75 Cat Naps - Grinding at CSI: Annex

SORRY!

Okay as you can all tell, its been a bit since my last post.  I've been lurking around in the background with a new client and cooking up several awesome new projects for Simplicity and our crew.

Since my last post on the blog I've been doing such a wide variety of things with and for Simplicity that I just caught myself scratching my head and saying "where did my summer go?!"  Thankfully it has been truly fun, interesting and always learning new things along the way.

As July is drawing to a close, I've definitely been exposed to new avenues of art, everything from the graphic art of my client rewfoe, to the stark and richly coloured works of Caravaggio.   I've finally had a chance to awaken my wanderlust for the "roadtrip", and it seems that even 120kmph is now considered slow!

I got a chance to be a human smoke alarm when I had a chance to help CSI:Annex by being the "Fire Watch Guy".  It was a pretty unique opportunity that gave me a unique opportunity to meet many of the awesome tenants of CSI:Annex and work from 6pm to 9am.  It was like a strange retreat or a sleep over for me, except at the office and nobody around!  I was slightly disappointed that I only completed 30 of the 75 Fire Watch walks that had to be done every hour.  Then again I love sleep and readjusting from being a night owl and waking up every hour was pretty tough.

I snapped some beautiful pictures of the new office space.  Being here is such a great inspiration!  Its such a great feeling to be here and these snapshots are taken at those odd hours when most of the city is just waking up.

 With so many ideas and awesome things on the hot plate, August is looking to be just as awesome for myself and the Simplicity team.  I'll fill you all in as fast as I can.    

If you can't beat 'em - Tweet 'em.

Perhaps I'm old fashioned or slow, but I always prefer face to face contact.

Which is likely why I've taken some time to really consider getting a Twitter account for Simplicity.  I guess I prefer to be highly effective and operate with surgical precision instead of blurting out into the Internet-verse my every day, random observations or superficial proselytizing.

I find that Twitter posts, in striving to be brief and to the point, are stripped away of a lot of meaning and human connection that I find important.  It's like reading a newspaper article in the Metro.  It's just the facts and nuances of complex issues are missing.  Either way, communication is beautiful and necessary and Twitter is now a tool we're going to add to our kit for connecting with our clients, friends, family, supporters and community.

Anyhoo, that being said, you can now follow Simplicity's exploits and information about our upcoming events through Twitter at @SimplicityEPC  (That's Event Planning & Catering)

Check out our new office space! CSI - Annex

As a result of Simplicity getting recognition as a runner-up in last year's Agents of Change competition run by the Centre for Social Innovation, we now have the office space at the Centre for Social Innovation - Annex starting in July!

Check it out!   This is a fabulous environment for social innovators and we are neck deep in connecting with so many other social entrepreneurs!

A SUPER BIG thank you to all of you folks who took the time to nominate Simplicity for our work.  We would not have gotten this fabulous opportunity to grow and be a part of a larger community without you!

Snapshots of Toronto Taste 2011

Looking back at these pictures, I am so glad I brought the camera.  I barely had any time to snap them, as there was so much to do.  I'm quite proud to have been there and did what I love to do for a great organization and a fantastic cause.

Jasna and I at the main entrance.  (+7 Hours)

Emily and I near the main stage bussing line (+8 hours)

You know its late when...

Here are some of the awesome volunteers (90+) that made this possible.   THANK YOU!

 As I mentioned before, the 16 hours on-site was such a blur, that I appreciate being able to take a look at these pictures.  They are really like fleeting memories of something awesome that happened.

 I'm super thankful for Jasna coming down to bring the camera mid way through the event.












One of the most awesome aspects of my volunteer experience for this event was the chance to meet so many fantastic people.
Second Harvest is chock full of great people willing to put in crazy hours for a great cause.  It turns out that, as a result of this charity event, over 650,000 meals will be served to Torontonians in need.

It's a big step from clearing my dinner plate as a kid growing up.  That was one of the original reasons why Simplicity started to donate to Second Harvest and I'm truly amazed to see where it can lead me.

As you can see, its super packed outside the ROM with over 1400 guests closing off Queens Park.  I salute Emily for being the early bird on-site at 5am!



      You can tell it's getting late in an event when the staff get super tired and start to have silly fun.   Here I'm posing with Cheri who is what I'd call a veteran of several Toronto Tastes.  This year is the first time the role of one Catering Lead has been split up between a team of three.

Judging from Cheri's smile we must be doing something right!

(Can you tell I REALLY like wearing my headset radio?)






     To the left is my main objective for being part of the Toronto Taste 2011.  As the Catering Lead I had a such a great opportunity to coordinate and work with over 90 volunteers from across the city, from so many walks of life, who come together for this cause.

