I have found my way to the auto/ONE Trunk Gallery located on 3rd Ave between Pine and Burrard and now have internet access thanks to Cecilia and her dedicated IT guy who took my call.

The gallery is actually a car dealership (talk about fusion) with white leather couches, ambient music, and cars so shiny you can fix your hair by glancing at your reflection on the hood. Tonight I have been asked to live blog the Keall Foundation’s Project Tunisia fundraiser. There are about 50 silent auction items ranging from Spruce Body Lab gift certificates, a Roxy luggage set, and bottles of wine.

[Janet Keall] is back from Romania and Nicaragua and will pay it back once again to the babies housed in 17 abandoned baby centres throughout Tunisia, North Africa. She has partnered with a local Tunisian organization, Act Dev to achieve this goal.

If you are able, stop by the gallery tonight to bid on any of these items, enter the raffle, have a consultation with Skoah skin care professionals, have a cupcake and support this worthy cause.

100% of the silent auction proceeds will benefit these orphaned babies to make a considerable difference in these lives that never chose to be orphaned and unwanted. Together we will supply them with sustainable solutions and the basic comfort of full stomachs; clothed bottoms and printed caregiver reference guides for all workers at centres and Tunisian Orphanages.

I’ll be providing updates throughout the evening as there are several activities planned until 10:00pm tonight.

Update: Janet just stopped by to say hello to me and thank me for being here. She is such a genuine person whose foundation is doing so much great work for children across the globe, it’s pretty much an honor for me to be here covering this event.

Update: When you walk into the event you can enter your business card into a draw to win a 40 inch LCD TV, and the bar (by donation) is immediately to your right. Janet mentioned some big names that may be dropping by later so I’ll have to get up from my perch and mingle a bit once things get underway.

Update: Lorne Mayencourt just introduced Janet and gave us all a bit of background about her life and her mission for this cause. She was left on a doorstep as a baby, only hours old, and has now created this foundation to help children all over the world. “By the time I finish this talk, 20 more children will be abandoned.”

Janet will be leaving for Tunisia next week to visit the 17 centres that the foundation will be supporting through its efforts (and through events like tonight). “When she first showed up they were amazed that anyone even cared.” Janet then gave a quick speech and although she was almost too moved for words, she was still able to point out her doting parents who were present tonight.

“I will be arriving in the capital city Tunis, and driving 4 hours to Kairouan, which has a population of about 120,000 and is one of the holiest cities in Islam. Founded in the late seventh century, it is the oldest Islamic settlement in Tunisia, and has the oldest mosque in North Africa, with the world’s oldest minaret.

Kairouan currently looks after 18 abandoned babies in only 2 bedrooms. Space is very limited as you can imagine. By the time I arrive they should have moved to a newly built centre that will look after 25 babies as well as having many facilities for mothers to stay over and spend time/look after their babies.”

She also announced that she will be blogging about her experience in Tunisia over on the Keall Foundation website.

The evening will be coming to an end within the hour and we’ll soon have the raffle and door prize draw. I have managed to hold off on the cupcakes and my National Digital Media Day has finally come to a close. Thank you to everyone who hosted us, blogged with us, and celebrated the medium today – and a big thanks to the Keall Foundation for the wonderful work that they do.

After collecting some food donations we have headed up to the far reaches of Lynn Valley to visit our friend Dave [happyfrog][RaincityStudios].

I realized this hasn’t left me much time to visit the Greater Vancouver Food Bank today. As such, I’ll keep the drive going until after BarCamp, in case anyone would like to donate some items over the weekend, and I’ll do a drop off next week. Please come and see me at BarCamp (opening night party, morning schedule session, or WordCamp) if you have any items to contribute, it would be greatly appreciated.

Back to the mission of National Digital Media Day, hanging out with good people like this means a lot to me and since we all met through the power of online media. It just goes to show that not only is this medium important to business and industry but also society; digital media is corporate and it’s also personal.

