Archive for the 'Events & Happenings' Category

End-of-summer (sniffle) schmooze: cSpot at Hang Fire tonight!

If you’re anything like me then you’re finding it a bit hard to believe that the end of August is upon us.

The good news is: cSpot is tonight, the last one of the summer.  The hottest creative networking org in town will set up shop at Hang Fire, one of the hottest bars in town.  Seems fitting, yes?

Join us, as we mourn the passing of watermelon and lemonade, fireworks, sandcastles and plentiful sunshine. (Save Fitz, who’s itching to bid a don’t-let-the-door-hit-you-on-the-way-out adieu to sunburns and weather that doesn’t bode well for blazers and pale noggins.)

I know I’ll be schmoozing my seasonal blues away.  After all “Summer” is my middle name (first, rather) and I always mourn its passing come this time of year, for obvious reasons. Unlike some of us, I can rack up a killer tan.

So, whether you’re drinking to the “impending temperateness” or drowning your summerless sorrow, come join us at Hang Fire from 5:30 to 7:30 as we fill the place with creative conversation.


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spot-Cay @ aya-Say (onight-Tay!)

Its the last Wednesday of the month, and there’s nothing like a little pig-latin to mark the glorious one-two punch of hump-day AND cSpot.

cSpot this month (tonight, July 30) will be at Saya Lounge: a happenin’ cocktail spot on Broughton, downstairs from the newly grand-scaled DC2 Design (the LA-based design showroom and retail store).

And if you haven’t been yet, here’s your chance. It’s a kickin’ new sidestreet joint (highlighted by big ole’ Buddha heads, warm tones and tasty martinis) and it’s a great venue to have fun and enjoy the funky, braininess of Savannah.

Heck, you may even meet the business connection of your dreams. Example: TCCa met, courted and hired our former Marketing Priestess, Angel Ratcliffe (now at Paragon Design Group) due to a chance meeting at cSpot.  Come to think of it, I met Fitz at a cSpot, and 1.5 years later I’m bloggin’ up a storm for him. Damn!

We’re also extending happy hour (5:30 - 7:30 pm) and bringing in Zunzi’s cultural culinary expertise to provide some cocktail hour munchies for our cSpotters.  (Mouth is watering…)


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An INNOVATION Intervention: July 31 deadline (read: THURSDAY) for awards applications

Good Monday, quirky Savannahians. As you transition back into the work week, Fitz wanted me to remind you to put one last thing on your calendar this week.

It’s a biggie: the deadline for applicants for this years TCCa Innovation Awards is fast approaching. In fact, it’s Thursday (July 31)!!

To refresh your Monday memory, the Innovation Awards (to take place on October 23) will honor regional business, education and community organizations that demonstrate innovation and outstanding achievement in education, business, community, government and sustainability. To date, we’ve seen applications from across the board - from janitorial services to transportation to fashion - so join the show and let us know why you’re innovative!

Consider this an INNOVATION intervention. Missing this deadline could be disastrous to you and your business’s long-term health (over-dramatization of facts).

You are the key players in this awards equation. Not only the eyes and ears of the Creative Coast but the true creators, innovators and entrepreneurial heroes. Don’t let a chance for deserved recognition (and a dang good time) slip away.


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Whoa. There is a gigantic life-sized chess board in Forsyth Park.

“Only Miller.”

Really.  At five-thirty this afternoon, I joined a motley crew of Savannah characters as Chris Miller (mustache and all) dedicated a gigantic outdoor chess board - pieces included - to the City of Savannah.  

The “chess board” sits just south of the Forsyth Park fountain, using 64 hand-painted (by Chris) squares as its base. NICE.

Public “art”, for the public good. Papa Landry would be proud.

Having trouble viewing? Try the full sized slideshow »

This is cool & important for several reasons.

First of all, it’s just weird and unique.  Lots of places have chessboards in parks, etc (which by itself is cool and hopefully something this may lead to), but not that many places have chess boards ON parks. It’s also - gasp - public art. The kind that you interact with, literally.

And at the end of the day, it’s just a neat example of a smart attraction (tourist or otherwise), and an education-level-agnostic (yea, you heard me) one at that.   The dude that sells palm-frond roses?  He was OWNING the board. Whooping everyone. It was great.


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What do Landry, lavender, 24k gold and cheap dorm furniture have in common?

This week, that’s what. And, it was a good one. I’m officially tired.

Tuesday, Charles Landry. The guy who, in front of a standing room only crowd at the Morris Center, filled us with visions of creative grandeur. Public art, mixed income development, and funky, original creative non-standardness everywhere you turn. It was awesome.

My favorite? The sewage treatment plant ( a little like ours, on creepy steroids) that funked itself up on the outside and and starting inviting the public inside. It started giving tours. Tours. And people came…in droves. A sewage treatment plant turned urban center. Creative and inspiring, in a gross left-over meatloaf kind of way.

Afterward I had the pleasure of eating dinner with Mr. Landry and a veritable cast of Savannah characters.  It was enlightening, inspiring and ended at Pinkies. Again.  (Thanks to Reed Dulany, Miller and Michael Brooks for pulling off an great end to the evening.)  Not a bad gig, this whole Creative Coast thing.

