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Date: 2008-07-24 00:24:25
Social Butterfly Club Monthly Newsletter - June 08


Social Butterfly Club Membership Contest
 
 
This picture is Brandon Barton (my host) and Stacy Gibson (my assistant) and Brandon's friend, taken by Q Parker (www.quana.net) at the Playboy Party



We're currently looking for volunteers to help with the street promotion of Social Butterfly Club!  We got very cool Social Butterfly Club T-shirts and Vests for men and women for fireworks night.  Let me know if you want to be apart of the team, we'll put on a great volunteer thank you party afterwards as reward.

WIN A VIP NIGHT OUT FOR TWO!
Open to current members by referring a friend to join the Social Butterfly Club and to new members that sign up between June 1 2008 – Sept 1 2008. Those who enter will receive a chance to win:

1)    A couple’s spa treatment at Dominelli International College of Esthetics ($200 value)
2)    Star Limousine will be your mode of transportation for your whole VIP experience ($500 value)
3)    Dinner for two at the Kentizen Restaurant in Tinseltown ($60 value)
4)    Hotel stay for two at the Empire Landmark Hotel ( $300 value)



June 2008 Newsletter                             

 
Cirque Du Soleil’s Corteo Grand Opening

     
Photos taken by Tristan Casey Photography (www.tristancasey.com)


I had no idea that being a part of media can open so many doors…including a media invite to the much anticipated Cirque Du Soleil’s Corteo Grand Opening Night.

My photographer Tristan Casey (www.tristancasey.com) and Videographer Will Shannon from Critical Mass Media went to the dress rehearsal the night before and told me it was breath taking, so I was very excited to go to the grand opening with my assistant Stacy Gibson.  We dressed up and took a cab; walked the blue carpet, saw local media personalities like Wayne and Tasha. We took in the complimentary champagne, cupcake, Gerber daisy; and watch drummer, electronic violin, mime, stilt walkers, and many of the other performers from Travis Johnson’s Vancouver Circus School.  Stacy liked “Rob” the tattooed bad boy looking drummer – I just wanted more cupcakes.  Of course it was fun for both to flirt with the babe magnet Travis.

When we finally entered the show, we were seated near the middle.  The tent is circular, so every seat is a good seat.  There were a few clowns that came into the crowd and threw popcorn at people, pulled their hair, and one Dracula fellow actually scared one man on his way back to his seat into a coffin and took him away!  We then officially began the visual feast with five stunning girls in lingerie swinging from chandeliers, doing all sorts of acrobatic moves, like hanging their body by just the back of their neck.

I loved the little people play of “Romeo and Juliet”; the balloon tossing with Valentina, and one of the little people being pushed by audience members.  There were also other techi delights when a bunch of shoes followed a man as he ran across the stage.  There were also two very cheeky mechanical robots that refused to leave the stage and wanted to play.

Of course, there were silk performances, circles, juggling, human tossing, bed jumping, and too many acts to keep track.  There were at least three times where I thought I was going to have a heart attack because it looked as if someone was going to DIE!  But, they didn’t and kept wowing us one act after another.

It was the set, lighting, costumes, confidence and skills of the performers, as well as the live opera singing, whistling Beethoven, water jug finger spinning, and violin battle that really puts it over the top.

I have seen Veraki twice, and last summer’s Cirque Du Soleil…. And I can’t wait to go see “KA” in MGM in Vegas.

But, I must say, the advertising does not do Corteo justice. It’s a MUST see show of the summer.  Get your tickets today before it sells out!
            
Stacy and Tasha                                                      Alice & Wayne                                                Stacy Gibson, Travis Johnson, Alice Zhou


The Osborn Twins Benefit Soiree

On Just 14th, I took my friend Kryshan party hopping as usual.  Our first stop was a house warming party at my god-brother Jack’s new condo in Coal Harbour.  Jack and his fiancé Millie love food so I knew there would be a ton of yummy eats.  Not only was their place tasteful and minimalist, but their friends brought little ones who ran around. They are half white and half Chinese babies and extremely cute.  That was from 6:00-7:00pm, and then we took a cab and went to the Osborn Twins Benefit Soiree. 

