The biggest date for most people in the Irish blogosphere in the coming weeks won’t be Mother’s Day. It will, of course, be the Irish Blog Awards held on March 1st in the Alexander Hotel in Dublin.

Before that, under the umbrella of IWTC, will be the inaugural Ireland Geek Girl Dinner, organised by Martha Rotter and sponsored by Microsoft. This event isn’t totally exclusive, as men can attend, but only when invited by one of the geek girls. Since Paul Walsh had been begging for an invite for a while now, I finally took pity on him and invited him!

The end of the week sees the 2008 Irish Blog Awards ceremony taking place at the Alexander Hotel. Once again, Damien Mulley has put in a phenomenal amount of work in organising this event. Unlike some of the other technology awards ceremonies on this island, it’s a more informal event, costing only €10 entry, which is donated to charity. The shortlists have now been announced and the hard-working judges have slogged their way through reviewing all these blogs in order to find the winners in each category.

On the same day as the ceremony, several different meetups have been arranged, as people take the opportunity to catch up with those travelling in from round the country. Firstly, we have Red Mum’s Photo Meet, where they are welcoming people of all skill levels for a simple non-themed photo walk - should see some great shots out of this!

Just after this is the Ladies Tea Party, organised by designer extraordinaire Sabrina Dent. If you’re not into tea, then don’t worry - Microsoft Ireland have kindly offered to sponsor some nibbles on the day and I think a lot of us will be swigging back Martinis!

Sabrina was also responsible for the wonderful logos in use for the Photo Meet, Gourmet Brunch and Tea Party:

On the day after the Blog Awards, Deborah is organising a Gourmet Brunch for those left around Dublin.

A few others will be heading directly back to Cork for WebCamp/BlogTalk 2008, including a bloggers dinner that is currently being organised by Alexia Golez / Tom Raftery. However, I reckon that I’ll be taking a rest on the Day after the Blog Awards!

The following weekend sees the latest incarnation of the BarCamp phenomenon in Ireland. CreativeCamp in Kilkenny Castle on Sat 8th March. I’ll be attending, along with my Husband, George. He, along with several of his colleagues, will be representing Blacknight, who have been sponsors of all the Irish BarCamp style events so far. Their MD, Michele Neylon, was even kind enough to purchase the domain barcamp.ie when I bugged him about it, so that all future Irish camps can have their own sub-domain there.

I’m also delighted to see that the CreativeCamp organisers have ditched the traditional wiki format completely. It never worked on the previous camps, and I’ve bitched about it at length before. They have a lovely sign-up system, where people can input the details of the talks / panels that they want to organise and it transfers to the speakers page here The exact same applies to the registration and attendees pages.

I’ve signed up to be on one of the panels, entitled: Women & Technology - grabbing the blogosphere by the balls - a panel discussion facilitated by Krishna De on women & technology (as titled above).The panel includes Elly Parker, Sabrina Dent, Martha Rotter & Alexia Golez. I guess I should really start prepping for this to make sure I have something coherent to talk about!

Post title mainly just to grab your attention…

€17.64 = $25 (according to xe.com currency conversion today).

I just made a loan of $25 to an entrepreneur named Patisepa Neli in Samoa.

You’re probably thinking “OK, what?” So let me fill you in on the back story…

George & I had a pair of tickets to see Don McLean at the Olympia this Saturday. Due to a clash, we’re not going to be able to go. Rather than see them go to waste and lose the money, I offered them for sale to my friends via Jaiku and Twitter. The lovely Brian Greene replied and offered to take them off my hands at face value. We quickly completed the transaction using direct messages on Twitter, PayPal and email - and it really couldn’t have been easier.

However, when it came to withdrawing the money from PayPal I needed to enter a bunch of information, and to be honest, I couldn’t be arsed! I use PayPal regularly enough that the funds can stay there and be used against my next few purchases.

Then later in the day a thought struck me - I’d been meaning to give a little bit of money to charity - were there any charities that accepted PayPal donations? A little bit of digging and I came across Kiva.org. In their own words:

Kiva lets you connect with and loan money to unique small businesses in the developing world. By choosing a business on Kiva.org, you can “sponsor a business” and help the world’s working poor make great strides towards economic independence. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates from the business you’ve sponsored.

You can go to Kiva’s website and lend to someone in the developing world who needs a loan for their business - like raising goats, selling vegetables at market or making bricks. Each loan has a picture of the entrepreneur, a description of their business and how they plan to use the loan so you know exactly how your money is being spent - and you get updates letting you know how the business is going. The best part is, when the entrepreneur pays back their loan you get your money back - and Kiva’s loans are managed by microfinance institutions on the ground who have a lot of experience doing this, so you can trust that your money is being handled responsibly.

I decided to loan my $25 dollars (which is what realistically, one round of drinks? A cinema trip for two people?) to Patisepa Neli in Samoa based on the following description:

On Fridays, if you go by the Fugalei market, you will always be greeted by Patisepa with a huge smile. This is the day when she sells her two sacks of taros, which are so high in quality that there are never any left after just three hours.

Afterwards, she heads home to set up her weekly budget and helps get her husband’s fishing gear ready. This is their second source of income; her husband fishes every Saturday, and Matafaa sells the catch early Sunday mornings. The fish is usually sold out in only one hour, despite the huge competition.

With a big family of seven kids, her aim is to provide them with the education that she and her husband had never received. Her children can eventually become financially independent. Currently, she makes a weekly profit of $160 USD.

So, I’d like to challenge you - all you need is $25.00, a PC, an internet connection, a PayPal account, and a big heart - will you join me today in helping sponsor a business? If you do, then leave the details of who you chose to sponsor as a comment below, I’ll be interested to see who you picked and why.

Where does the time fly to???

It seems like only yesterday that I went through the registration process for this blog, but here we are already 3 weeks later!

Since then, what has happened? Well the biggest thing was my participation in the 2005 Flora Women’s Mini Marathon in Dublin. I went at this 10km walk (in my case!) with a good friend from work, Sinead. The weather was gorgeous as we hauled through South Dublin at a good old pace, and we finished the course in 1hr and 43 mins - we were well pleased with that time! The oul’ feet were sore the next day, and I was glad that I had taken the day off work to relax and be pampered by my hubbie to be!

The best news related to this is that I raised over €1500 for the St. Francis Hospice in Raheny. So thanks to all who donated, I’m sure the hospice will be delighted with that money.

Some Photos:

Before we head off, full of enthusiasm! And thanks to Hosting365 for the sponsorship!

At the end, tired but happy - but will we do it again next year?