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Vancouver Freelance Camp is having their second annual, information packed UNconference on Saturday, September 10th at The Network Hub New Westminster, which is situated at Unit 205 – 810 Quayside Drive. Experienced business personnel and successful local freelancers will be sharing their stories as well as insight on how to grow a freelancer’s business.

This is a true UNconference, the schedule is created the morning of when the attendees arrive. The camp will open at 9:00am with guests pitching to be presenters for the day and the freelancers vote on who they want to hear speak. Registration for Freelance Camp is just $10.00 +HST, with the proceeds going to charity.

Topics from landing a freelancer’s dream project to dealing with the nitty gritty details of doing business will be discussed. The Freelance Camp is the opportunity to make connections with like-minded people across many fields. Over 130 people attended last year’s event, including freelancers from Victoria, Kelowna and Seattle. The UNconference hosted 22 presentations where 196 cups of Waves Coffee was consumed. You won’t leave empty handed either because $5400 worth of goodies and $448 worth of door prizes were given to attendees last year to make being a freelancer even better. Attendees were also part of a wave of social broadcasting with 1478 tweets mentioning the event and were also a top trending topic in Canada on twitter for three hours.

The success of Freelance Camp raised $1100 last year and donated all its proceeds to Mental Health Camp – a conference on examining the possibilities of using social media to achieve and maintain mental health. It is important to Freelance Camp to give back to local initiatives and was excited to have Mental Health Camp as the benefactor.

The satisfaction of last year’s event has propelled Vancouver Freelance Camp to make this year’s event even bigger and accessible to more freelancers. We’ll be the first local event to use Google+ Hangouts to engage a maximum of 25 attendees per session off-site. Through live streaming video, participants can view and ask questions in Google+ Hangout allowing for 725 online viewings.

The Toronto International Microfinance Summit organizers have announced that Philip Smith, successful American entrepreneur and co-author of A Billion Bootstraps: Microcredit, Barefoot Banking, and the Business Solution for Ending Poverty will speak at its Friday Gala and set the tone for the 2-day Toronto event. In its third year, the Summit brings together microfinance practitioners, business, international development agencies, NGOs and students to learn, interact and get involved. This year’s theme – From Microcredit to Financial Inclusion: Making a Difference in our World – is the focus of the signature events:

Gala – September 16 (Arcadian Court, 401 Bay Street) to raise funds for international and domestic microfinance projects and a scholarship. Reception: 6:00 pm, Dinner & Program: 7:30 pm. Silent & live auctions, entertainment.

Conference -September 17 (Allstream Centre, Exhibition Place,105 Princes’ Blvd.) features experts who address the effectiveness of microfinance as a poverty alleviation tool and provide frontline insights from around the world. A NEW MicroMarketplace will showcase products of micro-entrepreneurs. Registration: 7:30 -9:00 am, Program & Lunch: 9:00 am-5:00 pm.

“Microfinance is an effective way to deal with poverty,” says Dr. Carol Golench, President of Toronto International Microfinance Summit. “When you consider that, worldwide, in 2009 over 92 million borrowers from nearly 2,000 microfinance institutions had an average loan balance of $527USD, you realize microfinance is addressing poverty in a significant way and transforming people’s lives.”

“Microcredit enables people to become givers, not takers,” adds Philip Smith. “Microcredit should not be seen as charity but rather as the opportunity poor people need to build a decent life. Through microcredit, donors can shed the old hand-out mentality and become true partners in progress with the people of the developing world.”

Over 30 event speakers include: Bob Annibale – Citi, Joyce Lehman – Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Michael Bowles – Aga Khan Foundation, Kadita (A.T.) Tshibaka – Opportunity International USA, Stéphanie Émond – FINCA Canada, Dr. Tanjina Mirza, PLAN Canada, Jeff Rayman – UEnd: Poverty Foundation, Deborah Lindholm – Foundation for Women and Gordon Crann – Rotarian Action Group for Microcredit.

Once again, The MasterCard Foundation is providing financial assistance for the first 100 students to register for the conference. Early Bird Deadline for conference tickets is September 2nd.

IndustriOS Software Inc., developer of IndustriOS manufacturing suite integrated with Sage ERP Accpac is honoured to support the Coast to Coast Against Cancer Foundation with the IndustriOS Golf for Kids with Cancer tournament being held Wednesday September 14, 2011.

