Helllooooo London

Time for a change! I've been working at United Way now for just over a year and a half and with things changing all the time, I thought I'd see my United Way path send me westward to London. Since the beginning of December I've been learning how to work from home while living in a new city, almost twice as large as Belleville with over 7 times the population.

It wouldn't have been such a different situation except for the welcome wagon of snow the first week I arrived:


Compared to Bellevegas and all the cities along the 401, I felt like I'd been living in Alaska for the last month. Despite the cold however, I've been able to hunker down and work away on our upcoming events.

This year our Achievement celebration is taking place at the Empire Theatre Thursday, January 20th and our North Hastings Warehouse Sale is Saturday,February 5th at the Bancroft Public Works Yard. For more information, please check out our Facebook event page or our website at www.unitedwayofquinte.ca

Please don't forget that our campaign is ending at an earlier date this year, December 31st. So please, if you are able to, give this year and support our community.

Campaign 1, Blog - 0

So once September hits for us United Way-ers, campaign takes precedent and unfortunately leaves me with little time to update! I've tried my best to keep up, but its been a whirlwind of events this past little while!

After Dragon Boats we launched our campaign at Quinte Mall, posting a goal for $1,635,000 (below). It was a great event where we were able to take folks through the day to day struggles of a lower income family in the Quinte area. The outcome was unsettling. Many individuals throughout Hastings & Prince Edward County have to work multiple jobs to make ends meet and sometimes are even unable to do so. I think the activity was a success allowing individuals to realize how difficult it can be for some families to live a decent lifestyle here and be able to provide for their families.

Big thanks to Culligan, Quinte Mall, A&W and Tim Hortons for making the event possible!

After our Belleville Launch, we held our Quinte West Chili Luncheon at the Royal Canadian Legion, Branch 110 in Trenton. It was another great success raising over $5,000 for our campaign. Big thanks to Marty Halloran for putting the event together, Matt Goodman from Rock 107 for emceeing, Ellie Barker (seen below) for the decorations and all the local businesses that donated items to the event.

Since our launch we have had two sales one was a surprisingly successful online sale raising $60,000 and the other was our Annual Quinte West Sale that raised over $30,000 we also held our Investors Group Denim & Diamonds Charity Casino Presented by Darrell Smith, CFP (Col. Cochrane, CFB Trenton, Bruce Francis, committee volunteer and Chief of Police Cory McMullan pictured below) that raised over $20,000 for our campaign. These past three months have been so faced paced, I can't believe it ends in just 4 short weeks!

So please remember to send those donations in if you haven't done so! We're almost in sight of our goal and with your help we can make it!

Dragon-huh?

Well, if you're anything like me, you will have never (or rarely) heard of a sport called dragon boating. First time I heard about it was last year when I started at United Way and helped organize the festival here in Belleville. It always amazes me as to how much prep goes into putting on any event and in a blink of an eye... it's over! Thanks to Cheryll Drumm, Nancy Lewis, Bill Daniels and Kay Manderville of the Belleville Dragon Boat Club for their expertise and assistance in running and organizing the festival as well as all the volunteers who made the day possible.

So for those of you who don't know, Dragon boating is a water sport for teams of 20 to paddle down a 200m raceway. It is THE most intense two minutes of any water sport I've ever competed in.

This year 17 teams made their way to Victoria Park and set up camp to watch and partake in the races on August 28th.

Tournament Champions were the Rotary Rockets, made up of members from the Rotary Club of Quinte Sunrise, Top Fundraising Team was Licenced to Paddle, Top Fundraising Individual was Mary Olsen of Licenced to Paddle and the Tipper Financial Spirit Cup Champions werrrrrrrrrrre! THE BARDON DREAM TEAM from Bardon Supplies! But believe me, the competition this year was steep, the cup was only awarded after a cheer off had taken place between Bardon Dream Team, GH20 and the Nestle Quik Paddlers. All teams had a ton of spirit and were a joy to watch and race with. A huge thank you to all teams: Academy of Learning Warriors, Bardon Dream Team, Cruisin' Rebels, The Belleville Machine, Cobourg Torpedos, Blazin' Paddles, Down the Drink. GH20,H2OT Boaty, Hydro Therapy, Licenced to Paddle, Nestle Quik Paddlers, Probus Quinte, QHC Life Savers, Rotary Rockets, The Waywards and Wonder Women Too.

HUGE THANKS to all our sponsors: The Belleville Dragon Boat Club, St. John Ambulance, Culligan The Good Water Company, Tipper Financial Services, 91X FM, Wellington and District Lions Boat Club, Cobourg Dragon Boat Club, KFC, Red Ball Radio, Canadian Labour Congress, Swiss Chalet, Eastern Lift Truck, Belleville Recreation Culture & Community Services, Impacto Protective Products, TAS Communications and North China Buffet.

