If you’re anything like me, you’ve gotten swept up in the World Cup fever that is making its way around the world. As far as I can tell, the only way to alleviate the symptoms is to watch more soccer. And unlike other diseases having other people around is the best course of action. If my time as a Canadian (whole life) has taught me anything it is that the best place to go watch sports with other people is at a pub. Big TVs, drinks, good food and lots of intense fans. The perfect environment for sports watching. One kink in trying to go out and watch the World Cup is that many of the good matches are happening at 8:00am. So if you want to catch them live then you need to find a place that is open early enough (and coffee shops usually frown on excessive fist pumping and loud cheering, so they’re out). Thankfully, a couple downtown pubs have you covered.

The Garage (located in Eau Claire) will be open early for all of your World Cup needs, and they will be serving a breakfast menu as well.

My vote for great place is The Unicorn. It’s open early, has one thing on the menu (which is fine because it tastes great) and serves beer (if you can drink it at 8am, which I cannot). Thankfully their coffee is great and endless so that will help you wake up. Not only is the food good, but the servers are nice and the other patrons are great, they’re loud but definitely not obnoxious (which is really key to enjoying the pub experience). There are lots of TVs so no matter where you’re sitting you’ll get a good view of the action.

Morning games not your thing? None of those matches interest you? Well don’t worry there are places to go to watch the 12:30pm matches as well. In addition to The Garage and The Unicorn, there is also Ceili’s, Firewater and Flames Central.  Here’s the CBC broadcast schedule.

So now that the Group round is at the end and the Second Stage has started you’ll know where to go take in the World Cup action in downtown Calgary.  If I missed any of your favourites add it in the comments and maybe we’ll try it for our next post.

On Thursday, June 17, hundreds of civic-minded Calgarians will descend upon Flames Central in hopes of boosting volunteerism throughout the city while engaging in the local art scene.

Timeraiser is charity event aimed at increasing community involvement through a unique format – a silent auction featuring local art that runs on bids of volunteer hours instead of money.

“I think the demographic, 20-30 something’s, genuinely want to get involved in their community.  They often just need that one

motivating factor,” said program manager Jennifer Grebeldinger.

“They also need it to be an engaging, fun experience.”

The art is purchased by selection committees across the country, paying up to $800 per piece of art. The idea behind paying for the auction art is that Timeraiser does not only provide valuable volunteer hours to a community but also supports the local art scene in every city that holds one of its events.

“With the help of our corporate partners, we are able to pay artists for their work and this support engages the vibrant, creative community.  It makes art accessible and fun for those who are just being introduced to the world of local art,” she said.

Non-profit and voluntary organizations participating in Timeraiser range from major charitable agencies like Big Brothers and Big Sisters to smaller localized charities such as Green Calgary. Selection committees don’t limit themselves to certain types of organizations, instead choosing organizations based on how diverse and engaging their volunteer opportunities are.

Timeraiser started in Toronto and after garnering considerable interest around the distinctive event, organizers decided to expand. The first city in the expansion was Calgary in 2006. Since its introduction five years ago, Calgary’s event has grown into a definite success.

“Over five years $90,000 has been paid to local artists, 12,000 volunteer hours are confirmed as to having been completed in Calgary by Timeraiser participants and over 700 young professionals have attended.”

Those numbers continue to grow every year in the city as more people find out about the event. Last year, tickets to Timeraiser were sold out three days before the event and organizers are anticipating the same demand this year.

Calgary was chosen as a viable city to host Timeraiser events due to the emergence of the city as being a youthful centre full of young professionals.

“The demographic that the Timeraiser draws, the 20-30 something crowd, has the lowest incidence of volunteerism than any other demographic group,” stated Grebeldinger. “Couple that with the fact that Calgary is such a young city, and this means that a large percentage of the citizen base is not volunteering.”

“Yet the skills and experience they can offer are tremendous for charitable groups.  They often have more time than money; so can make real contributions that are often inaccessible to agencies.”

After several successful years, the Timeraiser organizers tinkered with the format to maximize the efficiency of the event.

“We have over the years dropped the max bid from 250 hours in a year to 125 hours in a year.  This is because we have found that 125 hours over 12 months is a challenging but reasonable number of hours for busy young professionals to complete,” Grebeldinger said.

“We want people to finish their 12-month pledge and feel motivated to continue volunteering, not exhausted.  And we now always hear stories from art winners that they will stay on the board, or keep volunteering every week, etc.  Maxing the hours at 125 helps people figure out how to make volunteering part of their life.”

Grebeldinger is looking forward to what looks to be another successful event in Calgary and hopes to build upon the growing movement of civic involvement in the city.

“The night brings together a huge variety of people – the corporate world, the non-profit sector, the arts community, etc.  It ends up being a trendy but authentic night that appeals to everyone.