Our travels today are made possibly by Zipcar. If you would like to sign up today, please use this special Miss604 reader discount link where you will receive an annual membership for just $30.

We are at Salt in Gastown right now with Tris Hussey, Kris Krug and Raul – come on down and join us for lunch. Kris is giving impromptu photography advice and I’m live blogging before delicious our “Butcher Plate” arrives. Canned food donations are being accepted for the Food Bank.

Update: Anthony just arrived as well as Jenn and Nadia from Invoke Media.

You can view more photos in Tris’ Flickrstream, and Raul will have his up soon as well. A very big thank you to Anthony from Farmstead Wines for not only sponsoring the wine but also for the amazing lunch here at Salt. We’re now off to North Vancouver to visit Dave Olson (sans his appendix) – podcaster and online content creator extraordinaire.

Our travels today are made possibly by Zipcar. If you would like to sign up today, please use this special Miss604 reader discount link where you will receive an annual membership for just $30.

After a hearty breakfast at Ricky’s we’re now chilling at Blenz in Central City / SFU Surrey. So far this morning the traffic has been horrendous so after this we’ll head straight to Gastown for the 1:00pm meetup.

The kiss event (one of the only events mentioned this morning in one of the local papers) will be starting at 11:30 (right now!) although please check out my NDMD08 posts I have been updating for the last few months for more activities that have been arranged for the rest of today.

If you are able to meet up with us, please bring donations (non-perishable food items) for the Greater Vancouver Food Bank and we’ll swing by there later with our contributions from National Digital Media Day.

Our travels today are made possibly by Zipcar. If you would like to sign up today, please use this special Miss604 reader discount link where you will receive an annual membership for just $30.

It’s here! Today is National Digital Media Day and I’m going to be embarking on a tour of Metro Vancouver, stopping at various points to live blog and promote digital media in our region. Why am I doing this you may ask?

… As you may know, there is wide speculation that the federal government may not renew the $14.5 million Canada New Media Fund (CNMF) when it’s current contract expires on March 31, 2009. You may have read about this issue on the front page of Saturday’s Globe and Mail.

The annual $14 million CNMF, administered by Telefilm, supports new media and Internet-based content creation and marketing activities. The loss of this fund has far-reaching implications for New Media BC’s membership and the BC Digital Media industry as a whole…

… It is of the utmost importance that the Canadian government supports domestic creators of Digital Media content so that our exciting industry may continue to flourish in a province rich with innovation, new ideas, and intellectual property. New Media BC and the CIAIC will continue work on your behalf to ensure our collective concerns are heard. [Ning]

I’ll be picking up Raul and then heading to Ricky’s at Central City in Surrey for some hearty breakfast. If you’re in the vicinity and would like to join us feel free to stop by around 9:00am.

We’ll be collecting items for the Greater Vancouver Food Bank all day, which we’ll be dropping off this afternoon so please help us load up the Zipcar with donations. Rumour has it Buck Pierce and the Grey Cup will also be at the Vancouver Food Bank today at 2:30pm in preparation for Tackle Hunger this weekend.

From there we’ll head to Burnaby for some coffee (location to be determined, check the live blog once it’s going.)

There is also a “Kiss” event taking place at a secret location, meet up at the Art Gallery at 11:30am to find out where to be for this national smooch.

We’ll the be at Salt in Gastown for lunch at 1:00pm. Farmstead Wines will be there with some tasty samples.

After downtown we’re going to cruise over to Richmond (location suggestions are still open!) and wrap it up back over on the North Shore (do you think Waves would be the best pit stop there?).

We’ll then head to the Greater Vancouver Food Bank to drop off donations, then I’ll take Raul to the Vancouver Blogger Meetup before heading to my live blog for the Keall Foundation. Please join us along our route today, either in person or on the blog.

Our travels today are made possibly by Zipcar. If you would like to sign up today, please use this special Miss604 reader discount link where you will receive an annual membership for just $30.