What's on tab for the rest of the month? How about our Campaign Launch this Thursday, September 9th and our Quinte West Chili Luncheon Tuesday, September 14th at the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 110 in Trenton.... See you there!!

This is my happy birthday face....

Do you ever get a little spastic after someone tells you to smile and sticks a camera in your face? ...And you tend to do something like that with your mouth? I sometimes feel like I might look a little too cheesy just smiling so I feel the need to go that extra mile and look a little crazy.

Nevertheless! I had an awesome surprise party thrown for me by Julia's daughter, Jenna : ) she made secret invites, scattered balloons in my office and even organized a little potluck! ... Did I mention she's only 6? She did an AWESOME job and I think I can see what profession she might investigate in her future...

HUGE thanks to my lovely coworkers for the great lunch and bday gifts :), especially Curt for that awesome angel food cake, couldn't ask for better! A big thanks to Jenna of course too!

A Day of Caring....

Wow, so I have been totally slacking on blogging about all the new cool stuff going on at United Way of Quinte... not because of a lack of motivation but strictly due to the fact that there's SO MUCH going on at United Way!
This past week on June 17th, our community watched over 100 employees from 19 different companies spend the morning with 18 agencies completing projects at 18 agencies throughout Hastings & Prince Edward County.
This hectic day full of hard work, sweat and BBQs is better known as Day of Caring. Participating companies helped garden, clean, build and renovate to help United Way of Quinte's funded agencies complete tasks that they normally do not have the capacity to. I myself ran around like a chicken with their head cut off, picking up items for the BBQ, visiting agencies to take photos and saying a BIG thanks for their efforts in making a difference in each visited agency and our community.
A huge thank you goes out to Hydro One & Cintas for sponsoring the day's event, Reid's Dairy for hosting our kick off, QVSS for hosting our wrap up and P&G for sponsoring the BBQ lunch. Special thanks to all the donors and companies that took part in the day:
- Allstate Insurance
- Royal LePage
- Quinte Access
- Stream Global Services
- GH Manufacturing
- Kellogg's
- O'Flynn Weese
- Future Shop
- No Frills
- Victoria Convenience
- Avaya
- Weston Bakeries
- South East CCAC
- Community Living Prince Edward
- CN
- Airborne Systems
- Home Depot
- Nestle
- Belleville Police Service.

Thank you for a crazy Day of Caring!!

And for all you high school students out there: This Saturday is the Starlight Film Festival, Galaxy Cinemas and United Way of Quinte have banded together again to provide an all night movie marathon for high school students throughout our community. For just $20 enjoy a night out with unlimited pop, popcorn, arcade games and 3 movies.

Films to choose from: New Moon, Sherlock Holmes, 2012 and the Hangover!!

Purchase your tickets at the Guest Services Kiosk in the Quinte Mall or at United Way of Quinte located at 249 William St.

See you there!!

Forever Young

Last Friday, the Jr. Staff at United Way of Quinte welcomed their fearless leader into the Jr. Staff's exclusive club. Crutching down a red carpet to the throne set up for her, Julia was crowned and made an honourary Jr. Staff Member.

We appreciate all her hard work and dedication to being hip, congrats on the honour ;)!

Today was a day of celebration!

April 14th was a big day here at United Way of Quinte! It's not every day you get to bond with your fellow staff members over a piece of chocolatey boston cream pie while envying another's summer vacation in the Dominican, but yesterday was that day! We wished Tambra a very happy birthday over afternoon dessert as we prepped her in fine fashions for her upcoming trip... lucky lady.

Along with Tam's birthday the staff were also able to celebrate diversity in our workplace and our community by participating in Day of Pink; the International Day against Bullying, Discrimination & Homophobia. To learn more about day of Pink, please visit www.dayofpink.org.

UWQ Hits the Farm!

Last week we celebrated Bob's birthday here and one of his fav pass times along with some other staff here is a little thing we like to call Farmville. We appreciate the offer when Connie asks us if we would like to do actual work on her farm, but that's just crazy talk. We Farmvillers like to sit back and relax in the comfort of our own home (sometimes our office if our crops are about to wither)and tend to our gardens with the click of a button as oppose to the strenuous physical labour we would undoubtedly encounter on a real farm.

Now since Farmville is an online game there are of course some who aren't very well versed in all it has to offer. And that's where Bob, Tam and I come into play. You can call us farm experts or at least farm educators and we wish to spread the word of easy farming to all we encounter...

Join us, won't you?

