- In: Organizing
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With the unfortunate news that Workspace has closed, CupcakeCamp YVR is looking for a new location to hold the event next year. We’ve been looking at a number of potential spaces, with the following stipulations:
- We need a place with a large capacity, for at least 250 people, upwards of 500 (or more!)
- There has to be a a room or space to store the cupcakes.
- Though we don’t create a lot of noise, we can’t have any issues with bringing in a speaker system with music.
- Air conditioning is a must!
- Last but not least, the space must be accessible for those who are in wheelchairs.
With all of that in mind, do you have any recommendations on a space? If so, please leave some love in the comments.
- In: Event!
- 10 Comments
I think this post is going to be even more difficult to write than the first one, because there was so much activity last night it’s nearly impossible to remember all of the fun things that happened!
For the organizers, the event actually started around 8:00 AM- with all of the prep work, testing the PA system, and running around the city to make sure everything would go smoothly. All of the volunteers gathered in a gaggle at Workspace and set up in record time- except the microphone wasn’t working, at the very last minute! It turns out that the original mic we grabbed was actually -too- good for the cheap PA system, so we had to run about 4 blocks back to ground zero to grab a cheaper mic. Strange! We only had a few hiccups after that, but it seems like most things were running smoothly once the event got started at 6:30 PM.
Liana and Yumi working the registration table. Photo by Cookiestork!
Once guests started gathering, the work really got under-way for the volunteers. They were incredibly efficient at signing-in attendees, labeling the cupcakes to go out, and organizing the timeline so that cupcakes could be sent out in 15-minute intervals. At 7:00, we started announcing cupcakes to the crowd, and the frenzy began.
Spectacular Coconut Mojito Cupcakes- with a glimpse at our organization system. Photo by John Biehler.
To keep the attendees entertained during ‘down’ time between cupcakes, we organized two events with some really neat prizes. Remember that post about the cupcake carrier door prize? Yup, those were available to people who were willing to compete. The first event was a cupcake race! The first person to make it five times around the ‘track’ won the cupcake carrier prize:
And she was wearing heels, too! Photo by John Biehler 🙂
Our second event was, of course, the traditional no-hands eating contest. The first place winner won a cupcake carrier, and all of the entrants were given a ‘consolation’ prize of handmade cupcake necklaces from etsy. Sweet!
The sweet taste of success- Photo by John Biehler.
The cupcakes pictured in the eating contest were ‘Coke Float’ cupcakes, and no they didn’t eat the straws..!
Photo by John Biehler.
We sent so many cupcakes out over the course of the night, that we forgot to get a final tally on how many dozen went out. Apologies for that, but we’re so happy to have had so many bakers join us and share cupcakes with the crowd. The amount of creativity, hard-work and thoughtfulness that went into these cupcakes was overwhelming. These beautiful cupcakes just say so much without saying anything at all:
(All photos by John Biehler– From top to bottom are Green Tea cupcakes, French Toast with Bacon Garnish, ‘Burgers’, and Raspberry Dreamsicles.)
Around 8:30, judging began- it was recapped in Part 1, but here’s a good photo from the ‘tasting’ portion:
Photo of the tasting competition by Cookiestork
To ensure that the judges didn’t get sugar-shock for the tasting portion, we made sure to cut each cupcake in half and provided forks and plenty of water! From front to back, our judges were- Angela, Eagranie, Lyndsay, Rosemary, and Kate. Judging went on for roughly 1/2 an hour, as the judges wanted to be as fair as possible and really put some good thought into who would take the grand prize for each section. I don’t envy them, that was hard work!
One of the contenders for ‘most creative’ cupcakes- OSX as cupcakes! Oh my goodness. Photo by John Biehler.
At 9:30 the event was officially ‘over’, but the last announcement had to be made: We raised $540.00 for the Downtown Eastside Womens Centre! (Well, just over $540 due to the US dollars.. but that will be figured out at the bank!)
Holy moly. That’s a LOT of money.
