Girl Geek Dinners Ottawa

One of the things that sets Girl Geek Dinners Ottawa (#GGDOttawa) apart from other events that happen in the city is our awesome door prizes, and every event they seem to get better and better. We are so lucky to have an enthusiastic community of supporters both attending the events and contributing via sponsorships and door prizes.

We usually include info about the door prizes and photos of the winners in our recap post for each event we hold, but since our May 25 event had so many amazing prizes we felt this month’s sponsors deserved their own acknowledgement.

National Arts Centre

The people of the National Arts Centre (NAC) have been great supporters of Girl Geek Dinners Ottawa. Not only do many of them come out to our events regularly, but they’ve donated NAC event tickets as a door prize to almost every single dinner we’ve held! This month the voucher for two tickets to Bronfman & Brahms performance went to Della Siemens. Congrats Della!

Essence Catering

A new supporter and one I am personally extremely excited about, Essence Catering, is a catering company based in the Hintonburg/Wellington West area of Ottawa. In October, the company I work for (MediaMiser) hosted an Open House event to celebrate our new office and it was catered by Essence Catering. The food was delicious, beautifully presented and received tons of compliments! I know winner Mar Warrender will not be disappointed, especially with an amazing $250 gift certificate!

Shanti Consulting

Dr. Hema Murty is a personal trainer and Yoga consultant who attended our December Open Mic event and has been a #GGDOttawa fan ever since! She runs Shanti Consulting–and donated a free personal training session valued at $90. Congratulations to prize winner Cameron Wilson!

Swing Dynamite

Yet another new supporter, Claudia from Swing Dynamite attended an event earlier this year and soon after offered to donate a prize.

Claudia was generous enough to donate two gift certificates for a six-week swing dance course! I like to think that along with this dance company’s awesome skill, their generosity and good will helped them out a little at the Canadian Swing Championship where they took home tons of awards. Congrats!

Hope to see some Girl Geeks (perhaps winners Brigitte Van Aert and Cassandra Wilson?) competing in future years!

Randy Little

Anyone in Ottawa on Twitter knows @littlerandy, a financial advisor who has quickly established himself as a pillar in the Ottawa  social media community.

In fact, he’s even offered (on television) to help his Twitter friends get unstuck in a snowy driveway if needed! We’re also grateful of his support, donating rosewood wine boxes (with accessories) as door prizes for several of our events. Tanya Snook is this month’s lucky recipient!

Thornley Fallis Communications

We also need to offer our appreciation and thanks to Joseph Thornley and Thornley Fallis Communications, now our longest running sponsor! Each event, Thornley Fallis provides financial support that enables us to offer 5-10 students the opportunity to attend our Girl Geek dinners at no cost. We appreciate this support and know our student attendees do too. Thanks so much!

Virtual Eye See

And finally, a huge thanks to Natasha D’Souza of  Virtual Eye See for providing domain and hosting support for Girl Geek Dinners Ottawa blog!

We are always appreciative of the support we receive from the Ottawa business community. If you’re interested in sponsoring or donating a prize for future Girl Geek Dinners, please contact us: info@girlgeekdinnersottawa.com

Join us Tuesday, May 25 as our guest speaker Ellen Grove, an experienced Agile coach and software tester, discusses how to apply Agile principles and practices to all kinds of endeavours, from software development to social change.

Ellen will present OpenAgile, a non-software-focused approach to Agile work that emphasizes truthfulness, consultative decision-making and constant learning. OpenAgile enhances the ability of individuals, teams, and organizations to deliver value to their stakeholders by developing human capacity, improving processes, and, most importantly, encouraging rapid and deep learning.

Event Details

• When: Tuesday, May 25 at 6 p.m.
• Where: Johnny Farina – 216 Elgin Street, between Lisgar and Cooper

To join us, please register here.

Hey students!

Thanks again to generous sponsorship from Joe Thornley of Thornley Fallis, we can offer six student spots to this event. If you are a student wishing to attend, please leave a comment below indicating why or what you want to learn about Agile. The first six students to respond will receive complimentary registration and dinner (up to $25).

A little bit about Ellen

Ellen Grove helps teams make better software through coaching them to create the circumstances in which they can work most productively and effectively. Her Agile coaching practice is founded in over 10 years experience leading software testing, development and implementation teams in global enterprises, a passion for exploratory software testing and user-centered design, and a background in community organization.

She uses team-building and facilitation approaches to support the transition to collaborative Agile work practices at the team, managerial and corporate level, and has conquered the challenges of extending Scrum roll-outs to off-shore development partners and multi-site project teams.

Outside the office, Ellen applies her coaching talents and creativity to keeping her household menagerie of husband, children, dogs, cats, goats, snakes, spiders and birds happy and healthy. Ellen blogs at Mastering the Obvious.

Through Monday’s Girl Geek Dinner (GGD) Ottawa event, coordinated by the 2011 Algonquin College Public Relations (PR) students, the GGD Ottawa community helped raise $520 for ICAfrica. The event was organized as part of the PR students’ month long campaign to raise funds and awareness for this international charity supporting entrepreneurs in Africa.

ICAfrica supports women in Africa pursuing the dream of owning their own small business by offering micro-loans to help them get started. After two years in existence, ICAfrica has a 100 per cent rate of repayment, and most loans are repaid after only six months. Collected funds are then recycled to other entrepreneurs. The PR students organized eight events throughout the Ottawa area with the goal of raising both awareness and financial support for ICAfrica’s various grassroots programs.

Guest speakers, Katie and Regine, co-owners of Victoire Boutique

While raising funds for a great cause, the GGDOttawa event also provided attendees with insight into the entrepreneurial journey of two local small-business owners.

