Sunday, November 6, 2011

Recap of the 1st Annual(?) Ontario Blog Squad Meetup


After days of anticipating 'the big day' as if it were Christmas, it finally happened! It's amazing to see how when a few people say "hey we should all meet up" it can quickly turn into something huge! A big thank you to the fellow Blog Squad members Jackie, Liz, Nicole, Christa, Wendy, Angel and last but not least, Jen.
The Blog Squad Team
It was awesome to see the enthusiasm for the meetup. The 37 free tickets were snagged up within a week; totally not anticipated. Who knew that there were this many eager bookworm bloggers in and around Toronto? But what was even more awesome was the support we received from all the publishers: Random House CanadaHarper Collins CanadaSimon & Schuster Canada, Hachette Book Group CanadaScholastic CanadaPenguin Canada and Kobo! Another big thank you goes out to the participants and publishers for making this event beyond our wildest expectations!

Ok, let's get on with the show...Our day started off early, the organizers all met up at 10:30...we had the big (and exciting) job of putting together the goodies bags! Thankfully we had two cars to lug all the bags, but let me tell you the one block walk from where we parked to The Duke of York pub was painful. Carrying all those books was backbreaking work (there were five books in each bag and 38 bags)!
The Loot Bags
We arrived to see a few bloggers beat us there. Yes, there was excitement all around. Each person attending received a bag full of goodies: books and swag, including a mega size coffee mug! It was an afternoon full of mingling, putting faces to blog/twitter names and snacking on yummy nachos & quesadillas (generously provided by Jen)! Thanks to the donations, we had trivia questions to win t-shirts and raffle draws for rare ARCs, bookish goodies...and the grand finale was a Kobo Touch, generously donated by Kobo!


Here is a picture of my goodies!!! (jumps for joy)


Thanks so much to everyone for an awesome bookish day, we need to do this again :D

9 comments:

  1. Ack, I can only imagine how heavy they all were to bring in!!

    Such a fun time! =)

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  2. *Sigh* I wish I could have attended- everyone seemed to have had an amazing time! *Fingers crossed for the next time* ;)

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  3. Looks like this was so much fun! I wish someone would organize something like this around me! Too bad I don't think there are a lot of bloggers in my area :( Hope you get to do it again!

    Anna @ Literary Exploration

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  4. wow, that sounds great! I'd love if there was somthing like that where i live! and free books! I would so be in!

    Ha ha I know what you mean about the bags of books, when I worked at a bookshop, I had to walk 15 min to the train station and often made the trek carrying bags laden full of the books I had bought. Obviously I never made any money working there, with all the books I bought, which is why it is probably good I am going to be a librarian :P

    http://rosesandvellum.blogspot.com/

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  5. How very very cool! That's awesome. Thanks for sharing.

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  6. It sounds like it was a great event! And that's a LOT of bags with books you guys had to log inside! You got Fever and Pandemonium!! I'm DYING to read them, am looking forward to hearing what you think of them!

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  7. It was a blast wasn't it?! And it was great to see you again Mel. Great work by everyone involved!

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  8. Looks like a fantastic event! Hope I can make it next year! :)

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  9. Sounds like you guys had an awesome time!! Wish I had been able to come :( I'm hoping I'll be able to come next year!

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