Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Blog Weekend Boot Camp, 2012

Be warned, this is a LONG first post.


Last September 21 to 23, Davao Bloggers held their very first Blog Weekend Boot Camp at The Malagos Garden Resort, Davao. It was a three-days, 2-nights live-in boot camp for bloggers of all kinds. There were two tracks available. The beginner track and the advanced track.

I took the beginner track.

Let me bring you around the camp through my camera.
Are you ready? Then, let's go to the first ever:


Everyone joining the camp had to meet up at McDonald's Matina branch to board a van/bus to the destination. Me and a friend of mine were scheduled at 6PM.

The trip was a bit lengthy, maybe because it has been a long time since I've been to Malagos and I had no idea where we were going. It doesn't help that it was night time and I couldn't see any landmarks outside of the car window.

We arrived eventually and we all had to sign papers and get our freebies at the lobby of Malagos. Then we were whisked away to our respective rooms via a jeep thing that reminded me of what they ride during night safaris.

I roomed with my friend, Jericho Onate, and a new friend, Sandre from Butuan and Emmanuel. After leaving our belongings we headed for Koi Cafe where a dinner buffet was awaiting our hungry stomachs.


Pretty classy, eh?

The place was almost full when we arrived and people were already in tables, eating, chatting or eyes glued to their respective laptop screens.

It was a pretty awesome sight for me since I've never been around people (specially those who are older than me) who eat and surf the net at the same time. I immediately thought:

'This is my type of crowd.'

So, anyways, after the dinner we had Miss Janette Toral (of digitalfilipino.com) grace the stage to deliver us the Keynote Speech.


Everyone was pretty attentive, despite it being really late at night.

After Ma'am Toral's informative speech about Social Media, we had our 'Blogathon' group formation.
There were four groups made, all in all. A mix of Beginner and Advanced Track members.

It was an hour or two of introductions, story-telling and mentoring. And it was awesome.

It was late then and everyone, after getting know their group members, decided to head for bed.


This ends day one and lets now go to the activity-packed second day of the camp.


Everyone had breakfast at 7AM, more or less. It was nice having my laptop out while I was eating and not having anyone look at me weird. I'm pretty sure my parents would have.

After breakfast, it was off to the seminars for everyone.
The beginners had three seminars lined up for them that day.

Track 1A: Blogging 101
Track 2A: Creative Writing
Track 3A: Photo Blogging

It was the perfect line-up for beginners.

Let me just show you quickly the photos I took during the seminars and I'll caption each one.

 L: Our Seminar Room  R: Miss Aileen Apolo - de Jesus teaches us about google and other components

 L: Group Shot with Miss Aileen  R: My solo photo with Miss Aileen, too bad it's blurry. (T A T)

  L: Sir Rene Lizada takes the stage, teaching us about creative writing  R: A slide from his presentation that moved me (and I'm sure other participants). The Poem "Tonight I can write the saddest lines".

  L: Group photo with Sir Lizada  R: My past mentor, Miss Jojie Alcantara, greets everyone with a hearty smile as she prepares us for her Photo Blogging Seminar

 L: Subtitles: It's just CD-R King, just put a sticker on top of the logo.  R: Since I didn't get to be in the group photo with Miss Alcantara, I sought her out and took one with her plus Miss Kring Elenzano, a speaker for the Advanced Track participants.

And there you have it. The three seminars in a nutshell. I learned, a lot, I swear. I just don't want to go yapping on about every single thing I got from the seminar.

So, off we go to the next part. A forum about Social Media Etiquette and Best Practices, delivered to everyone by Sir Jat Frank de Jesus. Sadly, I don't have photos of this...

The schedule was pretty much messed up by now due to reasons I do not know but everyone was still given plenty amount of time to rest before the "Social Good Summit" to be held later that evening.

Me and my new found friends decided we'd explore Malagos and take photos. Prepare for some pretty vain people.

  L:John and Ate Ida GPOY R: John and Sharee GPOY

 L: Wacky photo requirement by Miss Jojie Alcantara  R: Behind the Scenes

  L: First pair of friends who went to the camp together  R: Second pair of friends who went to the camp together

  The one person we adopted to be our Ate/Mother who went to the camp alone. She's having fun.

 L: The Model  R: The Fashion Blogger

  The Special One. (Peace, Ate Ida! <3)

  Self-timer group shots

  L: Jericho having difficulty getting off the ride.  R: Ate Ida enjoying (?) the ride. Look at that expression.