“We’re talking IT and HR professionals, lawyers, business managers, accountants, program managers, writers, graphic designers, etc. But beyond the specific skills that the volunteers offer, Timeraiser is often the starting point to a lifetime of civic engagement and volunteerism.  It gets the demographic engaged and invested in their community so that they want to be a part of making it a more livable, vibrant city.”

Location: Flames Central (219 8 Ave SW)

Date: Thursday, June 17

Time: Doors open at 7:00 PM

Cost: $20 per ticket at Timeraiser Calgary

Photo Credit: Jeremy Fokkens

I was standing in line for a coffee and heard what is by now a familiar refrain, “Calgary has no culture, no art, nothing to do,” from a guy (a Torontonian as it turns out) talking to a friend in line behind me.  As I had just spent the better part of a day reading posts about the High Performance Rodeo I couldn’t help but turn around and say (in a non-creepy way) that he should check out hprodeo.ca, a month-long festival that brings together different arts right here in Calgary.  He looked a little surprised by my friendliness (being helpful, not creepy I swear) and then … “Thanks”.

There is culture and art and great things to do in Calgary , but sometimes you have to look for them.  My Thursday night proved to me the variety you can find even when you’re not looking, just being open to suggestions.

My night started at Flames Central for #yyc4Haiti. This amazing event came out of Twitter, a few dedicated individuals (@C_Dig, @alex_ruiz, @that_angela) to organize it and a community eager to do whatever they could to help.  It was a great example of what #yyc (Calgary in Twitterspeak) is capable of and the willingness of the community to work together.  I can’t think of the last time I saw so many different people come together in such a short space of time to put together such a great event.  Who knew that hockey and Bollywood could blend so well?

Next, I was off to Tono, part of the High Performance Rodeo.  Now, if you’ve read this blog for a bit, or poke around a bit afterwards, you’ll notice quite a bit of HPR coverage here.  That’s because we (Downtown Calgary) love the Rodeo.  We sponsored the Midway, one of our writers (Wil Knoll) is in a rodeo-off with Mark Hopkins and most of the action happens downtown.  All that said **shifts eyes guiltily** …this is my first year at the Rodeo.  I honestly can’t believe it now, but I suppose I was busy (school) or far away (NWT), but still!  So I sat down for Tono and after the wonder of Snowblower and the strangeness of Kawasaki Exit, I knew I’d be blown away.

I was not disappointed.  I don’t know anything about dance besides the fact that I can’t do it; this is not a technical critique.  Tono was amazing.  Red Sky Performance set out to “embody the elegant majesty of a stampeding herd, dancing through shamanistic cycles to the sounds of live throat-singing and the native instruments of [Canadian, Mongolian and Chinese indigenous cultures].”  The movements and sounds did exactly that.  What a perfect show for Calgary …you’ve got me hooked now Rodeo.

Tono is playing at the Grand until Saturday, January 30, 2010

As the world comes to grips with the devastating impact of the earthquake that struck Haiti last week, three Calgary women have banded together to mobilize the city’s social media community, as well as the corporate population, to provide aid to the impoverished country.

On Thursday, Jan. 28, YYC4Haiti will be held at Flames Central (219 – 8^th Ave SW) during the Calgary Flames PPV game against the Phoenix Coyotes. The Flames, Calgary Stampeders, Calgary Roughnecks and many other businesses and individuals have generously given donations for a silent auction and door prizes.

All proceeds from YYC4Haiti will be forwarded to the Canadian Red Cross.

Admission to the event is free but attendees are asked to make a donation, in whatever amount they can afford, to the Canadian Red Cross.

YYC4Haiti was born when Camilla Di Giuseppe (@C_Dig) of CTV Calgary tweeted about a way to help the victims of the earthquake. Alex Ruiz (@alex_ruiz) of Calix Media & the Calgary Flames and former Calgary sports writer Angela MacIsaac (@that_angela) quickly jumped on board and feverishly began to plan.

“All three of us watched and read the news feeds on the devastation in Haiti and it tore our hearts out,” said Di Giuseppe. “We all knew we had to act somehow and we came together over the social-media platform, Twitter, which we are using as our primary tool in engaging the Calgary community.”

Using the hashtag #yyc (the airport code for Calgary) as a method to spread the word about the event, the information about YYC4Haiti spread like wildfire. Businesses in Calgary, as well as those outside the city, began to offer donations, services and whatever help they could give.

As of Wednesday, Jan. 20, 38 donations had been contributed to the event, ranging from Westjet flights to autographed Flames jerseys to yoga packages.

“In just the span of one day on Twitter, we had Calgarians come forward to volunteer, to make donations and to say they’ll attend,” said Ruiz. “We’ve even had people from across Canada and the U.S., who have noticed the YYC4Haiti effort, offer to mail us donations for the silent auction.”

For more information on the event, order YYC4Haiti t-shirts (all proceeds go the Red Cross), RSVP for the event or to find out about how you can contribute, please visit http://yyc4haiti.com or follow @yyc4haiti on Twitter.