grillmasta.com

At my last job, we sat around conference room tables did our jobs, and chatted a bit throughout the day. We weren't always working on the same things, or the same projects, or even in the same area of the business. We were coworkers though and we got our jobs done and had some good conversations as we went along.

How do you duplicate that when you work from home or are a freelancer? It becomes difficult. There are companies out there built around this concept of "coworking" for freelancers/work-from-home types. I'm not interested in starting a company just yet to do that, but I thought it would be cool to get some local people together and do some coworking.

The idea is this -- we all have our own projects and our own stuff to do, so let's get our own stuff done, have some interaction with one another, and have some coffee. If you're interested, David Murray (@DaveMurr) and I will be at the Biggby on Novi road at Grand River in Novi, MI on June 2nd to kick this off.

And, as with all things twitter related, we need a hashtag. Let's call it: #SEMIcowork

See you there!

There is a local Michigan company giving away $10,000 to a charity. They are letting people vote for the charity that gets the money, and I thought it would be awesome for us to get Raincatchers the money. They have been nominated to participate in this contest and for them to win, all we have to do is get Raincatchers the most votes. There were just over 400 charities nominated for the event, so it will take some work on all of our parts. I would really appreciate you forwarding this email (or writing your own) to all your friends/families to vote for Raincatchers in this event. If you are in a small group, please forward it on to your small group as well.

If you have known me for any period of time, you know that I have a heart for the people of Haiti, and specifically the work being done through an organization called Raincatchers. Raincatchers provides families in the area of Seguin, Haiti, a water collection system. The people there have to walk 2 hours each way to get clean water, and can only bring back what they can carry (think about carrying a 5 gallon bucket of water 4 hours a day just to stay alive). Raincatchers provides families with the abilitiy to collect 55 gallons of rain water from their roof.

If you have not heard stories from anyone on a Raincatchers trip, or seen pictures, please check out the video i linked to below. They are an amazing organization doing some awesome things for the people of Haiti. I am proud to be able to tell you about them and what they are doing. Please check out my blog entries from my first trip as well. The blog entries start here: http://www.grillmasta.com/node?page=9, and go forwards. I also have pictures from both trips I took to Haiti on my blog (look at the top right hand side of http://www.grillmasta.com for links).

I'm not asking you for any bit of money, but for 5 few minutes to watch a video and to fill out 4 fields + 1 selection box on a web form. This will really help Raincatchers continue helping the people of Haiti. To vote for Raincatchers, please visit the link provided below. Once you are there, select the P-Z categories, then pick Raincatchers and fill out the 4 identification fields.

Here is the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B14zHxzEBGs
Here is the page to vote: http://www.miproconsulting.com/mipro-gives-back/finalists/
and here is their website: http://www.raincatchers.org

Thank-you so much for your help! You are showing your support to an incredible organization doing incredible things in Haiti.

-dave