Pink Ponies: Check out this video!

This Youtube video was recommended to me by a student in the Special Event Management class I teach at Humber College. It is a fantastic case study about planning a young girl's birthday pary. This video demonstrates perfectly the importance of knowing your audience, using emerging social media for event marketing, and building an event that not only attracts but retains your guests. It goes to show that your event doesn't need to have a huge budget or thousands of guests to be a success. Check it out!

My Online Portfolio

I've created an electronic online portfolio that showcases pictures of events I've coordinated and highlights my professional event coordination resume in greater detail. Feel free to browse through my pictures!

www.krop.com/rebeccacotter/portfolio/

Instructor of Special Event Management at Humber College

I have joined the part-time faculty in the Department of Hospitality and Tourism at Humber College as the instruction of Special Event Management in the Hospitality and Tourism Operations post-diploma program.

Check out my bio featured on the Humber College website here: http://hospitality.humber.ca/content/rebecca-cotter-0

I'm looking forward to sharing my experience with budding event coordinators!

Appointed Race Director for Girls on the Run GTA

After two years of working with Girls on the Run GTA (GOTR), http://girlsontherun.ca/, in various capacities I am pleased to undertake the role of Race Director for the 2011 "It's Cool to Be Me" 5K Race on June 11, 2011.

Girls on the Run Greater Toronto Area is a life-changing, charitable non-profit prevention program for girls in the 3rd through 8th grade that promotes its mission "to educate and prepare girls for a lifetime of self-respect and healthy living." through training for a 5K running event with healthy living education. GOTR programs instill self-esteem and strong values through health education, life skills development, mentoring relationships, and physical training - all of which are accomplished through an active collaboration with girls and their parents, schools, volunteers, staff, and the community.

Check out the GOTR website for more information about this valuable program, http://girlsontherun.ca/. If you'd like to volunteer with the GOTR race, email me at cotter.rebecca@hotmail.com - we're always looking for running enthusiasts and people looknig to make a positive impact on their community.

Water-on-Wheels - Making your event bottled water free!

In 2010 I started a business called Water-on-Wheels (WOW), wateronwheels.ca, that provides mobile water refill stations to events and festivals across Ontario. Water-On-Wheels stations connect to existing municipal water sources to provide event guests with the opportunity to refill their re-usable water bottles onsite at events.

Water-on-Wheels meets the growing bottled-water-free trend in the event industry. Having a WOW water station at your next event, festival, concert, or sporting event is a great way to decrease the event's environmental impact and improve its sustainable initiatives. WOW stations allow guests to re-fill their reusable water bottles for free thereby helping to decrease or eliminate the presence of commercially-packaged bottled water at your event.

WOW stations are great for indoor and outdoor events, athletic competitions, concerts, and public festivals. Having a fully-staffed WOW station at your next event is economical and environmentally friendly.

Visit the WOW website for more information wateronwheels.ca/ or to book a WOW station email me at bookings@wateronwheels.ca.

Blog Your Event

Check out http://blogto.com/events/. It's a fairly comprehensive Toronto events calendar and community features website that allows users to post and advertise events, and find out what's happening in the city's arts and entertainment scene.

Perhaps the best feature about this blog, setting it apart from the majority of the community calendars on the web, is that it's linked to a Facebook application - allowing for opt-in targeted event marketing. Posting your event on blogto.com connects your information with a network of Facebook users looking to find out what's happening in Toronto.

One down...

Check out the City TV press coverage of my first PDP event:

http://www.citynews.ca/news/news_19454.aspx

Hockey not your thing? Check out my next event in this year's line up - Earth Day at Downsview Park, April 20th, 2008.

"CAR!"

Relive your youth at Downsview Park's 4th annual 3/3 Street Hockey Tournament - Saturday, Feb. 9th! Find some friends - like the ones you used to play with on your block when you were 12 - sign 'em up, and show up at Downsview Park for a day of street hockey that will undoubtedly remind you how out of shape you are.

For more information check out: http://www.pdp.ca/en/events/hockey.cfm

$100/team to register (that's a steal!) - online or call 416-952-2222.

Find us on Facebook: Group --> Downsview Park (PDP) --> 3/3 Hockey

Event Planning, Toronto-centre style

It is the popular opinion of Ontarians and have-not provinces alike that Toronto is the centre of the universe - at least where Canadian cities with a population >1M are concerned.

For this reason, I am proud to announce myself as Toronto's latest inhabitant. I got myself a swanky 20-something's apartment, a metropass and a flak-jacket; 'cause now I live in the city. But I do more than just live here...I'm also proud to be the Event Planner at Downsview Park (http://www.pdp.ca/). Now, before you either ask me where that is, or equate it to some event that involved the Pope or the Rolling Stones, inform yourself, and check out the website - because I would hate for you to be one of my Toronto-based friends who doesn't know where the place is.

At the Park I am looking forward to a position that will undoubtedly offer me a variety of opportunities in my chosen events field of special events and festivals, my line-up this year includes Canada Day, FamilyFest, Fall Fair and many concerts and shows along the way. So, if you're in the city looking for something to do this spring-summer-fall, stop by, we've got lots, and I'll be there.