It’s hard to believe that one year has gone by since our first meeting. When we first proposed to form a new group to address the lack of support for social innovation in Salem, most people were intimidated by the prospect of consensus-based, youth-driven decision making.

Initially designed to target the neglected 18-45 demographic, the Salem Creative Network has grown to include economic development, nightlife and sustainability programming. Dozens of small businesses and hundreds of individuals have experienced the value of our events and educational forums. And we’re continuing to grow.

Join us 5:00 pm, Thursday, June 17  for our annual board meeting at the place where it all started – Venti’s Basement Bar. We’ll review our past successes and introduce our programming for the coming year. We’d love to see you there!

Willamette Valley Wine Walk – Pinot Noir
Friday June 11 6:00 pm Coffee House Cafe

As seen on TV! That’s right, on this month’s wine walk, we’ll be shooting a segment for Explore the Northwest, a locally-produced syndicated television show with hostess Dawn Holmstrom. This will be their first Salem show!

Here are more surprises for you at this month’s event:

6:00 pm Pinot Noir tasting at Coffee House Cafe 135 Liberty St NE
Starting this summer, Coffee House Cafe will be add beer and wine to their menu and we’re breaking it in with a wine tasting in the back room. Cubanisimo Vineyards and Namaste Vineyards will be there with free tasting.
7:00 pm Pinot Noir BLIND WINE TASTING at Bishop Building Lofts 145 Liberty St NE
Join us upstairs from the Coffee House Cafe and experience downtown living.
Bring a bottle of your favorite local pinot noir and everyone will taste it and rank it from 1 to 10. The wine with the highest score wins a prize.
9:00 pm Allessandro’s Ristorante and Galleria
This month we have a guided art tour of Allessandro’s with Rebecca Maitland scheduled for our visit. As always, discounted wine and appetizer specials await the wine walkers.
10:00 pm Bentley’s Grill
The manager and sommelier at Bentley’s have been excellent hosts, offering complimentary tastes and delicious appetizer specials. Stop by and see what they have in store for us this month.
11:00 FlipSide!
Wear your dancing shoes!
See you downtown!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/ENW-Productions/102703666443321

http://www.explorenorthwest.net/

Creative Pub Crawl – African Safari

Grab your loincloth and elephant ears, we’re going on a safari! This pub crawl marks the 12th installment of our merriment downtown and our last international night for a while. And, we’re adding a surprise venue – Willamette Noodle Company. They just got their full liquor license and wanted us to stop by and give them a test drive.

So whether you’re a hunter or the hunted, join us as we crawl through EIGHT venues enjoying Salem Creative Network benefits and plan for the future of nightlife in Salem.

Bonus points if you wear a pith helmet!

Please remember – bring cash, drink lots of water and pace yourself! There’s no rule requiring you to take advantage of EVERY special. Tip the bar help!

Here’s the schedule:

6:00 pm Venti’s Cafe and Basement Bar
6:45 pm Copperjohn’s
7:30 pm Brown’s Towne Lounge
8:15 pm Magoo’s
9:00 pm Pete’s Place
9:45 pm Cokie’s Landing
10:30 pm Willamette Noodle Company
11:15 pm FlipSide!

Other dates of interest:
Sunday June 13 3:00 pm Salem City Repair meeting at Coffee House Cafe
Wednesday, June 16 Solarize Salem RFP release
Thursday, July 1 Salem Green Professionals – Zena Timber
Friday, July 23 First Anniversary of the Creative Pub Crawl
Friday, July 30 Willamette Valley Wine Walk – Sparklies
Monday, August 2 Solarize Salem launch
Friday, August 6 Sound off noise ordinance forum
Saturday, August 14 Salem City Repair Harvest Swap and Chalk Mural

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

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.