This money is going to be turned into a cheque, and hand-delivered to the DEWC under the name ‘CupcakeCamp Vancouver.’
…And that’s it! We’ve saved the best for last, knowing that everyone who contributed did something really good last night, for our community. Thanks again to everyone who participated, from the volunteers to the judges to the bakers and attendees. We want to give special thanks to Isabelle Guns for all of her amazing hard work and generous, generous donations to the cause and to the event.
See you next year!
You can read Part 1 of this post, here.
- In: Event!
- 3 Comments
(Joey Lawrence voice) WHOA!
Last night was so fun, it’s hard to find the words to describe it! I wanted to write this post in two parts- first is the thank you’s to the volunteers, sponsors and everyone who made it out to have a good time and donate to a good cause. The second post is a re-cap of the great things that happened last night, both behind the scenes and out in the crowd. So, on with part one!
Photo of some of the volunteers bussing cupcakes: by Cookiestork
First off, I want to give everyone a little bit of background behind C3YVR and the volunteers who made it happen. I don’t like to take the spotlight, so I’ll just leave it to say that I decided to organize a CupcakeCamp in Vancouver because I had heard so many good things come from the various C3’s to happen all over North America and soon to be world-wide! From the start, I knew that I needed some great volunteers to help, and they came flocking to the cause. Pretty soon, ‘I’ became ‘We’ and it goes without saying that this whole shindig couldn’t have happened without the generosity and hard work of the C3YVR volunteers!
(This and all of the following photos were taken by the wonderful John Bieler) From left to right- Liana, Erin, Kris, Danielle, Isabel, Yumi. Front- Stephanie. Asia is not pictured, as she was off running cupcakes!)
We also want to thank Victoria for the tee-shirts and bringing the soy/milk all the way from Abbotsford.
After a ton of group-consultation, we figured out our roles as volunteers and began organizing a fantastic event. Workspace was kind enough to work out a date and time with us, and we really couldn’t have done this without help from @Gregeh who buzzed people in all night long, and helped clean up afterwards. Thanks!
Once the blog, twitter, and facebook account were set up, things really started rolling. We were able to secure some really, really wonderful sponsors: Returnpath.net, lintbucket.com, funchico.com, tartlets.ca, pictureyourcake.com, and the ever-amazing cococake.com! Our sponsors were kind enough to contribute money and prizes for our competitions, which means that we were able to cover all of the costs of renting the space and equipment to make C3YVR happen, even with some left over to contribute towards our goal of raising money for the Downtown Eastside Womens Centre.
Pictureyourcake.com donated a bunch of CupcakeCamp Vancouver cupcakes, complete with logo and beautiful decorations
Our judges, deliberating.
Our last (but not least) big thank-yous go out to our fantastic Judges. We had a great team of ladies with extraordinary palettes to judge our 3 competitions. After much deliberation, and working on a major sugar buzz from the night’s events, they were able to choose the best of the best of the bunch. The prizes were super-cool, as well: the most creative burger cupcakes won an “I (heart) cupcakes!” tee-shirt and a dozen cupcakes from Coco Cake. Best decorated (mint cupcake-balls) won a new laptop bag from Funchico.com, and the best tasting cupcake (I believe it was coconut!) won a $300 gift certificate to Tartlets.ca.
Finally, we’d like to thank Workspace for letting us throw this huge, successful party at their space.
On to part 2!
Hey campers! This is the definitive field guide to CupcakeCamp Vancouver. It’ll help you understand some of the process behind C3YVR:
Registration Information
When you arrive at our venue, make sure you head straight to Registration to get that sorted out. If you’ve brought cupcakes, we’ll need to fill out a card so that we can keep track of your cakes throughout the night. We’ll also be taking your tray (or carrier) and putting it into the staging area in the back of Workspace. When you’re ready to leave, please tell a volunteer who will help find your tray or carrier from the staging area.
Our venue is completely accessible to those with wheelchairs and little kids. However, we’d like to point out that we can’t babysit and small children must be supervised at all times. If you need to use the elevator, please tell our volunteer at the door and they will call the elevator for you.
