Salem Creative Network

Join us this month for tons of networking opportunities. Tonight, we’re inaugurating Eat Salem at Vietnam and Saigon Restaurants downtown. This is a new project with eatsalem.com where we meet monthly at different restaurants and socialize. We will visit at least two places so participants can try and compare cuisine. Splitting entrees is encouraged. 5:00 p.m. at Vietnam (364 Center St NE) and 6:30 at Saigon (477 Court St NE) are the selections for tonight.

The Willamettte Valley Wine Walk’s blind wine tasting at Tea Party Bookshop was a hit last month. We will meet there from 6-8 pm. Please bring a bottle of your favorite pinot noir to test against other wines. NOTE: We are skipping Travel Salem’s Travel Cafe due to a schedule conflict. We will return there in March.

We need volunteers for the huge MARDI GRAS fundraiser at the Grand Ballroom and Theater Tuesday, February 16. There are 60 musicians performing from 7-midnight and we want to make the event run smoothly. We’re looking for door staff, a stage manager, two stage gophers, four OLCC servers and general help. Email me if you would like to help. This is a fundraiser for the Red Cross relief effort for Haitian earthquake victims.

On Friday the 19th, we’ll continue the Mardi Gras party at the Creative Pub Crawl so keep those beads warm and masks intact.

For those that just want dessert while networking, we’re offering Just Desserts on Friday the 26th. We’ll meet at Cafe Noir at 6:00 p.m. and continue on to Napoleon’s and search for Salem’s best creme brulee.

There will be a Salem Creative Network fundraising dinner on Sunday, February 28th at Zena Timber featuring lamb shanks to close out the month of February. Tickets are $30 and are going fast. Seating is limited to 30 people. We will unveil our 2010 goals, political action committee and business advocacy group at the dinner.

Whew! Let’s keep this train rolling, it’s picking up speed!

Ross

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Just the decision makers left. Hope the suggestions are implemented.

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The British are coming! The British are coming!
Spice Girls, royalty and bad teeth will be representing all night long in seven venues downtown Friday. Participants enjoy Salem Creative Network benefits at each location. As usual, the event is free in exchange for contact information. Here’s the schedule:

6:00 Copperjohn’s
6:45 Brown’s Towne Lounge
7:30 Venti’s Cafe and Basement Bar
8:15 Pete’s Place
9:00 Magoo’s Sports Bar
9:45 Cokie’s Landing
10:30 FlipSide!

Next Crawl – MARDI GRAS! Friday Feb. 19

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Salem Creative Network is officially a nonprofit! We filed the paper work last week with the State of Oregon, incorporating the Salem Creative Network as a 501 (c)(3) organization with the mission to provide creative solutions for social innovation.

It’s time to celebrate!

Join us tonight, Friday, January 15 on the monthly Willamette Valley Wine Walk. We’re visiting four venues and our first retail storefront – Tea Party Bookshop, where we’ll hold our first BLIND WINE TASTING.

Please bring a bottle of local red wine and a clean palate.
We will bag your wine, taste it and rank it on a scale from 1 to 10. The highest and lowest scoring wines will win a prize. There is no charge for the blind wine tasting.

6:00 pm Travel Salem’s Travel Cafe with Willamette Valley Vineyards
7:00 pm Tea Party Bookshop with BLIND WINE TASTING
8:00 pm Grand Vines with Local bubblies
9:00 pm Da Vinci Ristorante with House Special
10:00 Cafe Noir with House Special
11:00 FlipSide!

Creative Pub Crawl British Invasion Friday January 22

We have a great six months of pub crawls planned starting with next Friday’s British Invasion. We have changed the format slightly after evaluating the crawler’s feedback and asking the venues for a promotional commitment. There are now 7 venues participating in the pub crawl and we’ll have 45 minutes at each place. Here’s the schedule:

6:00 Copperjohn’s
6:45 Brown’s Towne Lounge
7:30 Venti’s Cafe and Basement
8:15 Pete’s Place
9:00 Magoo’s
9:45 Cokie’s Landing
10:30 FlipSide!

We will have an international theme for each month. February is Mardi Gras and March is Luck of the Irish. Venues are asking that you bring cash rather than plastic to keep things flowing smoothly. Please spread the word.

Downtown Stakeholders Summit

Salem Creative Network is officially a downtown Salem Stakeholder. We have been invited to the Downtown Stakeholder Summit sponsored by the City of Salem 5:30 Thursday, January 28 at the Salem Conference Center. Free refreshments will be provided. Please attend! We would like to influence the decisions being made about the immediate future of downtown Salem.

