Post by Loyan Roylance
Good things are coming out Corvallis Beer and Blog after just one meeting! One of the many cool people I met at the first Beer and Blog in Corvallis was Naomi Hirsch, a Program Coordinator for Community Outreach and Education Core at the Environmental Health Sciences Center, OSU. She mentioned a blog project that that she was working on for Educare-Africa, a non-profit organization committed to improving living and learning conditions for the students and teachers in Cameroon. Educare-Africa is based in Albany and was founded by its President, Pavla Zakova-Laney in 2000 after three years of service as a Peace Corps teacher in Cameroon.
I suggested that Educare-Africa’s move their entire site to a blog and offered to help set up. I can always use some positive karma. The new site at http://educareafrica.blogspot.com/ was born about a week later. It’s still a work in progress but the framework is all set up for Pavla to transfer her old content and start posting new content without writing any code. Behold the power of blogs! The plan is to upload the hundred of photos she has from Cameroon to a photo sharing host like Flickr or Picasa and plug it into the blog. And perhaps add some other features that help Educare-Africa become better connected with partners and donors (ideas are welcome).
I’m really excited about the Beer and Blog group in Corvallis. It definitely has a different personality from the existing technology and business networking events around town. Perhaps it’s the beer. Actually, I’m pretty sure the beer has something to do with it. I love helping people with blogging almost as much as I like blogging so I’m really looking forward
to being a part of Corvallis Beer and Blog. Thanks to Lance for getting it together and giving us the chance to create something like the Educare-Africa blog. Corvallis bloggers rock!
Loyan Roylance (@loyan)
Due to the high possibility of mix of snow and freezing rain happening today, we’re going to cancel Beer and Blog for tonight. I’d rather see everyone safe and warm than trying to risk getting into a wreck and possibly hurt! Please spread the word!
In the meantime we’ll be taking a two week break for the holidays. Our next Beer and Blog will be on January 7th, 2009 at Block 15 at the same usual time of 5-7PM. More details on the specifics of this meet up will be posted in a week or two. It will more than likely be another social “get to know each other” type event but I’ve considered having a small topic about twitter and how it can help communication in our tech community.
Happy Holidays and see you in three weeks!
Special thanks to everyone who attended the first Corvallis Beer and Blog! I especially want to thank the four PDX tech folks (@justinkistner, @verso, @emailstine) that made the drive down to Corvallis to help us launch our first event. I’d say that it was pretty much a success! While I don’t think anyone actually worked on their blog while they were there, we all did a great job of networking with each other and exchanging ideas on their experiences so far.
Who knew Corvallians (as @verso put it) could be so full of ideas, energy, and fun. As for numbers, I’m pretty sure we had at least 25 if not 30 people there. It was great to finally put faces to names and interacting in person with each other.
So far the feedback we’ve gotten has been mostly positive with the only real complaint being the lack of space at Block 15. Block 15 emailed me today and acknowledged the minor goof on their part with the other large group taking our tables. We should have both the corner area and the tables along the railing for next week which I think will work a lot better for us.
If you took any pictures, please post them online. If you use flickr, please at least use the tag “Corvallis Beer and Blog” to make it easy to find. So far @ramereth and @oregongirl have posted pictures online, many of which are very good!
Finally, I have one request for all of you that attended. Please blog about your experience at Corvallis Beer and Blog!
Happy blogging!
We’re having our inaugural Beer and Blog on Wednesday, December 10th 2008 at Block 15 in Corvallis, Oregon from 5PM to at least 7PM. Please be there! We don’t plan on having any topics for this first BnB, but instead having a socializing and discussion session to see what the Corvallis social community wants. Some topics that have been suggested we talk about eventually include:
- Introduction to Blogging
- Blogging Tools
- Twitter & Facebook
- Capitalizing on readers
- Yahoo Pipes
- Good blog writing
- Search engine optimization (SEO)
- Tracking Readers
- Aggregator Tools
If you know anyone or are interested in speaking about any of the above topics, please let us know! Please bring your ideas and suggestions next Wednesday.
RSVP
Please RSVP on either the Facebook Event or on Upcoming.org. We need to get an accurate count in order to have enough space for everyone. Since this is the first event we may either over or underestimate the count.
Location
Where will we be in the restuarant? From the front entrance, go up the stairs to the left and walk all the way to the back (past the cash register). We’ll have the whole area in the back (and possibly more). There will be power strips available for those who will need it but power will be somewhat limited based on which table you’re at. Even though we say its from 5-7PM you’re more than welcome to come earlier or even stay later. I’ll at least try and be there by 4:30. Don’t forget to tip your waiters and waitresses!
Live Music
The Celtic band Three Fingered-Jack will be playing at Block 15 that night starting at 6:30. There will be no cover charge and we don’t expect it to be too loud for us to have a conversation.
Special Thanks
I want to thank (but not limited to) the following people for helping getting this started.
Spread the word!
Make sure you blog, twitter, etc about the event! The more people we get involved the better.
See you there!
-Lance
Justin Kistner
lance