Tag: events

Edmonton Homeless Count 2008

Last night Sharon and I attended the Homeward Trust Volunteer Appreciation event at The Billiard Club on Whyte Avenue. Volunteers who helped at either Homeless Connect or the Homeless Count were invited to attend. Everyone received a complimentary drink and was entered into a draw for door prizes. In addition to simply saying “thank you”, Homeward Trust showed two videos produced by local firm Bearpaw Media Productions. I was quite impressed with the quality of both videos, and thought they served as an excellent introduction to both the Homeless Count and Homeless Connect. I hope Homeward Trust puts the videos up on their website, but I’m not holding my breath.

Homeward Trust also shared some information about the results of this year’s count. They didn’t release the report today as promised, but here’s what they told us last night:

  • The number of homeless individuals counted in 2008 was 3006 3079, up from 2618 in 2006.
  • The count lasted 17 hours and involved 180 agencies and over 220 volunteers.
  • Over 80% of the volunteers this year were new, and Homeward Trust did not get as many volunteers as they had hoped for.

I’ll update this post with a link to the final report as soon as it becomes available. You can find the results of the previous counts here.

Enumerators

Sharon wrote about our experience volunteering for the Homeless Count back in October. I enjoyed the quick conversations we had with people on the street, though our route along 107th avenue was mostly empty. It was a little awkward asking everyone we encountered the required questions, but we got better at it. I was happy to be able to help out, and I’d be interested in doing it again next time!

What’s next for Homeward Trust? They’ve just launched the annual Toque Campaign. Now in its 13th year, the Raising the Roof initiative is a way to raise funds and awareness in the fight against homelessness in Canada. Since 1997, over 575,000 toques have been sold to Canadians! I bought one last night for $10 (the minimum donation). Don’t forget to wear your toque to show your support on Toque Tuesday, which takes place on February 3rd, 2009.

Finally, Homeward Trust is already planning for the next Homeless Connect event to take place sometime in the spring. The event on October 5th was a huge success, with over 1500 homeless people getting a unique opportunity to access over 50 services. I was under the impression you had to be affiliated with one of the participating agencies to help out, but that’s not the case! I’ll be volunteering for the next one. Maybe I can help people use the computer and get on the Internet or something.

Thanks to Homeward Trust for their excellent work and the opportunity to help out!

UPDATE (11/22/2008): Homeward Trust finally released the report to the media yesterday, the total number is 3079. They still haven’t posted it to their website.

UPDATE (11/24/2008): They have posted the report here. (PDF)

Edmonton Code Camp 2008

edmonton code camp We’re just over two weeks away from a really cool event for local software developers – Edmonton Code Camp! What is code camp? It’s a free event by developers, for developers. It’s an opportunity for local developers to get together to share with and learn from one another. Similar to DemoCamp, slide decks are frowned upon – show us the code! It doesn’t matter what your programming language of choice is, everyone is welcome!

Code Camp is an annual event here in Edmonton, organized primarily by Steven Rockarts from EDMUG. I’m really looking forward to it! Here are the details:

WHEN: Saturday, November 29th, 2008 from 9:00am until 4:30pm
WHERE: Building #5, MacEwan Downtown Campus (map)
Click here to register!

[geo_mashup_map height=”200″ width=”575″ zoom=”15″]

You should be able to see the embedded map above also – I’m testing the WP Geo plugin. Works quite well I think! I’m now testing the Geo Mashup plugin – seems to work better, and I can specify the zoom on a per-post basis!

If you’d like to present something at code camp, let us know! You can add your name to the wiki, leave a comment here, or email Steven Rockarts. Just want to attend? That’s cool too! Just register here, and then tell your friends!

We’ll have more updates as we get closer to the event, so keep an eye on the website and wiki. Hope to see you there!