Co-owners of Victoire Boutique, Katie Frappier and Regine Paquette, shared the ups and downs of opening their first boutique on Dalhousie Street and how fours years of business partnership has led to the creation of a jewellery line, an online store and now a second boutique located in Westboro.

Some key points that Katie and Regine shared:

• The risk of owning a small business made them dedicated – they lived, breathed, dreamed their business to make it a success
• To build a successful clothing boutique – where others have failed – they identified their ideal customer and pursued mostly Canadian designers who would appeal to this audience (mostly young women who liked shopping at boutiques but without boutique prices)
• They credit their mentors for providing guidance and sharing real-world experiences that has helped them make smart decisions for their business
• Also built relationships with other small business owners – sharing best practices, lessons learned and collaborating at times
• They used social media as a way to connect with customers, designers and other boutiques
• They use media relations tactics e.g. monthly press releases to garner publicity and worked diligently to make these activities newsworthy i.e. what makes their store different
• Because of their age, Katie and Regine had a difficult time being taken seriously by banks even with a solid business plan; they persevered and built a banking relationship with Ottawa Women’s Credit Union, an institution they highly reccommend to other women looking to pursue an entrepreneurial goal

As two young women pursuing a dream to open their own small business, Katie and Regine’s entrepreneurial journey tied perfectly with the fundraising theme of this event.

The PR students who organized the April GGD Ottawa event, from l. to r.: Lacey, Meg and Kristine

On Wednesday, April 14, the PR students wrapped up their month-long campaign, raising more than $10,000 for the ICAfrica. Says Meg Murray, one of the PR students who helped organize the event,

“The money raised will help to create at least 250 jobs for women in Africa. However, since each women generally cares for a family of four, the money will impact the lives of at least a thousand people.”

How awesome is that?

For more information on this initiative, visit the campaign website at:  Micro-credit, Macro-change. Thanks to our sponsors and to everyone who came out and made this event such a success!

Door Prize Winners

Natasha (on right) accepts her NAC tickets door prize from co-organizer and PR student, Meg

Derek, winner of the wine box door prize courtesy of Indyadvisor.ca

Daniela (on left) accepts her door prize courtesy of Custom Family Photography from event co-organizer and PR student, Kristine

Michele accepts her door prize of Ottawa 67s tickets and autographed hockey stick from Kristine

Mary Lou accepts her Ottawa 67s tickets from Kristine

Nadine accepts her Ottawa 67s tickets from Kristine

Thanks to everyone who came out to last night’s Open Mic event! Several attendees stepped up to the mic to promote their business, work experience and community projects. It was great to hear about so many exciting opportunities women in Ottawa aren’t just a part of but are actually spearheading themselves.

In the spirit of building community around the Girl Geek Dinner Ottawa (GGD Ottawa) brand, last night also featured a networking game that Veronica, Kelly and I created as a way to ensure all attendees had a chance to mingle and get to know one another.

While my explanation of how the game works lacked some clarity (I’m a new mom so I blame it on sleep deprivation), attendees seemed to get the hang of it and really got into the spirit of seeking one another out. And that’s exactly what we hoped would happen!

The "girl geektini" cocktail

I can’t forget to acknowledge the special treat of the night – the “girl geektini” cocktail – which was delicious, sweet and just a little bit sassy.

Finally, we want to take this opportunity to once again thank our sponsors Well.ca, 3rdLife and the National Arts Centre for providing some great door prizes. As you can see from photos below, the prizes are greatly appreciated!

A full album of photos highlighting the event is available on Flickr and is tagged ggdottawa.

The next GGD Ottawa event will be held in the New Year with details posted to this blog as soon as they’re available. Until then, happy holidays!

Door Prize Winners

Christina Stefanski accepts her Well.ca door prize from Kelly Rusk, featuring Burt's Bees lip balm, Ballbuster hand cream, Cold-FX 1st Day and Gylsomed foot balm

Terri Oda accepts her handmade makeup bag and pin made from vintage and recycled garments, courtesy of 3rdLife.

Caitlin Lafleche accepts her NAC door prize of two tickets to the "Guys and Dolls" performance.

Someone suggested that we post all the Girl Geek’s Twitter addresses on the blog so we can all connect with each other. I had started this list a few weeks ago, but as you’ll notice never got around to finishing it and posting it here…

Well sometimes procrastination pays off because since that happened Twitter has released its ‘Lists’ feature. Mel has put together a GGDOttawa list on Twitter. Here you can find all the women interested in #GGDOttawa.

If you’re not already on the list, leave a comment here, or contact @MelGallant to get included.

Girl Geek Dinner (GGD) Ottawa was featured last night on CTV Ottawa’s Tech Now segment of the Sunday 6 o’clock news. The interview provided us the opportunity to explain why we founded a chapter in Ottawa and to discuss opportunities for women in social media.

Paul Brent of CTV Ottawa's Tech Now discusses the new Girl Geek Dinner chapter in Ottawa

Also featured in the interview is Ian Capstick of MediaStyle who gives his perspective on why he thinks women are more naturally adapt as social media strategists.

To watch the video, visit the CTV Ottawa website. FYI: I can’t find a way to link directly to the video, so once you navigate to the page, click the CTV News Video Player to the right of the page.

You can also read the accompanying article here.

On a final note, we would like to thank the community for supporting our chapter launch event scheduled for tomorrow night with guest speaker Tara Hunt. The event has sold out and is an indication that Ottawa women working and/or interested in high tech want these kind of networking and learning events.