Whew! What a week.

Events unfolded to make our February 20th launch of the new ScaleDown.ca a resounding success. From delving into a technical medium of which I have very little control (the internet and I are wayward lovers, to say the least) to organizing an event of a nature that very few Windsorites have any interest, it all went off rather well.I wanted to say a few words about people and organizations that got involved and made this thing happen.

The Woodslee Credit Union, whom is very supportive of events such as these and attempts to bring a new level of understanding around “green” issues, stepped up to the plate with a donation and partnered with us to bring Chris Turner to Windsor for his incredible presentation. In a further move by the credit union to educate their clients, they are giving away two copies of The Geography Of Hope at each of their seven locations. Way to go, Woodslee C.U.!

Marlene Corey at TVCogeco, along with volunteers Steve Biro and Joe McParland, will shine an incredibly flattering light on ScaleDown for the next few months while they air a half-hour episode of “Plugged In” based entirely on the UNVEILED event in regular rotation on channel 11. StereoGoesStellar, Windsor’s “premier piano-based indie poppers”, got the show off to a roaring start and thoroughly impressed our guest speaker. “I’ve never had an opening act before” stated a giddy Turner.

Thanks must go out to Random House and The Lavin Agency for supporting this event and to the Caboto Club who helped make it the success it was. To the 255 Ouelette group of companies (Chanosos, Oishi, Buda and The Room) for their continued support. To the events official photographer, John Stefani, who documented the event for posterity from behind his trusted Nikon lens.

A special round of applause must go to Debi Croucher of Indaba Marketing who did pretty much everything that needed to be done to bring this thing to life. Debi handled everything from booking the venue, getting Turner down to Windsor to printing up the tee shirts. Debi also spearheaded the revamp of the ScaleDown.ca website. The four of us put Debi and her webmaster through long, tortuous evenings fielding our calls and emails when things went wrong or when we wanted to change the look of this-or-that. And when the site went offline immediately following our launch? To say that was a stressful time (not one of the four writers could log onto the new site) would be an understatement! That’s when we realized that we chose the right people for the job, as they stuck by us every moment until things were up and running again.

And the list wouldn’t be complete unless we mentioned the people that have supported the work we do, both in the blog and in hosting events such as the Chris Turner visit. With over 100 of Windsor’s movers-and-shakers in attendance (including three city councillors and one senior member of the cities planning department) our readers and friends really MADE this event! We are putting issues onto the municipal agenda that, until now, have been wallowing in the dark and shady areas of city hall. We reached out to our US neighbours to the north and I happen to know there was a couple of people from as far away as Alberta in attendance.

All in all, you made it one heck of a great night. We are looking into ways which ScaleDown can continue to offer events featuring culture-changing guest speakers, and with our readers continued support I am sure we will be able to continue.

So stick with us, get involved and continue reading. This is just the beginning, you know.

Tags: Lecture Series, Local Music, scaledown