The venue had doormen in black suits, registration staff, a venue fully decorated in summer colours of white and baby blue, and a pretty blonde who looked like Paris Hilton… except she actually has a university degree and is a hairstylist for Holt Renfrew.

I knew half of the people in the room visiting with my sound engineer Derek Seed − Peter Francis, his friend John, and a bunch of other Social Butterfly Club members.  We saw a gorgeous sunset off of the patio, watched some burlesque dancing, and had some appies.

There were fundraising activities all around the room, and an internet console so you could make direct donation with your credit card.  We were attracted to the Cinderella corner, where a gentleman with a wall of Army & Navy Shoeboxes stood. My friend Peter Francis was sweet enough to spend the $20. I picked a box and found a pair of pink high heels that fit me!  So I took it home.

This event was organized by my friend Victoria Clement of Posh Entertainment to help raise much needed nanny fund for the twins who were left behind by their mom Debrah Rafel Osborn, who died from cancer.  If you have the generosity to help, please visit www.givemeaning.com/project/osborn and make a donation.

Kryshan and I did not stay for the whole duration of the night, and apparently missed a lot of good entertainment.  We went to a house patio B-day party with a bunch of Kryshan’s film friends.  I must say, there is never short of funny or weird people in film, so it was very entertaining.  My night ended around 1pm.
  
What a gorgeous sunset                                       Alice and Derek Seed (my sound engineer)       David and Alice ( met him at Monthly Mentor)
 
my friend Kryshan Rendal (amazing film maker)  Soiree organized by Victoria Clement

Summer in Vancouver

I don’t know about you, but it seems that my party days are just starting.  Three weekends ago, I went with my photographer friend Q Parker to Whistler’s Tommy Africa’s and saw Krafty Kutz.  I have never danced continuously for four hours before…. Usually I take water breaks or bathroom breaks in between, but between the two extremely hot gogo dancers with all the sexy moves, and Krafty’s wicked tunes, bringing the crowd wild one song after another, it was INSANE.  I see why he’s still considered one of the top 10 DJs in the world!  Afterwards, we went to a house party in a big log house and partied with Krafty, some of his promoters and other cool people till 3am… of course the party didn’t end there, but we had to come back to reality as it was a Sunday night, and business is as usual Monday at 9am.

This night wasn’t as bad as 2 Saturdays ago, where I, my host Brandon Barton, my photographers Daniel Chai and Tristan Casey, and Will Shannon worked 12 hours straight from 3pm -3am in the morning covering five events.

Dragon Boat Festival at Science World. We watched, we cheered, we interviewed a team with mainly Chinese people wearing kilts with the most wicked sense of humour. We also stopped traffic when Brandon took off his shirt revealing his perfect 6-pack, dunned a fake shaggy wig, plastic gold chains and a toy electric guitar, bouncing up and down air guitaring to win the summer concert tour at the Sirus Satellite radio bouncy castle.  My role was to find interesting people for interviews, and get really cool video footage.  I was able to convince Sea Salt the seagull mascot from BC Ferry to dance with Brandon on the winner’s podium, with 10 Dragon Boat Festival volunteers dancing as background dancers doing the wave…. as Brandon boogied down.  It was hilarious to watch. I had to catch myself from laughing so I wouldn't disturbe the sound recording.

We drove down to Gastown, and grabbed some Subway, before sneaking into “The Cheaper Show” and doing our interviews with Graham, the organizer and three very unique artists. The show is a showcase of 150 local artists of various mediums with 300 pieces of art at $200 each. The line-ups were three blocks long… since 1pm. We waited and hyped up the 7:00p door opening … waited until 7:30pm when it finally opened.  It wasn’t the door crasher scene we were hoping for. Due to the liquor sales, they were asking everyone for ID, which made the mad dash into a slow trickle − it isn’t really good for film.  So we went down the street to see the Jazz Festival.

