Don’t forget to join us at The Rhino this Wednesday (Feb 15th) from 7 – 10pm to learn some expert tips on how you can use Social Media to market your business! Featuring an interactive workshop by Social Media Maven Sue Edworthy. Grab one of the Rhino’s million kinds of delicious beers and follow along with Sue on your wireless devices.
Presented by the Parkdale Village BIA as part of Social Media Week Toronto.
Can’t wait to see you there!
Join the Parkdale Activity Recreation Centre
and Small Wooden Shoe in
Imagining Toronto’s better future.
What kind of city would you want to live in, if we could make a city from scratch?
Upper Toronto starts with a terrible idea. We want to build a new city in the sky above the current Toronto.
It’s a terrible idea that allows us to ask what would happen if, knowing what we now know, we could start fresh.
We are meeting with people from all across Toronto to ask them about the city that they live in now. What do you love about it? What do you hate about it? What would you change?
Spend an evening with other people from your community and help us dream of a better city for everyone.
Tuesday, February 7 at 7PM at the
Parkdale Activity Recreation Centre
1499 Queen Street West
Free (with snacks)
WHAT TO EXPECT
Expect a quick introduction to the ideas that drive Upper Toronto. Expect guided brainstorming and playful design work. Expect time to think about city planning with a freedom and depth rarely permitted to even the experts. Expect to laugh. Expect to examine your own ideas about what’s most important in city life.
By opening this process to people across Toronto we hope to learn about your civic dreams and imaginations while giving you an experience of civic engagement and the challenges of planning.
WHO WE ARE
Small Wooden Shoe is an award winning arts company that uses current and effective consultation practices, mixed with our own innovative and idiosyncratic performance style. We bring experience with conferences, unconferences, keynote presentations, debating workshops, online collaboration, and 10 years of events in which groups come together to make the world a more interesting and engaged place. We are bent on proving that good ideas are entertaining and that pleasure and thinking require each other.
—
Michael Burtt
Artistic Director
Making Room
416-876-5951
http://making-room.org
The BIA presents Parkdale Connected on February 15th, 2012 as part of Social Media Week Toronto. This event aims to assist Parkdale business owners in the use of Social Media marketing, and will also serve as a general meeting for our membership. Parkdale Connected features Social Media Expert and Parkdale resident Sue Edworthy at 7pm in the upstairs meeting room at The Rhino (1249 Queen West).
Attendees are encouraged to bring their wireless devices to follow along as Sue facilitates an interactive workshop on the use of Facebook and Twitter as marketing tools to establish and maintain Parkdale BIA members’ small business online presence. At the end of the evening, participants will have learned what they need to create their own accounts and pages, types of campaigns they can use to increase business and profile, and worked with fellow BIA members to gain the perspective of both an “outside eye” coupled with the understanding of fellow small business owners.
Please take some time to complete this short survey on your businesses’ Social Media Usage by January 31st to help us serve you better.
Twitter Hashtag: #SMWTOParkdale
The PVBIA is instituting a new feature on our website called Parkdale Picks – a weekly round-up of events in the best neighbourhood in Toronto. We will be posting the upcoming week’s events every Thursday. This is by no means a comprehensive listing for our first week, so if you would like to help us build it send us your Parkdale events to info@parkdalevillagebia.com
Thursday, December 1st
Made You Look is hosting their tenth anniversary party at their two locations on Queen W (by Elm Grove) from 5-10 pm. Drinks, snacks, mind-reading and a bash for our beautiful local jewellers! Made You Look Studio and Gallery 1338 Queen W (North Side) Made You Look Accessories 1273 Queen W (South Side).
The Mascot (1267 Queen W) presents the art opening for Dave Sheppard‘s “The Muse” from 7:30 until 11pm. In what Sheppard calls his “Muse Paintings”, he uses the “spark of enlightenment” metaphor and incorporates light bulbs into the bodies of fish and places candles into the claws of crabs. This is the Mascot’s last show of the year so don’t miss it!
Friday, December 2nd
Wrongbar presents their monthly installment of Big Primpin’ – hip hop and hot times for homos, their friends and admirers – on Friday from 10pm – 1am. This BP is special because it is long time hostess Miss Margot’s retirement party. You don’t want to miss her fabulous, final appearance. 1279 Queen W.
For the month of December, the Parkdale Public Library (1303 Queen W) will be hosting free Friday Movie Nights in the Parkdale Auditorium from 6-8pm. Sit back, relax and enjoy a movie on the big screen for free! For more info call 416.393.7686.
Saturday, December 3rd
The Parkdale Community Development Group is holding its annual Holiday Edition of the Parkdale Bazaar from 11am to 5pm at the Mazaryk-Cowan Community Centre (220 Cowan Avenue – near Queen). There will be local and indie craftspeople selling their wares, hot chocolate, raffles, and Christmas Carols!
Sunday, December 4th
The TO Attiwapiskat Crisis Relief Effort is holding a donation drive on Sunday through Monday at Xpace Gallery (58 Ossington Ave – just a few blocks East of Parkdale). Please bring warm clothing, blankets, non-perishable food items or toiletries between 11am and 7pm. Go here to learn more about the Attawapiskat Crisis.
Monday, December 5th
If you are in grade 8 or 9, come to Mazaryk Cowan CRC at 220 Cowan Avenue for the food program Youth Corner, Growing the Future. From 4 to 6 pm participants will work on the Youth Garden signs for Hope Garden, as well as learning to make lasagna with salad and home made croutons in the kitchen! For more information contact Robyn at robyn@greenestcity.ca.
Wednesday, December 7th
Mazaryk Cowan CRC (220 Cowan Ave) is also hosting a Youth Community Kitchen for youth 15 and up from 5-7:30pm. This cooking experience for older youth, will be held on the first and third Wednesday of each month. No registration required, just drop by the community centre to check it out or contact Robyn at robyn@greenestcity.ca for more info.
Heather Douglas, Executive Director of the Parkdale Village BIA, proudly holds the 2011 Small Budget, Big Impact Award presented to us by the Toronto Association of Business Improvement Areas (TABIA).
Back in October TABIA held their inaugural awards ceremony where they handed out awards to 39 BIAs for outstanding achievements in serving their neighbourhoods. Categories ranged from outstanding streetscape, decorative lighting, community improvement and creative solutions. The Parkdale Village BIA was honoured to receive the award for “Small Budget, Big Impact” for our decorative bike racks designed by Parkdale’s own Phil Sarazen. PVBIA is proud to be the originators of the decorative bike rack, and with creative rack designs popping up all over Toronto, we’re happy to have inspired others.
The beautiful bike racks we won our award for.
Thanks to the City of Toronto’s Mural Grant, the west facing wall of 1290 Queen St W (The Public Butter) will house the latest mural in Parkdale. Local muralist Matt McNaught has lent his skilled hands to designing and painting the newest piece of public art to our streets. If you recall, the previous decade old mural that covered that wall was also done by McNaught; the mural was in reference to the dojo that once offered lessons in that building. He was happy to return and give new life to the wall with a mural that reflected Parkdale.
McNaught is no stranger to crafting graffiti pieces in Parkdale, you can see his handywork at Elmgrove Ave and Queen St W, Made You Look building, the Milky Way as well as 1506 Queen St W, Tibetan Emporium and Entertainment (upper level, west facing wall).
The untitled mural is slated forcompletion on October 28, 2011. Check out Matt’s blog at http://dda40x.wordpress.com/