The Big Event! Cupcakes, Contests and More…
After you’ve registered, it’s time to explore the venue! We’ll be bringing out the first round of cupcakes at 7:00 PM, and they’ll come out at set intervals throughout the night. We’ve got a number of fun activities planned, so be ready to volunteer yourself to participate in a contest or two! Even if you haven’t baked cakes, there will be opportunities to compete against your fellow campers.
The cupcake staging area is going to be marked off with tape. Please don’t go into this area. If you are a photographer and want to get a photo of the cupcakes, ask a volunteer to escort you.
We’d like to ask that people be considerate when the cupcakes come out, as we want to make sure that everyone gets a chance to sample cupcakes. Refreshments like milk, soy and water will be available. We only ask that you re-use your cups in consideration to the environment 🙂
Judging and Wrap-Up:
Cupcake Judging will start at 8:20 PM. At registration, you’ll have a chance to tell the volunteers that you want to compete in one of the contests. If you want to compete, we’ll set aside some of your cupcakes for the big event. There are 3 categories for judging- Best tasting, best decorated, and most creative. We have a great panel of judges, and they’ll decide (iron-chef style) who is the best of the best and worthy of our awesome prizes!
9:30 PM is closing time. To keep confusion at bay, we ask that bakers please try to collect your trays from the staging area starting around 9PM just so we don’t have a big rush at closing time.
We hope that everyone has a really good time at CupcakeCamp Vancouver. Be sure to take lots of pictures and tweet lots of tweets!
SOCIAL MEDIA FUN TIMES!
If you upload pictures to flickr, please tag them with “cupcakecampyvr” or “c3yvr” and if you’re twittering, please use the hash-tags #C3YVR or #cupcakecampyvr
Follow our twitter account for up-to-the-minute info at the camp, @cupcakecampyvr
Make sure to join our facebook group here for more updates about future Vancouver CupcakeCamps: CupcakeCamp YVR
Sponsor Spotlight: Returnpath.net
Posted on: July 10, 2009
All of our sponsors are great people, with great companies, who have turned out to support a fun night for a great cause! Today’s highlighted sponsor is Returnpath.net, a company that does great work for keeping inboxes happy:
Return Path champions inbox standards for email senders and receivers. We believe that email is too important to just go missing. This is why we invented the Sender Score reputation measure which gives nearly every IP on the planet a score based on the metrics that distinguish legitimate email from spam: volume, complaint rates, unknown user rates, infrastructure, spam trap hits and content. Our Sender Score is based on data contributed by ISPs and other receivers of large volume email into the Return Path Reputation Network, the world’s most comprehensive and accessible email reputation and knowledge database. We offer free access to our Sender Score to any sender, receiver or consumer of email at our reputation portal: www.senderscore.org. Information about Return Path can be found at www.returnpath.net.
CupcakeCamp Vancouver is really happy to be featuring Angela Baldonero, ReturnPath’s VP, as one of our Cupcake Judges! If you see Angela tonight, feel free to say hello!
Angela Baldonero is the VP, People which means that she is responsible for making Return Path a high performing machine and the best place to work in the industry. Angela has recently relocated back to Vancouver, BC from NYC. Angela loves working at RP and since she’s local she’s also eager to get involved with local high growth companies. Angela is a certified Executive Coach, a certified Team Coach and focuses on working with leaders who are fiercely committed to their growth and maximizing their impact.
And she loves cupcakes!
