Art Project info for Earth Day!

No. 9 and BGL Launch Environmental Art Project for Earth Day

LOOKING FOR SOMETHING FUN, FREE AND CREATIVE TO DO AFTER SCHOOL ON EARTH DAY?

COME DOWN TO THE BANKS OF THE LOWER DON!

No. 9 Contemporary Art and the Environment has commissioned the acclaimed art collective BGL to create an art installation on the Lower Don, the most altered part of this urban river.  Inspired by this installation, No. 9 is hosting an Earth Day Event on the banks of the Lower Don, by the old Eastern Avenue bridge. 

Open to the general public April 22, from 3:30 – 5:30 pm, the event integrates environmental issues, art and social history.

Participants can create their own clay art in response to the BGL exhibit, and are also invited to go on an environmental walking tour of the Lower Don, and visit the displays by groups instrumental in the protection and revitalization of the Lower Don, such as the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority and Waterfront Toronto.

For information and directions to the site, please visit www.no9.ca.

Everyone is Welcome. We look forward to seeing you there!

Recycle your old electronic waste for Earth Day!

Sunday, April 20, 2008
11:00AM – 4:00PM
Free Admission

Downsview Park, Earth Day Canada and Toronto and Region Conservation invite you to celebrate Earth Day at Downsview Park. Leave your legacy and help create a sustainable community for future generations by planting 2000 trees in Downsview Park’s Canada Forest. 

Earth Day at Downsview Park features environmentally-friendly exhibits, activities and entertainment – rain or shine – for the whole family!

• The Green Pavilion offers food, crafts and products by eco-friendly vendors and exhibitors.
• The Recycle Yard welcomes your donated used clothes, books, computer equipment and household items for charity.
• Interactive exhibits by Creepy Crawlers, Earth Rangers and Citizen’s. Environment Watch – showcase new ways to reduce, reuse and recycle, and fun ways to learn about nature and the environment.
• The Kids Area features arts and crafts, origami, buskers, face painting and more!
• Our Main Stage salutes the best in up-and-coming enviro-focused entertainment by Delta Folk and the Funky Mamas.

Team Green Challenge

Help promote positive environmental action by organizing a group of friends, family members or coworkers to participate in our Team Green Challenge. Tree planting teams can compete to be the “largest group of planters” or the “most spirited group of planters”.

• Download Team Green registration form

For more information about Earth Day at Downsview Park or to register a team for the Team Green Challenge, contact Downsview Park at 416-952-2222 or info@pdp.ca.

The coolest garage sale this season!

A note from a friend of mine:

Looking for some new clothes? A computer? Lamp? Toys? Stereo? Record player? Good book to read? Christmas shopping early? Or just out for a stroll and need to support the upcoming Lab Cab Festival? Then come on down to the Lab Cab Garage Sale!!!!

1550 Queen St. West (next to Mitzi’s Sister @ Dowling)
Saturday, April 19th, 2008
10am-4pm

We will not be undersold!! You will not be disappointed!! Spread the word!! Exclamation!!!

The third annual Lab Cab Festival
May 31st & June 1st, 2008
12pm-6pm
Factory Theatre
FREE!!!

Making Equality Matter

An interesting event is coming up which I thought was worth posting about … and it’s my City Councillor.

Toronto Women’s City Alliance and City Councillor Pam McConnell present

Making Equality Matter

Saturday April 5
1:00-3:00, City Hall Chambers, City Council
100 Queen Street West

Krishanti Dhamaraj is the co-founder of Women’s Institute for Leadership Development for Human Rights (WILD), an organization advancing human rights in the United States. With her leadership San Francisco became the first city in the U.S. to pass legislation implementing the UN Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).

The U.S. government has not yet ratified CEDAW.

While Canada was one of the first countries in the world to ratify CEDAW in 1980, we have yet to fully honour our commitments to women’s international and domestic human rights.

