Success at Twestival Vancouver

After packing up the last of the leftover meat & cheese platters I waved to Marc, I drove home from YVRTwestival in the rain. I had just hosted an event for 250 people that raised over $9,000 for Concern Worldwide.

My automatic windshield wipers began to sway back and forth as I thought about all the people who helped make this happen. Melissa, Azita, Kim, Sonia, Kirsten, Marc and Vivian are the reason that my third Twestival in Vancouver doubled last February’s numbers and tripled September’s. Then help on the spot from Justin, Melissa, Tarlan, Kimli and Miranda as impromptu volunteers allowed my exhausted team to make it through the night.

Photo by Jeremy Lim on Flickr.com

I turned down 100.5 on the car stereo and thought about Mojave, Patrick and Jeremy who provided the awesome music for the evening. The light changed from amber to red as an SUV breezed past me. I thought of Rob Cottingham‘s comedy and giggled.

ING Direct, London Drugs, Amuse Consulting, and Poppytalk, Hester Creek, Road 13, Tinhorn Creek, and Steaz all donated to Twestival allowing us to have food and drinks.

The light turned green as an umbrella-toting pedestrian skips across the street in front of me. I wish I could have had more of that MichiSushi as my tummy grumbled when I popped out the clutch and changed gears.

Pulling into my parking space I thought about how Nordica Photography probably already had their photos up from the evening.

I check my phone and Kemp Edmonds tweets that #YVRTwestival was the number one trending topic on Twitter in Canada that night. I smile as I scoop up the meat & cheese platter, which managed to stay intact during the ride.

Heading upstairs and through the door to greet John I didn’t collapse from H1N1 like I did after the last Twestival, leaving me out of commission for two weeks. I breathed a sigh of relief and got to work helping him fix a hack on my site that’s crippled it in search engines over the last few days. Nothing had sunk in quite yet. It still hasn’t.

Vancouverites got together last night to get out from behind their social networks and meet their contacts in person, face to face. We had people from Victoria, Australia, Port Coquitlam and Cloverdale who came out to enjoy the evening. Every single person there that evening contributed to our fundraising total. Every single person was also on Twitter. If this doesn’t say something about the power of social media for social good, I’m not sure what does.

Thank you Vancouver Twittersphere for showing that you care and that you are an extremely friendly and fun bunch of people. I look forward to following you, meeting you, and working with you again in the future – you are all truly amazing people.

Update: I will add more links & photos as soon as I can, I need to rush out and continue damage control on my site