There was a huge outdoor concert stage with a 12 piece Latin band playing just outside the Irish Heather, where the Gassy Jackson’s bronze statue sat.  There were men, women and children standing, sitting, dancing, clapping, eating, drinking, kissing, etc., with the warm sun hitting our face, and men on stage doing moves that should only be allowed in the bedroom.  There must have been 1000 people there, grooving to the music, some couples were dancing salsa to the music, most were singing along and waving their bodies left and right.  Love was in the air and everyone was happy to enjoy the good vibes.  There is just something about being in a big crowd of happy people that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.  I love watching children being children; lovers kiss spontaneously, and tourists taking pictures or videos of the festivities like the camera is going out of style. 

If that wasn’t enough, we went to Jetset Crew’s Hampton White Party at the Macaroni Grill.  This party had limos coming and going dropping off gorgeous people, a red carpet in an old fashioned mansion, a 500-guests list, and fashion galore…..  I spent all night gawking at other ladies’ dresses, shoes, and jewelry, while my crew gawked at the pretty girls.  We had desserts, and white chocolate covered strawberries.  We got some very sexy interviews, as one hot blonde in a yellow outfit jumped onto Brandon as he was filming his introduction. Naturally some cheeky questions were asked.  I just remembered as we were driving up to the white party, coming to the realization that I was in a car full of Irish men.  Brandon, Tristan and Will are all Irish, except one has black hair, one has brown hair, and one has red hair.  They all have a great sense of humour and amazing to work with.    We have a hell of a good time working, laughing, goofing off together, but at the end of the day, we get interesting, insightful and cheeky footage for www.vancouverbc.com

After we left the white party, we went to Schitz Popinov’s Factory Night, where the owner of School of Mix Tyler Hazelwood and his crew really put on a show.  The M Bank is an old heritage building at the corner of Main Street and Georgia Street.  Their party was a fundraiser for Tyler’s disease, showcasing local artists and musicians.  The upstairs was decorated with balloons on an X pattern above your head − a reminder of the sweet days of a high school dances with a live band.  Downstairs were white walls with local artists like Camila Delrico, supplied by Kenneth Lum of Ayden Art Gallery in Tinseltown (one of my fave galleries), a corner for a body painting artist, and a DJ booth that gave the spotlight to four local DJ’s.  I really enjoyed dancing to the electronica Dan was spinning. He’s one of the leading instructors at School of Mix.  Of course, Vancouver is too small − the wild and crazy pictures of me dancing and flirting were captured by Raj Teneja of Urban Mixer, and now are floating on Flickr and Facebook.  That’s quite okay…..I think everyone should have a little bit of fun when they’re young, my high comes from dancing.
  
  
 

Photos provided by Q Parker (www.quana.net)

Back to my crew… since Brandon stopped traffic and had four separate groups of people asking for a picture with him, I thought he could extend his star power at the factory night party, so I asked him to take off his shirt and dance with Stacy and me, along with everyone else. Yes, the sacrifice I must make, and my host!  Brandon made his out-tro saying. “We’re at the Schitz Popinov, and my shirt just popped off.”

Playboy Party Pix
 
Alice and Stacy, photos by Raj Taneja                Alice, my talented hair stylist Jorge Luke R and Stacy
Peter Robinson,
Executive Director for David Suzuki Foundation

I went to North Shore Business Success Club and heard from Peter Robinson speak, he was powerful, insightful and gave me hope instead of pessimism.  He asked everyone what is the greatest issue among the three burning issues Canadians are concerned with:
Environment, Economy, Healthcare, and they’re all related.  They’re all inter-dependent systems that cannot be linear reduction thinking.  Eco-system is a big component of healthy economy, the next 10 years are crucial for all humanity collectively to solve the big environmental issue.  Peter was the President of Mountain Co-op for 7.5 years, having given many speeches about the business success. He took New Year’s Day off, January 2nd and began his job as Executive Director for David Suzuki Foundation, spreading the glooming message of global warming.  He learned many lessons going on mid-day radio, getting attacks from unemployed people who sit at home.