The IndustriOS Golf for Kids with Cancer tournament offers IndustriOS and Sage Software customers, partners, friends and family, with the opportunity to enjoy an afternoon of fun-filled golf while raising funds for the Coast to Coast Against Cancer Foundation.  Included with the $100 registration fee per golfer are the Green Fee, Electric Cart, Crested Tee Package, Hat, Lunch and Dinner.  Friendly competitions, prizes and a 50/50 draw round-out the day for the golfers.  Online registration is available.  This event is being hosted from 12 Noon to 8:00pm at the Turtle Creek Golf Club in Campbellville, Ontario.

In support of the Coast to Coast Against Cancer Foundation, which benefits children’s cancer charities, this tournament follows the IndustriOS Software tradition of supporting charitable organizations and events such as Tour for Kids and the Arthritis Society’s Joints in Motion, and now Coast to Coast Against Cancer Foundation.  This impressive charitable organization raised $4.7 million in 2010, and is the only national childhood cancer charity in Canada. All receiptable funds, obtained through initiatives and events that promote healthy living, are delegated to charities and programs supported by the Coast to Coast Against Cancer Foundation to help improve the survival and quality of life of children and their families afflicted with cancer including research, clinical care, and children’s cancer camps.

The company is proud to host the IndustriOS Golf for Kids with Cancer Tournament, and eagerly anticipates sharing this fun-filled day with IndustriOS customers and partners this autumn, and are honoured to support the Coast to Coast Against Cancer Foundation.

The joy of choosing new school supplies doesn’t extend to all students during the back-to-school season. That’s why Staples Canada, and its customers look forward to helping children in the community receive the tools they need to learn, during the 6^thannual Back-to-School Supply Drive, which begins on July 23. Since its inception, Canada’s largest office supply retailer has helped raise over $3-million for students in need.

“When the school bell rings, not all children will have the supplies they need to succeed. Help give students-in-need the confidence to learn, by making a donation at your local Staples store,” said Steve Matyas, president of Staples, Canada.

Every Staples store in Canada will collect funds for the Back-to-School Supply Drive, and all donations collected, will remain in your local community.

“We hope Canadians keep up their good will by continuing to support the School Supply Drive,” says Matyas. “Last year, we raised over one-million dollars, and we would like to match or exceed that figure again this year. Giving back within the communities where we operate has always been important to us, and we want to continue to help support children’s education.”

Customers can make a donation from July 23 until September 6 at any Staples store, and in Quebec from July 31 until September 4.

Fido and Evergreen have announced the launch of Fido Share Your Care™, a campaign to support local environmental and community projects. Canadians are invited to vote for their favourite project at Share Your Care . In total, Fido will share $100,000 among 20 different local projects across Canada. “We want to work together and encourage Canadians to make choices that will reduce their ecological impact and benefit their communities directly,” says Steven Sarfin, Senior Director, Marketing, Fido. “We believe in making our cities more liveable and we know that our customers want this too. We’re happy to give Canadians the opportunity to show their support.”

Each of the 20 projects involved with Share Your Care receive base support of $2,500 totaling $50,000. In addition, the remaining $50,000 will be distributed between the three projects which receive the most votes. From July 5th until August 14th, Facebook users can vote once per day for their favourite project. Votes will be gathered and ranked by popularity. The three community projects with the highest number of votes will be announced at the end of August.

Some of the organizations participating in Fido Share Your Care include the Gorge Waterway Initiative in Victoria, the Fletcher Wildlife Garden in Ottawa, Friends of the Coves Subwatershed in London, the Ann & Sandy Cross Conservation Area in Calgary, and Befriending the Mountain in Montreal.

“It’s often difficult to see how we can make a difference in the face of global environmental issues,” explains Geoff Cape, the Executive Director of Evergreen. “That’s why we are pleased to be working with Fido to help local champions take up the challenge in their own way and in their own community, by applying a local solution through the Share Your Care initiative.”

Partners since 2009, Fido and Evergreen have worked together to restore degraded public spaces, increase opportunities for outdoor recreation, education and enjoyment, as well as improve the health and biodiversity of natural habitats in urban communities. To date, Fido has helped Evergreen support more than 190 school ground greening projects, 800 public greening events and workshops, engage more than 20,000 volunteers and plant over 40,000 trees and shrubs across Canada.  In addition, Fido has saved over 3.62 tonnes of paper through its online billing initiative.

The Mobile Giving Foundation Canada (MGFC), in collaboration with the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association (CWTA), is pleased to announce a new partnership with Videotron that will offer customers of the wireless carrier the opportunity to support registered charities through text-to-donate initiatives. Videotron customers can now respond to a registered charity’s call-to-action by texting a specific keyword to an assigned five-digit number to donate either $5 or $10, depending on the type of campaign. The amount donated by text will be charged to the donor’s wireless phone bill, and is billed as a tax-exempt transaction. The carrier then remits 100% of the funds collected from mobile donations to the MGFC, who in turn remits 100% of this amount directly to the registered charity. Donors can also obtain official receipts for tax purposes by contacting support.