September 25th is National Digital Media Day, which will see “more than 32,000 digital creators will unite across the country to profile the digital media industry in Canada. A pillar of the knowledge economy, the digital media sector represents one of the fastest growing sectors and Canada’s best chance for taking the lead in this creative, green, and global industry.” [NFF]

Thanks to Zipcar, I’ll be mobile so I’m going to start with breakfast in Surrey at 9:00am where anyone will be welcome to join Raul, John and I while we live blog. We’ll pack up and head to our next destination for about 11:00am and end up in downtown Vancouver for lunch at Salt at 1:00pm. From there we’ll head to another destination before I drop Raul off for the Vancouver Blogger Meetup, and I head to my live blog for the Keall Foundation that evening.

Farmstead Wines has also stepped up as a sponsor and we’ll have complimentary beverages for anyone who cares to join us at Salt in Gastown for lunch. I am still looking for sponsors in other cities (and hopefully a venue sponsor) so please feel free to contact me if you have any ideas.

You can enter up to 3 answers/locations on the poll below:
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Other events in Vancouver for National Digital Media Day include the AGM of New Media BC at Radical Entertainment followed by Politube (a part of the New Forms Festival) as well as the aforementioned Vancouver Blogger Meetup. You can also check out the official social network of NDMD for more nation-wide events.

With National Digital Media Day only 10 days away, my grand scheme of being mobile and liveblogging across the region wouldn’t be coming to fruition without the help of Zipcar.

Thanks to the car sharing network, I’ll be able to cover more than just Vancouver in the spirit of this national celebration of digital media. As such, I had a quick interview with the General Manager of Zipcar in Vancouver, which you can download, play and listen to over on RadioZoom.

Here are a few key points about National Digital Media Day:

If you have a suggestion for one of my stops on National Digital Media Day (from Langley to Richmond and everywhere in between) please submit it in the comments below.

September 25th is National Digital Media Day in Canada and all those involved with digital photography, podcasting, online video, blogging and the likes are encouraged to post content throughout this 24 hour period of celebration and awareness for the medium.

As one of the national blog leads, I’ve been plotting a cross-region blogging campaign, where I would start out in Surrey perhaps for breakfast (with wifi) and anyone could join up with me while I write a blog post. From there I would move on to another city, another cafe, and another blog post. Raul will also be hosting the Vancouver Blogger Meetup that evening, so you can head over there to do your part for NDMD 2008.

The end of my evening however will involve the Keall Foundation that is raising money for Project Tunisia as they have asked me to come and live blog their event.

When: Thursday, September 25, 2008 from 7:00pm to 10:00pm
Where: auto/ONE – TRUNK gallery (1755 West Third Avenue (at Burrard))
What: Social event and silent auction

100% of the silent auction proceeds will benefit these orphaned babies to make a considerable difference in these lives that never chose to be orphaned and unwanted. Together we will supply them with the basic comfort of full stomachs; clothed bottoms and printed caregiver reference guides for all workers at centres and Tunisian Orphanages. – Keall Foundation

If you have any items you would like to donate for the silent auction, please contact the Keall Foundation.

Photo Credit: Boris Mann on Flickr

On September 25th digital media producers and enthusiasts will get together for 24 hours of collaboration and celebration of the medium.

An annual day to raise the profile of the digital media industry and celebrate the dynamic work taking place in this sector. In Canada, a massive cross-country event that will include gatherings, lobbying, education and celebrations. In other countries, linked in celebrations and demo camps.

Locally there will be a PhotoCamp, a Mixer at Radical Entertainment, and BarCamp, which despite being two days later, will extend the celebration well into the weekend.

You can follow the Ning social network, Facebook group or Facebook event page to keep on top of events across the country on that day.

Jon Husband and I will be spearheading the national blogging effort. If you’re a blogger in another province, feel free to drop me a line to see how we can help get an initiative going in your neck of the woods. We’re going to try and come up with something really fun (and of course blog-related) for September 25th so stay tuned.