This event is endorsed by the North York Women’s Centre, National Action Committee on the Status of Women, Urban Alliance on Race Relations, Chinese Canadian National Council-Toronto Chapter, Project YouthTube, Community Social Planning Council of Toronto, Toronto & York Region Labour Council. Financial support provided by Status of Women Canada.

Calling all transit enthusiasts …

I am a self-proclaimed transit enthusiast. I am fascinated by urban transit; how it works, the vehicles used, how engaged the public is with their transit system. While I can’t speak for other cities, I know for certain that the Toronto Transit Commission has a huge cult following in the city. There are tons of great blogs and magazines about our system including Steve Munro’s tranist blog, Spacing Magazine, and Transit Toronto to name a few …

And then, a group of people got together and created something called Transit Camp. One of those people, Mark Kuzniki is a colleague of mine at the Centre for Social Innovation and just announced a project which arose out of the momentum of Transit Camp: Metronauts.

Metronauts.ca is an open community of people from across the sprawling greater Toronto region who care about the future of their cities. Metronauts are explorers of the future form of our cities and the role transportation has in our lives.

The first event for Metronauts is another, you guessed it, Transit Camp! It will take place on Saturday April 5, 2008 at the MaRS complex. Here’s a little description of the event:

What is a Transit Camp? It is a style of unconference, where participants create the content of the sessions throughout the day. The event structure is open and fueled by participation. Propose a session on a topic you’re passionate about and engage your fellow participants in conversation. Participation can also mean active listening, and recording of sessions, but there are no observers.
Participants are asked to sign the Metronauts Pledge as a commitment to help create a positive environment for everyone.

If you’re interested in registering for this Transit Camp, you can do so through their registration page.

Congratulations to Mark and all those involved. I think this will be the start of something very interesting in Toronto … and will probably spread to other cities very shortly!

Photo of Yorkville!

I just got an e.mail from Schmap!! Canada saying they had decided to use a photo I had taken of the ROM and posted on Flickr for their website to describe Yorkville. Fun! You can see the site here.

Have a great idea? Maybe you can get some money for it!

Some information that I just received at work … thought it would be interesting to post this. Sounds like a great opportunity!

Do you have a great idea for a Social Purpose Enterprise that would employ people who are homeless or low income?

The Toronto Enterprise Fund provides grants to social purpose enterprises -  revenue generating ventures founded by non-profit organizations or community groups to create jobs or training opportunities for very low-income individuals.

To apply for a grant, your organization or group must have a comprehensive business plan and enter our 2008 Business Plan Competition! This year, the deadline for the Competition is September 15th 2008. If you are a finalist, you will receive seed funding between $5000 and $50 000 to start up your social purpose enterprise. For more details on eligibility and how to apply, visit our website.

Need help developing your idea and writing a comprehensive business plan? The Toronto Enterprise Fund provides a range of supports as well links to other seminars and workshops that will help you research and write a business plan.  You can also check the “Upcoming Seminars and Events” on the Enterprise Toronto’s website regularly for business plan workshops.

Announcing our first workshop of the year

Workshop – An Introduction to Social Purpose Enterprise

Please join us on Thursday, March 27th from 9:30am until 12:00pm for an interactive workshop focusing on social purpose enterprise.

For organizations and community groups who are interested in social purpose enterprise, this workshop will help you to understand the difference between different types of social enterprises and explore the organizational characteristics that lead to successful implementation. We will also do an exercise to brainstorm business ideas that might be a good fit for your organization. You will come away from this workshop with information about Toronto-based resources and funding opportunities such as the Toronto Enterprise Fund’s Business Plan Competition. Come find out if social purpose enterprise is right for your organization!

The workshop will be held in Suite 120 at the Centre for Social Innovation located at 215 Spadina Ave. in downtown Toronto.

Please RSVP by March 24th to
Susannah Cameron
Coordinator, Toronto Enterprise Fund
scameron@uwgt.org

Text Refashion is looking for YOU!

