Thanks, once again, to John Parker (@middaparka) for the excellent photos. You can see the full set of photos from the Bournemouth Twestival (a.k.a Meetdraw9) on Flickr.

We’re proud to announce that on March 24th Meetdraw will be hosting Bournemouth’s very own Twestival Local event.

Welcome to Bournemouth Twestival 2011

Twestival® (or Twitter Festival) uses social media for social good by connecting communities off-line on a single day to highlight a great cause and have a fun event. Twestival is the largest global grass roots social media fundraising initiative to date. Since 2009, volunteers have raised close to $1.2 million(USD) for 137 non-profits. All local events, including Meetdraw9, are being organized 100% by volunteers and 100% of all donations on the night will go direct to local projects.

Twestival was born out of the idea that if cities were able to collaborate on an international scale, but work from a local level, it could have a spectacular impact. Over 200 international cities from Buenos Aires to Bangalore, Seattle to Seoul and Hong Kong to Honolulu have participated in Twestival.

Twestival Local 2011 is a great opportunity to bring the community together. The day is about more than fundraising, but all money raised will go directly to a local charity, that means 100% of the money we raise will be spent in Bournemouth. We are still in the process of confirming our own charity, so watch out on Twitter (and here) for further announcements.

1812 is our  venue of choice this time around. We will announce details of the evening’s activities over the next 2 weeks, but if you have suggestions or would like to get involved, get in touch. In fact, please get in touch if you can help in any way!

For updates or to get involved, please follow us on Twitter (where else?!) @meetdraw and make a note of the date in your diary – Thursday 24th March 2011.

p.s. Thanks to Neil Leonard (@neilleonard) for designing the Twestival Local Bournemouth logo. Neil is a design lecturer, part time designer and soon to be proud author. Visit his site at http://neilrobertleonard.co.uk

UPDATE

Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances we’ve had to change the venue of Meetdraw9 (the Bournemouth Twestival) to 1812 which is located in The Royal Exeter Hotel, next door to Bar So (home of Meetdraw5). View map.

Shortly before The Christmas Meetball one of our founding butchers, David Burton, made the tough decision to step away from Meetdraw to allow him to focus on other personal projects. David has been an invaluable part of the team over the last 2 years, in many ways holding Meetdraw together, helping to shape it into the event it is today. We cannot thank him enough for his hard work and commitment. Although we’re saying farewell to David he’ll still be propping up the bar at future events and I’m sure he won’t be able to resist helping out on the odd occasion, if we ask nicely.

Choice cuts

With 3 becoming 2, and the start of a New Year, it gave Dan and I a good opportunity to rethink the way Meetdraw works and how we can best plan for the future, ensuring Meetdraw continues to grow and improve.

Before Meetdraw8 we invited a group of 20 digital animals from across Dorset, all passionate and regular supporters of Meetdraw, to a half day workshop to help us set out a plan for the next 12 months. The sessions, facilitated by ThinkPublic (thanks to financial support from iNets South West), generated some great ideas and we all carried our renewed enthusiasm into the evenings festivities.

Once the dust had settled and the new year arrived it was clear that, before we could instigate any of the projects, we would need regular and consistent help from like-minded people to keep Meetdraw going. We’ve never sought to personally gain,  financially or otherwise, from the events and everyone that helps does so as a volunteer, but with David handing in his butchers apron and Dan moving on to pastures new there’s only so much we could achieve as things stand.

2 become 5

The first step for us was to increase the number of Butchers, so we invited a small number of enthusiastic, motivated people from a variety of backgrounds and agencies to help us strengthen the core of Meetdraw. Our intention is that the new Butchers will act as a Board of Directors allowing us to register Meetdraw as a Community Interest Company so that we can better represent you, the people who have helped us make the Meet sustainable.

The new Meetdraw Board consists of:

• Dan Hills, Digital Media Consultant, No Second Prize
• Paul Seys, Head of User Experience, Redweb
• Matt Desmier, Head of Creative Industries Partnership Development, South West Screen
• David Ford, Chief Executive, Bright Blue Day
• George Beverley, Managing Director, Clockworx

Meetdraw needs you

But involvement doesn’t stop there. We’re all really keen that Meetdraw is pushed forward by the people that matter the most and although we can help provide direction, without the support of the community, we’ll still struggle to achieve everything we want to this year.

This is were you come in. The next step is for us to form a committee to help organise and run the events and tackle some of the awesome projects that came out of the December workshop.