Due to our pressure during 2009, the City Council has prioritized incentives for nightlife and entertainment as their second highest goal for 2010. We are making an impact and your participation at the summit will increase the chances of our success in creating a downtown that everyone can enjoy.

Thanks again for all that you do to make Salem a better place. We have tons more creative ideas for Salem and will do our best to make them happen. Stay tuned for more updates.

Ross

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Celebrating six months of the Salem Creative Network at Travel Salem.

So here we are, six months after a small group of motivated individuals gathered to provide creative solutions for social innovation. The Creative Pub Crawl, Willamette Valley Wine Walk, Salem City Repair, Bicycle Music Festival and establishing a green downtown were planned and implemented when business owners, property owners, community organizers and artists decided to create a new network focused solely on social innovation. We have provided hundreds of programming hours and tens of thousands of dollars to small businesses, artists and musicians. And we have created a structure to support more programming, business advocacy and political action.

Help us celebrate our successes Friday night at the last Creative Pub Crawl of 2009. We’ll start with a 5:00 p.m. pre-crawl art show featuring Jami Moffett at the f-stop, 335 Grove St NE. The crawl moves to Cafe Noir at 6:00 p.m. with live music for our enjoyment. Bring a coat or scarf for her clothing drive to benefit Union Gospel Mission. You can see the full Pub Crawl schedule on our Facebook event page. Please stop by Coffee House Cafe for $1 espresso shots and the Stender Jazz Band and Straight From New York Pizza for $1 slices.

We’re looking forward to more success in 2010 and invite you to be a part of it. Please reply if you’re interested in planning or participating in future Salem Creative Network efforts.

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The Salem Creative Network is celebrating six months of providing creative solutions for social innovation this month! When we started this back in June, we had no idea that it would become so popular. We now have more than 400 people on the email list and more joining after each event. We will assess our programming at the end of the month and plan the next six months of invigorating downtown Salem.

The venue owners are ecstatic about the turnout and level of professionalism associated with the Network. Retailers will be included in programming beginning with the January Willamette Valley Wine Walk happening on Friday, January 15. And we have plans for including restaurants and non-alcoholic venues in events also. If you want to get in on the planning, attend one of our monthly meetings.

Willamette Valley Wine Walk 6:00 p.m. Friday, December 11 at Travel Salem 181 High St NE. We had a great turnout last month and lots of enthusiasm for a relaxed, sociable wine-related event in the heart of wine country. 30 people participated and thoroughly enjoyed the evening despite the obvious lack of men. It turned into girls night out and we decide to do more promotion to even out the ratio. We’ll see if that works on Friday. Please signup online or visit our Facebook event page.

Creative Pub Crawl

While the turnout was slightly less than the previous month (probably due to Snuggie stigma) the Creative Pub Crawl seems to be connecting hundreds of new relationships as anticipated. Based on the Facebook signups already, it looks like everyone is ready to get in the Christmas spirit on Friday, December 18,. The photo scavenger hunt was very popular and pushed a few boundaries with humorous results. We’ll do that again this month  for more prizes.

For those interested, the Network is meeting 4:00 p.m. Sunday, December 13 for a Misfit Toy Sweatshop event at f-stop visual arts center, 335 Grove St NE. We’ll be disassembling unwanted toys and creating more exciting toys for prizes along the Creative Pub Crawl route.

We’re meeting 5:30 tonight above Tea Party Bookshop with mayoral candidate Jordan Blake. He is an active member of the Network’s Salem City Repair project and is in on the planning of the Village Converge event planned for late spring. Jordan’s campaign is resonating with the progressive community in Salem and we’ll see how his views align with Salem Creative Network goals. Also at tonight’s meeting, we’ll be re-tooling the mission statemnet for the non-profit organization and discussing the mission statements for the proposed political action committee and business advocacy group. Please stop by if you have the time.

Thanks again for making the Salem Creative Network a reality and we look forward to more growth  in 2010.

Ross Swartzendruber

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As Seen on TV - Snuggie Crawl

Big fun at the Snuggie Pub Crawl Friday November 20.
Art by Michael Adamson, trivia and bar specials at the ƒ/stop.
Live music and $5 nacho bar crawler special at Cafe Noir.

NEW SURPRISE VENUE! (You’ll never guess)

Anti-Cute Bizarre Bazaar at Coffee House Cafe

Geolocation games, so you can follow us through town.
Slip on your nighties and join us downtown.

Final Schedule
(Schedule subject to change)

5:00 Pre-crawl art show at ƒ/stop Fitzgerald’s, 335 Grove
6:00 Cafe Noir, 610 Marion St NE.
6:30 Mystery location
7:00 Copperjohn’s
7:30 The Brick
8:00 Venti’s Cafe
8:30 Brown’s Towne Lounge
9:00 Pete’s Place
9:30 Magoo’s
10:00 Cokie’s Landing
10:30 The Space
11:00 Flipside!

