Hello!

Here’s a way to participate in February’s massive culture and media party coming to town! Your W2 crew has been gearing up for months and now is inviting you to play an active part in delivering a 24/7 party as we get set to LAUNCH W2!!

We have rented a 4-story 1903 heritage building across the street from Woodward’s as we wait for the construction to be completed. We have designed a month-long happening that celebrates Vancouver’s subcultures and unique creative scenes, and will service a few hundred local and international journalists and bloggers. There’s going to be plenty of things going on in Vancouver – but none will be as diverse on a daily basis, be both hyper-local and global, open for as long, and be quite as hip as W2 😉

W2 is attracting a lot of media attention with the front cover of this week’s Westender http://www.westender.com/articles/entry/new-media-centre-seeks-to-democratize-olympic-coverage/news-and-views/, CTV, CBC, Rabble.ca, Vancouver Observer, Vancouver Sun, Globe & Mail, and across the country with Canadian Press. We haven’t even issued a press release and the buzz is growing!

W2 Culture+ Media House is currently recruiting volunteers for the month to support & contribute to our daily operations including Broadcast, Communications, Security, Cafe, Guest Services, Operations and Technical.

The Deets
W2 is a much-anticipated community media arts facility opening this spring and summer at the landmark Woodward’s redevelopment in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Five years in the planning, in late April we will open the W2 Cafe, and in the summer will open spaces for a community TV and radio station, media labs and community meeting spaces. here’s a pic from this week:http://www.creativetechnology.org/photo/w2-cafe-woodwards-atrium

As the world arrives for the Olympics, and with construction delays with the Woodward’s heritage building, we decided to operate across the street as the W2 Culture + Media House. This is a 13,000sq ft social media and arts hub hosting 300-500 journalists, bloggers, and artists from February 1-28, 2010. It’s the media centre for folks who can’t get accredited by VANOC at the Trade & Convention Centre or by the BC government at the Robson Square BCIMC.

Our temporary location at 112 West Hastings will be transformed into a 24 hour/day space for independent local & international journalists and bloggers to share their perspectives on the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver with the world. It will also include a free public access cultural space exhibitions during the day with morning press briefings, workshops and conferences, and transformed at night to present a cross-section of Vancouver’s diverse culture scenes for live ticketed receptions and events.

Every night something new: African Dance Party, Bikes Inside, Hot One Inch Action, Abandon Normal Devices Conference (with Liverpool), visual arts exhibits, DJ parties, workshops, screenings, and the Feb 22 Fresh Media Olympics conference. About 40 events in 28 days! Our building will also be transformed by visiting Quebec artist Isabelle Hayeur from Jan 29 to Feb 28 with her installation ‘Fire with Fire.’

As a community-based project, we rely almost entirely on volunteer staff contributions to build this legacy project for the DTES at Woodward’s – and we invite contributions of creativity and labour to make the W2 Culture + Media House happen.

Being a part of W2’s major cultural happening during this historic event for Vancouver is a guaranteed exciting, challenging and rewarding experience. Volunteers will gain serious hands-on experience in festival, media, and event production – it’s great for your resume, making friends, and building skills. You can be in the middle of W2’s mix of high-profile international and local lineup of artists, DJs, academics, journalists and bloggers all month long. We are going to make this happen because of the intelligent, caring and creative people that are our 650 W2 Facebook Fans, and 800 members of our W2 online community. If you haven’t joined, it takes 30 seconds here:http://www.creativetechnology.org/main/authorization/signUp?

We encourage people to get involved with whatever time you may have to advance our growing organization in our Downtown Eastside neighbourhood! Volunteer GuideDownload our Volunteer Guide pdf for a list of available teams & positions by clicking on this link:http://api.ning.com/files/BJUvwhVsn0HptZpUHRlmH0sFFrBcN-iRj8osf2VEnEDb2XIVeEr10NOs5WkX7qFud7y-Xf*D6MqW*ueB6iDMJqVGIoOCfv-G/W2mediaHouseVolunteerGuide.pdf

How to Sign Up
Then please sign up online to get into our contributor/volunteer database. Real easy here:http://www.creativetechnology.org/page/volunteer-intern

Volunteer Orientation
Attend one of our orientation sessions to become more familiar with W2, available positions and what’s entailed. Upcoming orientation sessions (@112 W. Hastings) will feature an overview and then small break-out groups for each team. Pick any of these:
• Saturday, January 23rd 4pm – 6pm (sorry for short notice)
• Wednesday, January 27th 4pm – 6pm
• Saturday, January 30th 4pm – 6pm
More orientation sessions to be scheduled. Will keep you posted.

Host a visiting artist!
With Vancouver hotel rooms at $300, we are also looking for our W2 members and friends to host our international artists, so if you have a spare room, bed, or couch, please register on our billeting form:http://www.creativetechnology.org/page/billet-1 We really appreciate you considering that role as well. Make your Olympic month even more interesting by building a personal connection to a W2 artist from the UK, Netherlands, Quebec, or USA.

Conclusions…
OK, that’s it for our requests for participation for our W2 Culture + Media House! Join our Facebook group – instead relying on you to participate at your own pace in our online community. But you will have noticed that in fact we did ask you to help W2 for the long term.

In case you haven’t yet, take a minute to sign our letter to the CRTChttp://www.openmedia.ca/action to break the stranglehold SHAW has on community access TV in Canada, so W2 can access funding for our community TV station.

Some concluding programming notes… We are featuring a beautiful exhibition in the gallery by Jeremy Crowle which we invite you to visit before February 6.http://www.creativetechnology.org/xn/detail/2128459:Event:26186http://www.creativetechnology.org/photo/jercrowlew20623-1?context=featured

If you want to party at W2 this weekend, Alex Kwan and crew are launching their third issue of online magazine Public on Saturday night, 8pm, event details here:http://www.creativetechnology.org/events/public-launch-party

You can also follow us at http://twitter.com/W2Woodwards

Cheers from us:

Hywel Tuscano, Project Coordinator
Lianne Payne, Administrative Director
Irwin Oostindie, Executive Director

and our W2 Board and Bladerunners crew.