We’re looking for 8-10 willing volunteers to join us. You need to be highly motivated, enthusiastic, available to meet up at least once a month (usually Thursday afternoons in Bournemouth) and ideally live or work in Dorset.

Call for Volunteers

The call for volunteers is open until 12pm on Thursday 17th February 2011. The successful applicants will be announced on Thursday 24th February 2011. If we’re inundated with volunteers we’ll open it up to a public vote to decide which candidates form the final committee.

If you’d like to be a part of Meetdraw please submit your nomination before 12pm on Thursday 17th February 2011.

…and finally

Personally I’m very excited to see what 2011 has in store for us. As always I’m really interested to hear what you think. Do you have a question you’d like to ask us? Is there anything you’d like to say about our plans for the future or the new committee? If you do please leave a comment below.

This month’s event hosts a wide range of imagery based on the Up In The Air theme. With work showcasing everything from one
inch off the ground to outer space and created by local AUCB students and industry creatives. All available at £6.

Along with the exhibition and sale of great work there will be live t-shirt screen printing. Choose from a selection of designs, t-shirts and colours and see it all come together right before your eyes.

Live music from Guy Page Trio and DJ set from Pat Bones with his exclusive track made especially for the event!

With so much on offer it’s the perfect night to meet fellow creatives, see and meet the students from AUCB who’ve created the great work on show and a sneaky peek at what This Is has to offer!

To find out more visit This Is.

Thanks to our friends at AUCB a bunch of Meetheads, lead by David ‘The Butcher’ Burton, spent the day producing a series of limited edition screen prints for Meetdraw8. The prints look amazing and we’re really grateful to everyone who volunteered their time to help out. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to make it but looking at the photos it was an awesome day.

On Thursday we’ll be auctioning off the prints in aid local charities, so start measuring up your walls, dust off your cheque books, and get ready to own your very own ‘digital animals’. To help whet your appetite, here’s a little sneaky peek:

Thanks to Damian Proctor and John Parker for these photos, and everyone else who took photos during the day. To see more check out Meetdraw on Flickr.

What is This?

I wanted to know more about the event so I asked Sophia if she could tell me a little bit more about it:

“It’s a Bournemouth based collective. Every month we set a creative brief that is a themed challenge for artists, designers, illustrators and creatives from which to produce interesting and original prints. These will then be exhibited in Sixty Million Postcards in Bournemouth at our monthly event providing a platform for everyone to gain exposure, have the opportunity to network and inject life into Bournemouth’s cultural scene.”

“While we are centered around our monthly event, our core focus is on fostering Bournemouth’s creative community in any way we can. As a result competitions, collaborations, and general networking is just as important.”

I think it sounds like a fantastic idea and well worth getting involved with. The next event takes place on 23rd November with the theme of ‘Nautical Nonsense’. Sixty Million postcards will be host to a flood of imagery with a maritime theme.

The brief is currently live on the website so head over there to get involved, or if you’d like to get involved on any kind of collaboration, promotion or if you just have a question you’d like to ask the team behind This Is will be only too happy to help.

You can find out more about the event or download the brief by visiting www.thisissomething.co.uk you can also keep up to date with developments by following @thisissomething on Twitter

What do you think about the idea? Are you going to take part or maybe thinking about attending? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

View all Adam’s photos from Meetdraw7 on Flickr or check out his blog post on Meetdraw7

Thanks also go to the fantastic students who organised such an awesome event, well done guys consider the bar well and truly lifted.

View the full set of photos from Meetdraw7 on Flickr.

This time the event is being held at The Christopher Creek Pub on Holdenhurst Road (Bournemouth), which is only a 2 minute walk from Bournemouth train station. See you there from 6:30pm. If you have any questions speak to the Butchers.

]]> http://www.meetdraw.com/2010/10/meetdraw7-the-student-takeover/feed/ 0 http://www.meetdraw.com/2010/07/filming-the-meet/ http://www.meetdraw.com/2010/07/filming-the-meet/#comments Thu, 29 Jul 2010 09:50:03 +0000 Paul Seys http://www.meetdraw.com/?p=272 Thanks to @socialtech and @ebizmediatv for filming Meetdraw6. If you missed it take a butchers at what happened…

MeetDraw Six from eBusiness Media on Vimeo.

It’s a hard life working for eBusiness Media – we sent James to the beach to drink beer, enjoy a BBQ and mingle with some of the best creative minds in the South Coast.