I'm kinda sad I didn't have more of a chance to engage all of them and spend more time with them.

I especially want to thank Joyce and Katie for being my Floating Team Leads.  Having them there to trouble-shoot was such a great thing.






Here we have just some of the key people of the Second Harvest Committee that made all of this year's event possible.  I managed to snap this at the very end of the night on the steps of the ROM.

It was a perfect setting to sit down and take stock of the night as teardown started around us at +15 hours from the beginning of the event.  I think the smiles speak of exhausted happiness.




I count myself lucky enough to be down the street from the venue.  It's an even greater feeling to have a chance to be a part of this great team and pull of such a memorable event!

I'm really looking forward to Toronto Taste 2012!

At the end of Toronto Taste 2011

The Day After Second Harvest's Toronto Taste 2011

I am tired, sore, and above all extremely happy.

I've made mention of some of this before in my previous blog posts about my involvement with Second Harvest as a volunteer.   Not just content to do a small bit I wanted to get right in to the nitty gritty and help where I could be of most help and do what I love, which is being a part of something greater and representing Simplicity as an agent of social change.

Nothing could give me greater joy in having the opportunity to be a part of Toronto Taste 2011!  In hindsight I would have loved to speak more  about it as a build up, but for fear of being noobish in my work with Second Harvest I was pretty reluctant to do so.   This mainly came from trying to comprehend my role in such a big event.   I also wish I wasn't so busy as to be able to take a few more pictures of the event.  It went by so fast that it almost feels like it was a blur, yet the end results are palpable.  These end results were most tangible as I sat there on the steps of the ROM, fifteen hours into my self enforced "shift".

As I sat there at midnight, completely and utterly exhausted I watched the huge tented area slowly be taken down and the last of the hardy volunteers and Chairman Mills staff strike down everything and anything resembling a rental.  There was a sense of completeness of something grand drawing to its natural conclusion and I was once again part of something bigger, fantastic and even connected to a whole lot of great people who believe in something greater than what we are as individuals.

It was certainly not sad or bitter sweet, just blissfully tired layered over a feeling of completeness that comes at the end of seeing an event to the very end.  Perhaps a wholeness, in which all you expected and more came true all at once.  It was fulfillment and justification of purpose for what we, I, and Simplicity do. I'm exhausted and happy.

More photos to come, and certainly more updates.

What is Agency?

I think agency is one of those often misunderstood concepts that is generally relegated to being tossed around in university lecture halls and most people just let it fly by them.

What IS agency you ask?  Perhaps it's best described as the ability to do stuff.   I believe that agency is a defining factor of what separates people who achieve things from those who do not and just take life as it hits them in the face.

I think that we hear the call of our own agency every day but we're so used to being beholden to people and organizations that things happen TO us, that we don't stop and think about how we can ACT instead of REACT to our environment.  Now, before I get on my soap box about social change, I really want to explain this point I just made.

I feel that every day I meet people who talk about problems they encounter in every day life.  Whether it be work, jerks on the subway, bills, or coworkers who drag others into messy office politics and backbiting.  I am sure you know what I mean -- it's the every day stuff that we complain about, that fuels our evening conversation over drinks with our friends when we reconnect.  Yet there seems to be this sense of "woe is me" that sticks in my craw because the topics of complaining are acceptable is a daily occurrence.  It sticks in my craw because it evokes a feeling that I hope many of us get -- "That's not right.  Something should be done."  That is the beginning of agency.

Can I do something about (it?)
           /                       \
     YES                    NO

This is what agency is.  The ability to do (stuff).  To get (stuff) done.  I believe that we all have a responsibility to one another, in some way or form, and this cannot be ignored or passed off to someone else.  At the very same time, agency is not just something that is not blatantly used.  It must be exacting and measured, and above all real and applied with fore-thought.   Otherwise its not true Agency, its just something that helps people sleep at night.    Other times it can be good to enact Agency but we should always be ask at what cost does it come at?

I've been interacting a lot lately with larger organizations and this unsettling feeling I've been feeling lately seems to have come from the real meaning of agency and how much Agency really takes place.    

To the construction worker with the gas-powered concrete saw...

who's using it promptly at 7:00am.  This one is for you.



May your coffee today be luke warm.
May your lunch be made not quite the way you like it.
May your vehicle get ticketed

May you be inconvenienced as much as all the residence of this neighbourhood who are not early morning risers and believe that sometimes birds are a better wake up call than a industrial gas-powered diamond edged concrete saw going full tilt.
(Especially directly outside my bedroom window.)

Definitely not nice in my books.