make healthier and safer choices.

Conceived by four nurses who work at Wood's Homes, a social service agency that serves 20,000 vulnerable children and their families every year, the L.E.G.A.C.Y. Program will focus on areas to teach youth the skills to live a healthy lifestyle and maintain a positive sense of well being. Areas include smoking cessation, physical activity, health topics, nutrition, and hygiene.

The $1,000 would help operate the L.E.G.A.C.Y. Program by helping to fund supplies, educational materials, transportation, and other program costs.

It was another tough night for the Trustees to decide which project idea to award the $1,000 to, but after a very long deliberation, a decision was made.

And the winner is...

AF-Calgary's October 2011 no-strings-attached $1,000 winner is the B.J.'s Gym Show. Angie and her team will be hosting the farewell party on the final weekend of November, and all of Calgary is invited. Stay tuned here as we'll let you know more about the details of the bash as they become available.

Thanks to the Faculty of Environmental Design and the University of Calgary for allowing us to host our event this month at the Kasian Gallery. It's a wonderful space with innovative exhibits, so if you're ever on campus, you should make time to check it out.

Kudos to everyone who submitted an idea for consideration this month, and congratulations to all of our Top4 Finalists and Honourable Mentions this month!

Finally, a special thank you to Elissa Lynn for helping us with photography duties for the night, and Tara Prudhomme for helping with the live-tweeting.

Congratulations Angie!

We're currently accepting submissions for the final Thousand Dollar Thursday event of 2011, taking place on Thursday, November 24 at the Endeavor Arts Gallery. As the fourth Thursday of December falls awfully close to the holidays, we're going to take December off and figured it would be fitting if we ended the calendar year where we began back in April (has it been that long?). It's going to be a big one, so save the date and we hope to see you there!

The deadline for submissions for the November 2011 prize is 11:59 p.m. on Thursday, November 10. To apply, fill out this handy-dandy web form!

Thanks again to everyone who made time to come down last night, and we hope to see you again in November!