Speaking of Sewage…Clean Green


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Charles in Charge: Creative Cities expert lectures @ Morris Center

Acclaimed author and authority on creative cities, Charles Landry, is heading to Savannah for a lecture tomorrow, July 8th at 7:00 pm at the Charles H. Morris Center.  Landry comes to school us in the ways of creative city-building.

Stealing Jim Morekis’s opener to this week’s Connect Savannah cover story, simply put:

Charles Landry is one of the coolest people you probably have never heard of.

Best known for his books The Creative City: A Toolkit for Urban Innovators and, more recently, The Art of City Making, Landry’s word works are considered THE guides to building a creative community.  For those of you who know Richard Florida, the creative (albeit controversial) guru and author of The Rise of the Creative Class and Who’s Your City?,  you’ll get a kick out of ole’ Charlie… (If Florida is the guy who described what a “creative” city/economy is and why you might want one, Charles is the guy who wrote the book on how you actually build one and what they look like around the world).

A taste of his acclaim:


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Blown away: AWOL fundraiser cancelled due to tornado

Our friends at All Walks of Life (AWOL) need our help.  One of the major storms to pass through Savannah in the past few weeks produced a tornado that not only caused AWOL to cancel a fundraiser event but, worse, destroyed thousands of dollars worth of food and equipment. Darn tornadoes!

For those of you who don’t know, AWOL works to promote and provide self-awareness to at-risk youth through the use of poetry, hip hop and life.  They are an inspiration to the kids whose lives they touch and - well - to us.

The mid-June fundraiser was supposed to raise an upwards of $5,000 so that the AWOL kids could travel to our nation’s capital for a Brave New Voices International Youth Poetry Slam, highlighted by the filming of an HBO documentary.

“The festival they’re going to is called brave new voices and HBO is doing a documentary on youth and the spoken word movement,” says DaVena Jordan, one of AWOL’s directors.


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Innovation turns us on: Bring on the TCCa 2008 Innovation Awards

Calling all innovators! Yes, it’s that time again (for the first time).

TCCa is now accepting applications (and nominations) for its first annual Innovation Awards, to take place October 23 at Savannah Station.

Four-hundred of Savannah’s coolest, most innovative business, technology and creative community leaders thrown together in a room full of food, drink, celebration, recognition and shiny lights. How fun is that!?!?

Building off the great tradition of the 5-year running cBETA awards, this year’s Innovation Awards will bring the innovative heat and the quirky, cool flair of TCCa.  The ceremony will honor regional business, education and community organizations that demonstrate innovation and outstanding achievement in education, business, community, government and sustainability.  Applications are being accepted in the following six categories until the July 31st deadline.

  • Innovative Achievement in Education
    This category is open to all educational establishments along the Creative Coast - public or private, K-12 or colleges/universities - that boast a creative or innovative development, program or application of technology that has a positive impact on the educational experience.  We’ve said it before: children are the future.  Let’s see what the creative leaders of tomorrow are learning today.

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It’s our birthday(s). Chocolate on us. Join cSpot @ Lulu’s tonight!

You heard it here, folks.  As of Monday I’m a 26 year old woman (my, how time flies.)  But I’m not the only one having a good time growing up.  Fitz (31, yikes) and Leigh (the big Three-OH), fellow Geminis, are also celebrating birthdays this week.  It’s a bonafide birthday trifecta with TCCa-ers boasting May 26th and 28th birthdays.

If you feel like buying us a birthday beer (or chocolate), celebrating the short work week or just coming out to meet cool, creative professionals, join our cSpot fete.  That’s right: cSpot and birthday suits (kidding).  This month we’re at Lulu’s Chocolate Bar on MLK, right down from Venus de Milo.  Mmmm, chocolate covered creatives.  Sounds like a birthday bash to me!  See you there…

who:      The cSpot
what:     Monthly cocktail shenanigans
when:    Tonight! (Wednesday, May 28th) from 5:30-7:30pm
where:   Lulu’s Chocolate Bar (map)
details:  42 MLK Jr Blvd

Popularity: 25% [?]


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“Low Land and the High Road” book unveiling May 27 & June 9

TCCa knows that a community’s history is vital to it’s future; one builds off the other.  Savannah is a bustling, creative community because of it’s solid foundation of heritage and tenacity, the wealth of culture, and the defining spirit of it’s people.  Thankfully we have community leaders, citizens and a city that appreciates and embraces our rich past as we blaze down the road of today.

Once upon a time in Savannah’s not-too-distant past, the Westside was a pronouncedly active, desirable place to live.  Blacks and whites alike worked nearby for manufacturers, the sugar refinery, the port and the railways.

When the City of Savannah set about rehabilitating the now depressed area (with extensive redevelopment projects such as Sustainable Fellwood) they wanted to approach plans with ambition, sensitivity and community involvement.  It was at this impetus that Low Land and the High Road was commissioned to recognize the social institutions that were once the foundation of Savannah’s Westside.


West Bay Street


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