Campaign Basics in Ottawa

What a whirlwind week! Last week I had the opportunity to learn and laugh with United Way staff from across Canada. I went up the Friday with some friends to catch Joe Rogan and his comedy show (which was amazing by the way), my stomache hurt for hours from laughter. Then I was able to spend the whole next week in our nation's capital.

I wanted to thank Jeff Turner and Bhavana Varma for a great learning experience and environment. Too bad I got a touch of food poisoning on the Wednesday because other than that, it was a fantastic trip filled with fantastic people and I can 't wait to bombard my coworkers here with everything I've learned!

FUN IN THE SUN...in the snow?

Although life is always a little hectic here at United Way of Quinte, we find it important to ensure that fun is had and morale stays boosted...well, I do at least ; )!

As the winter blues began to fade last week and the beautiful sunshine managed to peak over our snow capped streets, I was delighted to receive a phone call from our lovely E.D. (who is actually celebrating her 10th successful year at United Way of Quinte, congrats!) who thought "hey! it's a B-E-A-U-tiful day, why not get Sam (Connie's daughter) to build a snowman?" I of course leapt at the suggestion and snuck myself into the mix creating one of the most ridiculous snowmen in my life...


I had a great break out in the cool sunshine and i gotta tell ya, after 10 years of not building snowmen, I think I may have to get back into it. Anyways, I should get back to prepping for Campaign Basics in Ottawa next week, I'll try to update if I don't go into information overload!

Foiled again!

I don't get it. I just don't get it. Every holiday I somehow create a better door than the one before, and every holiday my door is sadly left aside and some other door wins.
This is no longer an issue of sour grapes, this has become a conspiracy! St. Patty's will decide if I ever, participate in a door decorating contest again. My heart just can't take the failure much longer. So Larry, Julia, this means war.

OWEYO-WEYO-WEYO-WEYA...it's the survivor theme...

Well the Survivor Office Pool has begun. Names have been drawn, torches have been lit and i'm creating a didgeridoo as i type...no big deal. Contestants have been assigned as follows:

Amy - Ben, Cirie
Andie - Danielle, Jessica
Bob - Tyson, Colby
Brenda - Parvati, Amanda
Connie - Rupert & Randy
Jack - J.T., Sandra
Julia - Stephanie, Courtney
Larry - Jerri, Candice
Tambra - Russell, Tom

Let's see how the very first tribal council goes tonight during Survivor Heroes VS Villains!

Weekend in the Croft

This past weekend was our North Hastings Warehouse Sale. I of course had to suck it up and stand out in the cold for most of the day but time flew by thanks to all the great volunteers who gave me a lot to laugh about and of course Connie's winter get ups always make me chuckle..haha. But a special thanks goes out to all the public works guys, especially Chris Ray who made the whole day go by very smoothly and helped raise $32,000 for United Way of Quinte. A huge thank you goes out to all our sponsors as well: Meyer's Transport, Town of Bancroft, Vito's Pizzeria, Subway, Dixie Lee Chicken & Seafood, T.A.S. Communications, Whitfield Plumbing, Heating & Air Conditioning, Culligan The Good water Company, Tim Hortons, No Frills, McDonald's, P&G, Sears and Amer Sports.

A huge congrats goes out to the Haiti Relief Spaghetti dinner that was hosted at the Legion and raised over $13,000. It was a great weekend for great causes. Thank you Bancroft!

A year in numbers...

Being my first campaign, I can't even believe how much work went into achieving a number like the one United Way did this year, but it was a lot. I realize I haven't that much corporate experience but I have never seen people work this hard in my life.

This year our Acievement Celebration was held at the Empire Theatre and it was a perfect venue to reveal our $1.615 million dollar campaign total. A number we could not have possible reached without all the local organizations who signed up for payroll deductions, sponsored events and donated. On top of that, we can't thank enough all the volunteers who went out to get that corporate support, including all the ECC's, Cabinet members, office and event volunteers... and of course Mark Philbin who was fantastic as the Campaign Chair this year. Thank you again to EVERYONE who had a hand in making this campaign a huge success and congrats to all the staff at United Way for all their hard work :)

Long time coming....

So it's been forever, and I apologize but January was absolutely hectic! It started out with a whirlwind online sale...

This is Julia and Connie hammering out the details at the warehouse :) It was absolutely crazy... From the moment we opened the sale the e-mails poured in and we were up to our eyeballs in orders by the time it hit noon. Due to the overwhelmingly positive respose, we had to close the sale. SEVEN HUNDRED e-mail orders were received in just three hours and the calls began soon after. But long story short, over $20,000 was raised for our community and it was a learning experience for us all! We hope to pursue this avenue again, perhaps with a few more tweaks :P

A big thank you goes out to Tina's Pizzeria for donating lunch to the volunteers and Tim Hortons for coffee and doughnut donations!!