Recipe for Sweet Lassi cupcakes
Posted on: July 5, 2009
A little bit of experimentation in the kitchen produced a batch of cupcakes that, no lie, taste exactly like my favourite Indian drink- sweet lassi! The first time I was introduced to sweet lassi was at India Gate, a popular Indian restaurant at Robson and Granville, and I’ve been trying to re-create the recipe for the past few months. For your nibbling pleasure, here’s my recipe for sweet lassi cupcakes, with pink rosewater icing:
Recipe for Sweet Lassi cupcakes (with pink rosewater icing):
Makes 2 dozen cupcakes
Sponsor Spotlight: Tartlets
Posted on: July 2, 2009
Over the course of the next week, CupcakeCampYVR is proud to present a series of posts on our awesome sponsors! These companies have all provided a gift of money or product to give away as prizes for our competitions. The first sponsor we want to introduce is Tartlets, a professional pastry and cake design company based in Vancouver:
You can visit their website at: http://www.tartlets.ca
Tartlets provides a range of services, including cake and pastry baking, catering, and classes. With a big range of flavours, and the ability to order custom cakes for great prices, Tartlets is really making a name for themselves in Vancouver. Of course, Tartlets also offers cupcakes on the menu, and a number of different cake, pastry, tart, and baking courses to choose from. If you’ve got an evening or weekend free, we suggest taking their cake decorating classes (offered in a number of levels, from beginner all the way to advanced techniques, like fondant and concept design!)
We’re really happy to have Tartlets as such a generous sponsor for our event. Their work is beautiful, intricate, and very professional.
Sneak Peek at one of our prizes!
Posted on: July 1, 2009
What’s this thing, sitting on my kitchen counter? Oh yeah, it’s one of the MANY prizes that will be awarded to donators at the event!
We’ve got a different take on ‘door’ prizes at C3YVR- because our event is centered around giving (and not just receiving yummy cupcakes), we want to give back to our community as well. That means that anyone who makes a donation to the Downtown Eastside Womens Centre when registering will be eligible to win door prizes!
If you choose to donate, we’ll put a check next to your ticket number and will randomly select winners throughout the evening. Donations can be of any amount (we suggest $5) and will be taken in the reception area. All of the money will go directly to the Downtown Eastside Womens Centre. You can read more about the DEWC in our FAQ and on their website.
Please remember that you don’t have to donate to participate at CupcakeCamp Vancouver- the event is free!
PS: The pink cupcake-shaped object? Yeah, it’s a solo cupcake carrier. Are you excited yet?
The OFFICIAL Cupcake Competitions:
Posted on: July 1, 2009
Attention CupcakeCampYVR bakers, this post is for you! Here’s the official list of cupcake competitions that will be held during the first ever CupcakeCamp Vancouver event.
Get your spatulas ready, because you can compete in any one of the following contests:
1. Best Tasting Cupcake: Yup, this is exactly what it sounds like. Our esteemed C3YVR judges will sample your cupcakes and determine what tastes the best of the bunch!
2. Best Decorated Cupcake: Just like on Iron Chef, you’ll get extra points for plating and presentation. Taste is taking a backseat to style in this competition, but please don’t forget the sugar. You can go artistic, extravagant, or minimalist, the choice is all yours.
3. Most Creative Cupcake: This is your chance to go wild with the flavours, decorations and all the wonderful ephemera that goes along with cupcakes. Bring your best, weirdest, and most fun designs to be judged by the panel. Creativity really counts-whether it be in your decoration, ingredients, or the slam-poem that you recite right before the judges take their first nibble.
The only thing we ask is that you please choose to enter only one of the competitions, as we’re going to have a lot of participants and not a lot of time!
Protocol for entering: Nothing fancy- just make sure that you get to the event before registration closes (7PM). We’ll need you to give us your name, the name of your cupcake, and one cake out of those that you’ve brought to the event. We will make sure your cupcake is set aside in a special judge’s zone, so that it doesn’t get mixed in with the feeding frenzy.
We are SOLD OUT!
Posted on: June 29, 2009
Tickets went lightning-fast time time around, just like they did for the first time. If you haven’t gotten a ticket, don’t fret! We’re planning to hold another CupcakeCampYVR during the summer of 2010, and will definitely be booking an even larger venue for next time.
For those who have gotten a ticket, make sure you keep reading the blog for more information about the event, including previews of some of the prizes and interviews with our judges, sponsors, and organizers. We also have plenty of recipes to post, and more cupcake-related posts in the works.
CupcakeCamp Vancouver! 