Currently, humanity is experiencing unprecedented prosperity, low poverty, less child mortality, more access to clean water, fertility rate is dropping, improved literacy rate, less war than ever before.  Population growth has been resolved with technological advances.  Nuclear war was a fear that was expressed through movies, books, etc… all of these anxieties are resolved and melted away.

It is any wonder that the environmental calamity is not a pressing one.  Peter focused his talk on behaviour change, long term thinking versus short term thinking.  Climate change is here, global warming, carbon dioxide, glacial melting, more extreme weather, some places will not have enough water, some places will have too much water, food shortages, insurance will increase.  Cost related to population displacement due to extreme weather.  Population will be trapped in pockets, 1/3 of the species will go extinct in the next decade, while human population will go from 6-8 billion in next 10 years, which means more demand on food, power, resources.  There will be a lot more at stake politically, so should we start planning now or learn how to face it when the crisis is in our face.

Human species has never been faced with such a crisis on such a large scale in such a short period of time.  We cannot just get ready for what is to come, but we can be prepared to adapt to what we have already created environmentally.  Food crisis was solved by technology, threat with global nuclear war, people doomed to live under ground − that disappeared with the fall of the Berlin Wall.  No major crisis… people blasé.  How is the environment crisis different from other crisis?

Adaptation relation to changes long term and short term… why is it so hard for us to change.  4 Reasons:
1)    Neglect the likelihood that bad things will happen… west coast is an active volcanic zone… no one will even think that these things will have 100% certainty of erupting.  If you have not experienced it, it will not bring alarm for people.  People are more worried about the rising cost of housing than volcano eruption.
2)    We look back at what has happened before to predict what will happen in the future.
3)    People are loss adverse. 
4)    People make decisions more on a short term than a long term basis.  History is full of examples of humanity not seeing the future.
People are taking action, bringing more awareness. We need to stop complaining about politicians, but instead take collective action like forging networks for a better environment.

Vivian’s Story of Cancer Survival

my bestfriends: Angie Wong, Vivian Chan, me and Deborah So.  This story is about Vivian...


“At the age of 26, I thought there was still a whole world ahead of me. Little did I expect I would be hit with such unexpected news where my world would change drastically and I would be forced to face a difficult challenge.  This is how the story begins…
“During December 2005, as I was finishing my last year in UBC Civil Engineering, I came down with a nasty sore throat that did not go away. For months onward, it got worse, and on top of the sore throat, I had a sore on the left side of my tongue which made it difficult for me to eat or talk. I was constantly in a bad mood.  In the span of 4 months, I visited my doctor once a month, and didn’t think much of it. Finally, in April, I asked to see a specialist, but the day before my appointment, the specialist had an emergency surgery, and we had to postpone my appointment. Because it was during my final exam times, I postponed it for 1 whole month. By this time, I had dropped 20 lb because I couldn’t eat. It hurt too much.
“After my school chaos, I finally saw the specialist, and he ordered a blood test and biopsy for the sore. When the results came back, the specialist said he could not help me, and referred me to a head and neck specialist, Dr. D.W. Anderson.  At Dr. Anderson’s office, waiting for the diagnosis, I truly thought it was just a bad sore that needed to be removed.   When Dr. Anderson came back into the examination room, he sat down in front of me, looking straight into my eyes, with his hand on my lap and said, ‘I’m sorry but you got cancer on your tongue.’  At that moment I really didn’t know what to think, what to feel or what to say.  All I know is that tears started coming down my face.  I took a deep breath and I asked, ‘Are you sure about that?’  Dr. Anderson replied, ‘Yes.’  So I asked, ‘What is there to do then?’  Dr. Anderson briefly explained to me that he would need to cut the sore off including a portion of my tongue.  I was nervous and I didn’t know what to expect.  All I could ask was, ‘Am I going to be normal again?’, and I’m not sure why, but my next question was, ‘Will I be able to eat steak again?’  All in all I was just overwhelmed with the information.  The rest of the time I just remembered Lynn, the receptionist, was very caring. She gave me a pat on the shoulder and said, ‘Don’t worry, Dr. Anderson will do the best he can to help you.’

