Thursday 24th March, 1812 Lounge Bar in Bournemouth, the setting for latest Meetdraw adventure, now well into its 9th episode.

The feature this time was Twestival local. An initiative to raise money for charities across the globe where different people gather to raise money in their own meet-ups for their own designated charities, in their own countries.

Mowgli UK was the selected charity for Meetdraw 9, which is a not-for-profit mentoring organisation set up to make a difference to entrepreneurs, through the power of mentoring. Given that many of the attendees of meetdraw are either owners of their own businesses or design agencies, we felt it was an extremely worthwhile cause, there’s always times when we could use a bit of a push in the right direction.

In total £145 was raised on the night for Mowgli, this was largely raised through a not-at-all-un-digital-like raffle that saw the top winner strolling off into the sunset with a years subscription to NMA magazine (thanks for that guys!). Other prizes included a night’s stay and dinner for 2 at the rather lavish Hotel Du Vin on Poole Quay, kindly donated by the chaps over at Bright Blue Day, and a copy of ‘HTML5 for web designers’ (well worth a read) from Mr Toby James Pestridge.

With around 130 folks attending it was a pretty successful turn out by all accounts, we think it could well have been more too. The evening started with the carefully planned sign in form that we were hoping to maintain throughout the evening with a rota of people, needless to say, drink was flowing, so there may well have been a few unaccounted for. Best laid plans and all that.

Many thanks to all those who attended, photos from the evening can be viewed over at our Flickr group. We’re all looking forward to the tenth Meetdraw, lovingly nicknamed MeetdrawX, taking place towards the end of June. Plans are afoot as we speak and details will be available soon.

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.

Did you know…

the creative economy: designers, developers, producers, effectively the attendees of Meetdraw; generates over 8% of the country’s national income and is 2nd only in importance to the financial services sector? In fact when compared to other developed nations, as a percentage of our gross domestic product (GDP) the UK has the largest most profitable creative industry sector in the World.

Yet this industry is predominately – over 85% – made up of micro-businesses with less than 10 employees. That’s a lot of entrepreneurs. Or at least that’s a lot of digital designers and web developers who have inadvertently found themselves self-employed and running their own businesses.

The Mowgli Foundation

The Mowgli Foundation is a Bristol-based not-for-profit organisation that operates all over the world, running programmes to help support young entrepreneurs. It recognises that individuals can be gifted at what they do or have a great idea that they know inside out, but that doesn’t necessarily make them fantastic businessmen or women. It also realises that a lot of successful people often what to pass their expertise on, yet sometimes they don’t quite know how to.

Therefore the Mowgli Foundation provides a platform with training and guidance for both the mentors and the mentees that not only brings these two parties together but also matches prospective parties, because the Foundation recognises that a lot of its success and the success of mentoring programmes in general is based on personalities.

Having already delivered several successful schemes across Jordan and the Lebanon and more recently in Manchester, later this year The Mowgli Foundation intends to run a programme for south west-based entrepreneurs. So when we were planning Meetdraw9 as the Bournemouth Twestival event, part of the global series of Twestival events happening all over the world on the 24th March; there was one, reasonably local, registered charity that seemed more appropriate than all of the others for Meetdraw9 to support.

Meetdraw9: Bournemouth Twestival

From 6.30pm on 24th March at 1812, Meetdraw9 will be hosting the Bournemouth Twestival event in aid of The Mowgli Foundation. We’ll be asking all the attendees – in a completely voluntary and entirely non-threatening manner – to donate the cost of a pint or two and Buy Mowgli a Drink.

If you can’t make it to Meetdraw9 but would like to donate the price of a pint to Mowgli you can do so through our JustGiving page.

justgiving.com/bournemouth-twestival

Let’s show our support for this great charity and make them feel welcome in our town!

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.