“Videotron is very pleased that this partnership can end up helping so many causes and so many Canadians,” declared Videotron’s Mobile Marketing and Product Development General Manager, Marie Ginette Lepage. “We today live a life of choices, and with these kinds of partnerships, we are able to offer support, as well as touch and help so many people.”

“On behalf of the Mobile Giving Foundation Canada, I extend our appreciation to Videotron for their efforts in providing this new mobile channel for their customers to support their favourite causes,” said Bernard Lord, MGFC Chair and CWTA President. “Canadians have overwhelmingly embraced the power of mobile giving, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for more than 100 registered charities in the past year alone.”

Canadian registered charities have five chances to earn complimentary admission to Canada’s premier professional development conference for sponsorship marketers: Strategic Sponsorship Marketing: The Canadian Summit® – also known as the Sponsorship Summit.

Pay it Forward, an innovative program launched last year by The Sponsorship Report and Hilborn eNEWS, invites registered charities to apply online for one of five complimentary passes to the Sponsorship Summit. For applicants outside the GTA, airfare is included courtesy of WestJet.

Last year’s Pay it Forward program drew 108 applications from deserving charities across the country.

“Charitable organizations often struggle when introducing corporate sponsorship to their revenue stream,” says Mark Sabourin, Publisher of The Sponsorship Report. Charities compete with sophisticated sponsorship marketers from sports, arts and culture, but often find themselves overmatched when corporate sponsors weigh competing proposals.

Organizations that attend the Sponsorship Summit can gain a year’s worth of learning in just two days.

“Corporate sponsorship is not philanthropy. Sponsorship solicitation requires a completely new approach, a new skill set, even a shift in culture within the charitable organization,” says Sabourin. “But the rewards can be staggering. Last year Canadian companies invested more than $1.5 billion in sponsorship.”

Strategic Sponsorship Marketing: The Canadian Summit® is hosted by The Sponsorship Report, and features two days of programming delivered by the top sponsorship experts from across North America. This year’s Summit will be held October 18 and 19 in Toronto.

Apply now for a Pay it Forward bursary, the deadline for applications is June 19.

The Indigo Love of Reading Foundation has selected 20 high-needs schools nationally to receive an annual Literacy Fund grant for the next three years. Since 2004, the Foundation has made a difference to over 29,000 students at schools nationally who have purchased nearly 900,000 books through the grant program.

The grants are vital now that some annual library budgets are as low as $2.81 per child – the equivalent of less than 1/3 of a book per student each year.  Canadians can’t get a cappuccino for what many Canadian provinces invest annually in books per student in some public schools and yet, with only a one per cent increase in literacy rates studies show we can add more than $18 billion to the Canadian economy, according to a Stats Canada study done on June 22, 2004 (Coulombe & Tremblay and Marchand, Department of Economics, University of Ottawa).

Recognizing the importance of investing in the futures of Canada’s children, the Indigo Love of Reading Foundation continues to respond to this funding challenge through the Literacy Fund grants. Based on the student population, each new Indigo Love of Reading Foundation Literacy grant recipient school will receive up to $176,000 over three years to help support literacy programs, purchase new books and dramatically improve literacy rates. Through the Literacy Fund grants, schools will be able to increase their literacy budgets to an average of $76 per child per year.

“My heart breaks for Canada’s public school children who are left uninspired by libraries with empty shelves or books that are decades old,” said Heather Reisman, Chair of the Indigo Love of Reading Foundation. “This is a special time of year for Love of Reading when we are able to help educators end Canada’s literacy crisis. Through the Literacy Fund we know we’ll be transforming the libraries and lives of students at another 20 schools.”

Ms. Reisman advised the recipients via conference call amid joyful tears and whoops of excitement. “You’ve just changed the lives of the children we serve every day,” exclaimed Principal Jill Maar, Armadale Public School, Markham, ON, where the literacy team persevered to receive funding after their third grant application attempt.