A good friend of mine is putting together the second installment of “Text Refashion” which launched quite successfully last year at The Gladstone Hotel. It was a fantastic evening of art installations on the second floor of the hotel. More is explained in the details below. I know the deadline is today – but I’m sure you could probably slip in a submission.

(Hope Mike doesn’t kill me for saying that)

Even if you don’t submit, this is definitely something worth checking out when the next installment takes place!

Call for submissions

Skinny Jo Productions is seeking artists of all disciplines to submit for a chance to be part of the collective of SJP’s 2nd TEXT refashion.  In April 2007, SJP held TEXT refashion: Project 1 at the Gladstone Hotel with major success, and now we are ready to hit the 2nd project with full force.

TEXT is a conceptual art/media project that encourages artists’ off every medium to find inspiration through words and art as a whole.  The concept is simple and unique:  Through 1 chosen piece of text, 10 artists’ will express the text’s message through their art medium and will be given 2 weeks each (in sequence) to create the text and the art that preceded them as they see fit.

We are seeking visual and performance artists, writers, designers, and beyond. Beyond can be chefs, carpenters, fashionistas etc?

Your deadline to submit your interest is MARCH 20, 2008

We are also seeking those interested in marketing, producing and funding.

Please contact:
Michael Soulard
textrefashion@mac.com
or
416-455-5753

Tags: Art, Installation, Exhibit, Call for Submission

Go Live Toronto Podcast – new episode!

Here’s a little bit of self promotion …

If you haven’t heard, I put together a podcast once a week for the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts and the Go Live Toronto campaign. Each week I give listeners an overview of the shows opening in Toronto in the coming week.

Podcasts can be subscribed to via iTunes or the RSS feed on the Go Live Toronto website. A new one was just posted today (although they are generally posted on Monday).

Check it out and let me know what you think … always looking for feedback to make it better!

Hot desks! Get your hot desks here …

I rent a desk at the Centre for Social Innovation at Queen and Spadina. It’s an amazing space chock a block full of interesting organizations and people working here such as Spacing Magazine, Remarkk!, VoCA and the Creative Trust.

The space is incredibly community oriented (anyone can come on up to the 4th floor and grab a cup of organic coffee with organic milk and sugar), relax on the couches or book one of the many board rooms for free. They’ve even created a health plan for us tenants here so those of us who work alone have the chance to be healthy without paying an arm and a leg. I especially enjoy being surrounded by so many eco-friendly, design oriented, like-minded people whom I can turn to at any given moment and ask for assistance with a question, grab a bite to eat with, or share an interesting tidbit of information.

But one of the most interesting concepts that is relatively new to Toronto, is The Workspace Commons. Recently launched here at an event with Mayor David Miller, City Councilor Adam Vaughn, NDP MP Olivia Chow, and former Prime Minister Paul Martin in attendance, The Workspace Commons is described as such:

“The Centre for Social Innovation provides part-time workspace and shared services in a beautifully restored warehouse space @ Queen & Spadina. Whether you are a small volunteer group that just needs a place to meet, a social entrepreneur in early start-up or a seasoned professional looking for a place to greet clients and check email between meetings, CSI is a place to make connections, find synergies and work together to change the world.

All members access a full suite of office services and amenities including high speed internet, photocopying, faxing, mail boxes, meeting rooms, shared kitchen and reception. But the magic is in the synergies and connections that are sparking social change everyday!”

This space is ideal for anyone who doesn’t need a permanent full time desk space but needs access to amenities such as board rooms, kitchen facilities, e.mail access (free wifi and ethernet access!), phone lines, photocopier, printer etc.

CSI is pushing forward to try and make more people aware about this amazing opportunity. It’s pretty groundbreaking for Toronto. So if you’re looking for a space like this, or know someone who is, check it out! Or just drop by for a coffee …

Tags: News, Toronto, Social Innovation, Work space