Edmonton Notes for 11/8/2008

Here are some Edmonton-related things I found interesting this week:

Edmonton Notes for 11/1/2008

Here are some Edmonton-related things I found interesting this week:

Recap: EdmontonTweetup3

edmontontweetup I had a great time tonight at EdmontonTweetup3 – our third meetup for Twitter users in the Edmonton area! We had just over 20 people come out to Devlin’s on Whyte Avenue, with a nice mixture of familiar and new faces! I thought the restaurant did a nice job of accommodating our group, and it was good to hear so many people say they’d never been there before. We might as well experience a bit more of the city at these events!

I only snapped a few simple shots tonight, but @bruceclarke, @tonyratcliffe, and @fusedlogic all took nice sets of photos: here and here and here. Thanks guys!

EdmontonTweetup3

As our community continues to grow, I think there will be increasing demand for these face-to-face meetups. It’s nice to be able to get away from the computer for a few minutes to meet the people you chat with on a daily basis!

Once again I’ve done my best to add all of tonight’s attendees to the wiki page, but please add yourself if I missed you. Feel free to add links to your photos, blog posts, and other bits of social media too.

Thanks again to everyone who came out tonight – see you at EdmontonTweetup4!

Recap: DemoCampEdmonton4

Tonight was without a doubt our best DemoCamp ever here in Edmonton. With six fairly solid demos, nearly 150 people in attendance, and no technical glitches in sight, it’ll be hard to top DemoCampEdmonton4 but we’re certainly going to try! It’s just amazing to see the community grow like this – thanks to everyone who came out.

Tonight we had six demos:

  • Sean from Orange Door Idealab showed us Surveyor, a mobile tool for conducting surveys using the iPhone or iPod touch.
  • Reg showed us Edistorm, a social brainstorming platform.
  • Brady showed us ElectionBuddy, a service that helps you run polls and elections via email.
  • Aaron came all the way from Regina to show us The History Books, a sort of social networking site.
  • Sam showed us PureInbox, an online email management system.
  • Grant Skinner showed us a bunch of Flash projects, including Adobe Kuler.

It wasn’t planned at all, but all of the products that were demoed tonight seemed really polished. The interfaces were all slick and professional looking!

DemoCampEdmonton4

I think my “demo of the night” goes to ODIL’s Surveyor. I really like the interface, and the application itself seems pretty solid for something so early-stage. ElectionBuddy and Edistorm also had great demos, and have lots of potential. I think PureInbox could have been a great demo, but unfortunately we didn’t get to see much of the app itself. The History Books was entertaining, but as I said on Twitter, it seemed like something that came out of a few late night domain name purchases. Grant did a wicked presentation, showing us eight different projects that his Flash design firm has been involved with. He was definitely the most captivating presenter.

Tonight was also the first public announcement for Edmonton Code Camp! It’s going to take place on Saturday, November 29th at the MacEwan campus downtown. You can find more information here, and the domain will be http://www.edmontoncodecamp.com (working through some DNS issues currently). We’ll share more details soon.

The venue worked well again this time, and once again I had Free Wifi going (though it could have been a bit more reliable). I live-twittered the demos, which you can find at Twitter Search along with updates from others in attendance.

I think lots of people like DemoCamp just for the networking opportunity afterward, and again we had a full house at The Windsor Pub. Was great to see a bunch of new faces in the crowd too! Thanks to Smibs for sponsoring tonight’s event.

If you’d like to be notified about future DemoCamp and BarCamp events in Edmonton, sign up for the mailing list here.

See you at DemoCampEdmonton5!

Edmonton Notes for 10/25/2008

It’s really quite amazing how the Edmonton Twitter community has taken to the #yeg hashtag recently. When I started writing these notes posts, which wasn’t very long ago at all, I could look at a week’s worth of updates on two or three pages. Now I’ve got to go back about seventeen pages! Very cool stuff, I’m really happy to see this growth. Keep it up Edmonton!