“The surgery took place in 13 days because of how severe the situation was, and how rapidly the cancer was spreading.  I stayed in the hospital for just over a week. During that time, many doctors, nutritionists, dieticians, physiotherapists and counsellors had all visited along with many friends and family. After leaving the hospital, I rested at home for another month, and started my radiation and chemotherapy treatment. My recovery took just over six months – a fast time because of my youth.  Looking back, I remember vividly that during the treatment period, every single member of the BC Cancer Agency treated me with tremendous love. They took the time to explain everything to me in great detail, time and time again.  And that is why today, I want to raise money through the BC Cancer Foundation to give back and continue the great care and support that was given to me by the BC Cancer Agency.

My story is just one chapter of many.”
-    Vivian Chan

Share your story with us. Laugh and love often at www.wuasblog.com

Join us for the 2nd Annual Wish Upon a Star Charity Gala on July 18 2008, hosted by Miss Canada 2003, Lorenza Sammarelli. It will be an amazing night full of fun entertainment including comedian Carter Hortie, and a fashion show with Vancouver designers Twigg & Hottie, d a c e, and Elroy Apparel. Join us for opportunities to bid on amazing silent auction items including a Canucks jersey signed by the entire team including Luc Bourdon and Trevor Linden; tickets to the Janet Jackson concert; a night at Opus Hotel; Whale Watching Tour and more!
Guests will be treated to hors d'oeuvres and desserts especially designed for this event. Don't miss out on this night of incredible entertainment all supporting a great cause − the BC Cancer Foundation.
 
To purchase tickets, please call or email Vivian at 604.218.8129 or vchan@aayproductions.com or buy your tickets online at www.wuasblog.com
 

Speeches from thought leaders

I wanted to share this with you...these powerful speeches that have left an impression in me.

It's recorded for the Stanford Graduates of '08.

Oprah talks about her 3 main lessons in life.

==> www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bpd3raj8xww

Steve Job's Speech to Stanford Graduates from a previous year
www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc
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If you would like to get yourself and your business featured or event featured, please contact Alice regarding Membership Spotlight, and event poster e-blast. The interview and writing is $100, email blast is $200. This goes out to 4,000 confirmed email addresses of professionals and business owners in the Lower Mainland. Only 2 spots per month. If you do not have a professional head shot picture, Michael O'Shea Photography can provide the service at $225. If your business is unknown to us, 2-3 business references with your requests please. As well, $300 for each event poster e-blast. It goes out with our twice a month events calendar.

Who We Are:
The Social Butterfly Club has over 4,000 members in the Lower Mainland, and around the world and we are still constantly growing! Members are business professionals and entrepreneurs from a wide range of career fields and expertise between the ages of 20-70 who love to network, explore and grow personally. The purpose of our club is to create connections; provide information and business resources to our members; and to inspire and enhance their professional and personal lives.  Visit our website at www.socialbutterflyclub.ca

Feel free to share this newsletter with a friend, encourage them to become a member.  Membership is free, and you can opt out at anytime.


Alice Zhou
Vancouver's Networking Queen
Tel 604 676-1587
Cel 604 773-5231
alice@socialbutterflyclub.ca
www.socialbutterflyclub.ca
 
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