Here are a few photos from the October event.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=120792&id=580943106

Use your phone to connect with us online during the event.

Twitter:
@salempipeline

Shizzow:
pubcrawl

Iphone:
Beer Signal

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Crawlers pack the bunker at Venti's.

Lots of activity happening downtown with the Salem Creative Network. The Pub Crawl continues to gain participants and the new Wine Walk turnout surprised even me. The monthly events and candidate forums are keeping us busy. Here’s a quick update.

Snuggie Pub Crawl this Friday, November 20

We’re stoked about his month’s theme – Snuggies and pajamas. With the chilly weather upon us, a cozy crawl with night clothes on seems to make a lot of sense. Of course, we’re trying a few new twists again.

First – due to popular demand – we’re throwing a 5:00 p.m. Pre-Crawl Art Show at ƒ/stop fitzgerald’s, 335 Grove St NE. Salem artist Michael Adamson is on exhibit at the f-stop and crawlers will be warmly welcomed with bar specials. The regular crawl will start 6:00 p.m. at Cafe Noir, 610 Marion St NE. Full schedule available soon.

Second – Social media and networking. We’ll be tracking our whereabouts on twitter (@salempipeline) Facebook (Salem, Oregon) Shizzow (pubcrawl) and Iphone (Beer Signal). If you join the crawl late, you can check those sites for the latest updates. Also, we’ll be trying a scavenger hunt throughout the night with prizes for the most bagged game.

Thanks again to the Creative Pub Crawl participants. We’re having a lot of fun and making a lot of people smile. See you Friday!

Willamette Valley Wine Walk redux

On Friday the 13th, the Salem creative Network tried something new, a wine walk through four downtown venues featuring Willamette Valley wines. 30 people arrived at Travel Salem for the beginning of a spontaneous, relaxed evening that was a hit with venue owners and participants alike. The next Walk is scheduled for Friday December 11.

Candidate forum

The Salem Creative Network met with candidates Chuck Bennett (Salem mayoral candidate) and Sheryl Dash (Ward 6 candidate) at the last meeting held Tuesday, November 3. They both spoke about the need for including younger residents in the decision-making process. We will meet with other candidates in the next few months

Councilor Bennett outlined upcoming city goals that would affect downtown specifically.

1. Downtown parking
The current mayor and council are testing the waters for metered parking on downtown streets and the privatization of the Chemeketa, Liberty and Marion Street Parkades in 2010. Most businesses are aghast at the idea and a flurry of email has slowed the privatization approach. It would be great to get feedback about where you would like to see this issue go.

2. Kiosks
Since they’ve been removed, many networkers have been trying to find a way to provide solutions for artists, musicians and free speech advocates to promote themselves downtown. After listening to our concerns, councilors Bennett and Tesler placed the kiosks on the list of 2010 council goals. They found little support from council and managed to keep them in the goals as part of the Town Square initiative, which should be taking shape in the next three months.

3. North Downtown
Did you know about the next high-end condo project planned for north downtown? A large, seven-story project is being planned for the riverfront north of Union Street bridge where the Keith Brown complex is. Based on the current vacancy rates and lack of open space, Bennett recommended extending Riverfront Park northward and creating an inviting entrance to downtown.
Also, the under-developed area around O’Brien Auto Group is being considered for urban renewal.
One surprise that came out of the last Urban Renewal District meeting was to use funds to support nightlife. Since it was a first for the District, no one really knew how to react. It will be interested to see where it goes.

Both Sheryl and Chuck promise to be excellent candidates for the May 18, 2010 election. We’ll be inviting more candidates to upcoming meetings. Please reply with your feedback.

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We will start tonight at 6:00 p.m. at Travel Salem, 181 High St NE. Each venue on the walk is offering $5 or $10 specials to wine walk participants. We will have approximately one hour at each venue.
Willamette Valley Vineyards, Mia Sontina and Oregon Bubbly are on the list for tasting. Our theme is 80’s country club so bring on the Izods, Vaurnets and Topsiders.
Reply if you have questions.
See you at 6!

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Crawlers got a taste of Little Red Riding Hood's cupcakes.

A friendly crowd of Halloween revelers paraded through downtown Salem last night, leaving a trail of smile, empty glasses and happy spectators in their wake. We hit 13 venues and based on the bar owner and participant feedback alike, it was a huge success. See it for yourself

Sign up for the next crawl – the Willamette Valley Wine Walk Friday November 13 in downtown Salem.!

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