This year’s 20 new schools receiving Literacy Fund grants from the Indigo Love of Reading Foundation clearly demonstrated a passion and commitment to literacy as an important part of their curriculum, as well as a clear need to update their libraries to help them achieve their literacy goals. Recipient schools include: Read the rest of this entry »

Cineplex Entertainment has announced it will host a special Community Day in Edmonton at Cineplex Odeon North Edmonton Cinemas and in Grande Prairie at Cineplex Odeon Grande Prairie Cinemas on Saturday, June 11, 2011 beginning at 8:30 a.m. The morning event will feature free movies and discounted popcorn and soft drinks with proceeds of these concession items donated to the Canadian Red Cross in support of the residents of Slave Lake, AB.

“At Cineplex, we are extremely proud of the relationships we have within the communities we operate and we wanted to show the residents of Slave Lake we care and want to help,” said Pat Marshall, Vice President Communications and Investor Relations, Cineplex Entertainment. “Community Day is a fun outing that supports a very worthwhile cause.”

On the morning of Saturday, June 11^th, Cineplex invites Edmonton residents to enjoy a selection of FREE movies and specially discounted items at the concession stand. Regular-sized popcorn and regular-sized fountain drinks will be available at a reduced price of $2 each with 100% of the proceeds of these concession items donated to the Canadian Red Cross Alberta Fire Response efforts.

“The Canadian Red Cross is very grateful to Cineplex Entertainment for this support,” says Steve Armstrong, Director of the Canadian Red Cross in Alberta. “Many families were impacted by the fires in Slave Lake and Red Cross is committed to assisting with their recovery. Donations from events like this enable us to help people rebuild their lives.”

The FREE movie schedule for Community Day on Saturday, June 11, 2011 at Cineplex Odeon North Edmonton and Cineplex Odeon Grande Prairie Cinemas includes:

9:00 a.m. – Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
9:10 a.m. – Yogi Bear
9:20 a.m. – Gnomeo and Juliet (3D)
9:30 a.m. – Hop
9:40 a.m. – Megamind

All movies are free of charge to guests and are based on seat availability on a first- come first- serve basis. Cineplex Odeon North Edmonton Cinemas is located at 14231 137th Avenue NW in Edmonton and Cineplex Odeon Grande Prairie Cinemas is located at 10330-109th St. in Grande Prairie.

In other cinema-related news, D-BOX Technologies Inc. has signed its second agreement with CineLux Theatres to equip its Scotts Valley, California theatre with 28 D-BOX MFX Seats.

“Given our motion technology’s successful performance and increasing popularity among moviegoers, commitments from existing theatre partners like CineLux continue steadily,” said President and CEO of D-BOX Technologies, Claude Mc Master.

“CineLux is delighted to continue its relationship with D-BOX and announce a second location,” said President of CineLux Theatres, Paul Gunsky. “We’ve experienced great success at our Morgan Hill location and expect similar results at our CineLux Scotts Valley Stadium 10, which has been expanded and now features every modern amenity, including D-BOX technology.”

eReading leader Kobo invites you and its over 3.6 million readers to participate in a new $10 million fund designed to inspire readers of all ages to read more and make a difference in their community. For every 10 million minutes read with Kobo up to one trillion minutes, Kobo will support an initiative suggested by Kobo customers to bring eReading to schools and communities in need.

“At Kobo we believe in the power of reading. Today, the average person spends five times more time watching TV than reading, schools continue to be underfunded and libraries are disappearing. We have an opportunity to change that with Read On,” said Michael Serbinis, CEO, Kobo. “At a time when technology is taking the printed word through an evolution, we are starting a revolution – a reading revolution.”

Kobo has created the One Trillion Minute Challenge to inspire people to make reading a bigger part of their lives, and make a difference in their local community. Every minute read with Kobo counts towards achieving this epic challenge and funding eReading programs in schools and community organizations.

Readers can get started with Read On today by signing up online and then:

• Name your cause: A school, or community organization dedicated to learning
• Start reading with Kobo: Every minute read counts
• Track progress: Using Kobo’s innovative social platform Reading Life
• Tell friends: Use Facebook, Twitter, Reading Life, blogs and podiums at schools and community centers to spread the word, and help make a difference
• Check the one trillion minute counter which will be updated in real-time

For every 10 million minutes read, Kobo will make a contribution of eReading valued between $1,000 and $20,000 to a recipient chosen through the Read On program. Recipients will receive Read On kits including eReaders, eBooks and the materials needed to start digital reading programs in their community. Kobo is contributing the first million dollars and will work to enlist additional partners inspired by this innovative new program.

“With Read On, our goal is to bring reading to more people in more places, inspiring people to read more and make a difference in their schools and communities. Over 500 years ago, it took only one person and a printing press to start a revolution. Imagine what we could accomplish today if we just Read On,” said Michael Serbinis, CEO, Kobo.