 L: Chess Piece Group Shot  R: Chess Piece Wacky Group Shot


My blog boot camp barkada/family.

Whew. Vain little kids, aren't we? As you guys can see, we enjoyed ourselves.

Unfortunately, I did not get to take photos of the TOTALLY AWESOME Social Good Summit because I left my camera in the room.

BUT!

I was sent these photos of me and my group, Barbiez Malditazzz, dancing and doing our 'cheer' for the Cheering Competition.

Guess what we did?



Winning Maldita Roar!
Photo credits: Sir Migs G. Hipolito 

And, yes, we did Gangnam Style. Without much time to practice, we winged it. It was fun but my heart did not stop beating against my chest before and after the performance.

There were four more games after the cheer competition.

There was a game where we had to be blindfolded and re-group by shouting out our assigned animal sound. We were goats.

Meh.
Photo credits: Sir Migs G. Hipolito 

We won. ¬)

The next game was Pinoy Henyo. We had A LOT of laughs with that one, specially with the questions people were asking.

Favorite: "Ginawa ba natin kagabi?"
"Did we do it last night?"

You all know what we thought of. Ooh, you so nasteh.
¬)

We won this game as well.

The third and final game was Trivia Night. We had an early lead and guess what?

We won.

Not meaning to brag but, it was a pretty awesome night for the Barbiez Malditazzz.

The games ended, leaving everyone's jaws hurting from too much laughing and tired. And the second day of the boot camp ended.

The third day was Awarding Day. We all received our certificates and the winners of the best Video and best Blog Post received their respective prizes.




I was their official photographer. Thus, these photos.

I'm so proud of everyone.


Let me get to thanking the AWESOME AWESOME people behind this event.

Miss President: Dulce Rose Lada

Davao Bloggers' Officers

The Co-Presentor:


U.S. Embassy, Manila

The Awesome Sponsors:

Smart: Live More
(provided multiple wifi access points during the event)

Malagos Garden Resort
(provided the location and accomodation)


Abreeza Ayala Malls

Crea8tech

San Miguel Brewery, Inc.

KaiserWebs Solutions

Ramon Aboitiz Foundation Inc.

Government Partners:

LUNGSOD NG DAVAO, DAVAO: LIFE IS HERE, D.C.I.P.C.


and last but not the least, our Online Media Partners:


To all the speakers, you were AWESOME as well.

Janette Toral, Jay Frank de Jesus, Justin Cooke, Jojie Alcantara, Rene Lizada, Kring Elenzano and Roy Geonzon


This event was awesome and I only have one thing to say:

"Two thumbs up!"














9 comments:

  1. Sayang. Would have loved to come. Busy sa school plus walang pera.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There will always be a next time. This is the FIRST boot camp. I'm pretty sure there's a second! :D

      All things will happen in time. :D

      Delete
  2. Great summary Dennis! I am definitely looking forward for BWBC 2013 hopefully with better wifi connection ^^

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  3. This seems to be a winner blog post about the event! Nice to meet you Dennis! 'till next time.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This took almost two hours to make. o___o my brain was short-circuiting. . . .___.

      Nice to meet you too sir Migs! :D and thanks again for the photos!! :D

      Delete
  4. I never knew what a blogging boot camp actually was! I thought it would be full of people extremely serious and really strict and whatnot, but you showed me a different light and point of view of it! Other blogs I've read containing blogging boot camp posts were really bland and whatnot and just spoke of fancy finger sandwiches, haha. :p

    Thanks for sharing, it looks and sounds like it would have been a cool something to have received the opportunity to go to! ^^

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Liz(a)! I'm glad I got to be the first one to show you a fun blogging boot camp!

      It was definitely a LOT of fun. The organizers were awesome, the speakers were awesome, the people were awesome. I can't say it enough.

      If you have the chance to join one, I suggest you go for it! :D

      Delete
  5. Dennis! This comes as a late comment, as I have just stumbled into your old post tonight, but thank you for your wonderful blog post about the Bootcamp years back. Keep up the good work and I must say, I look good in your photos (I normally do not control my facial expressions during a workshop haha). So for that am thanking you twice. Am always proud of my old students and monitor their progress from time to time. Keep aiming high!

    ReplyDelete