Here are some Edmonton-related things I found interesting this week:

  • CKUA’s fall fundraising campaign is underway! Their goal is to have 1000 new donors and raise $525,000 in total. They’re about half way there currently. The drive continues until November 2nd.
  • I think the excessive idling bylaw is a waste of good intentions. I can’t imagine how it’ll ever be properly enforced. You can share your thoughts at the final public meeting, taking place on Monday night.
  • The Capital City Clean Up could be turned into a year-round, city-wide program for $3.5 million. No word yet on what councillors decided to do.
  • The 45-year-old Sportex building was demolished on Monday morning in order to make room for 200,000 square feet of new exhibition space.
  • Edmonton Police expect to take in $15 million from photo radar tickets next year. The Journal points out that the amount is roughly equal to $20 for every man, woman, and child in the city. On Tuesday, the police wrote about 1700 speeding tickets during the second Operation 24 Hours. One man was clocked at 203 km/h on the Henday.
  • The city is going to make a bid to host Expo 2017. Hosting the fair could cost as much as $2.3 billion, but would draw more than 1 million tourists to the city. The event would be a “recognized exposition” – you can learn more at Wikipedia.
  • Edmonton ranked second among major Canadian cities with 3.28 homicides per 100,000 people. Winnipeg was first, Calgary third.
  • Epcor has replaced nearly six kilometers of lights and decorations along Jasper Avenue with new LED lights. Also – they’re called “winter lights”, not “Christmas lights”. On November 15th, a 25-metre plus tree will be unveiled in Churchill Square.
  • Finally, I’ve got to mention the manure smell and the AT Plastics explosion/fire. Both events caused quite a stir on Twitter, a topic I’ll be writing more about next week.

Edmonton Notes for 10/18/2008

Here are some Edmonton-related things I found interesting this week:

  • Former Conservative MP Rahim Jaffer finally conceded this week to brand new NDP MP Linda Duncan in Edmonton – Strathcona. She’s the sole non-Conservative MP in Alberta. You can find some video and other news here, via britl.
  • Edmonton businesses that don’t clean up the litter on sidewalks outside their locations could face $250 fines. Bylaw officers started writing tickets today.
  • The City of Edmonton is running budget town hall meetings across the city starting on Wednesday. Various times and locations are available until November 5th. The meetings are hosted by Mayor Mandel and other members of City Council.
  • More than 1250 of Edmonton’s neediest citizens received a warm Thanksgiving meal on Monday, courtesy of the 150 volunteers that helped to make Boyle Street Community Services’ 18th annual dinner a success.
  • On Tuesday, the chair of the police commission asked City Council for a budget increase of $24 million to help keep pace with inflation and to add 86 more officers to the force.
  • Apparently the city could save up to $5 million if it delayed opening the South Campus LRT station by a year. I don’t think that’ll happen however, as things are already in motion.
  • The first public meeting on the proposed excessive idling bylaw will take place on Monday, October 20th at 7pm at the Stanley A. Milner library downtown. Details here.
  • The Oilers defeated the Flames two nights in a row, bringing their record to 4-0. They’re off to a great start this season!

Edmonton Notes for 10/11/2008

Here are some Edmonton-related things I found interesting this week:

DemoCampEdmonton4

democampedmonton October and November are shaping up to be fantastic months for tech events here in Edmonton! Our next DemoCamp will take place on October 29th at 6:30pm, once again in ETLC on the University of Alberta campus. DemoCamp is always lots of fun – if you’ve never been to one I really encourage you to come check it out! You can read about our previous events (1, 2, 3) to get an idea of what they’re like.

Date: Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Time: 6:30pm (and drinks afterward)
Location: E1 017, ETLC, University of Alberta (map)
Cost: Free

Add your name to the wiki page to let everyone know you’re planning to attend (or if you’d like to demo). We’re also looking for help spreading the word:

We’d like to challenge everyone to tell a few people about DemoCamp and physically bring at least one new person to the event.

Additionally we’re looking for volunteers to help us target different groups of people in a more organized fashion. If you want to help us spread the word to schools, media, demoers or service providers, let us know.

Anything you can do to help would be great! We’ve got events on Facebook and Upcoming that you can send to people also. Be sure to tag things with democampyeg so that they are easier to find.

I also wanted to point out the interview that Peter Urban of Smibs did with Cam Linke. Smibs was “demo of the evening” at our first ever DemoCamp, and Cam is of course the driving force behind DemoCamp here in Edmonton. Check it out!