By Brad Foster, MAP President

It’s getting to be just about that time! It’s exciting to think about all the stupendous MYLead Alums getting back together for holiday reunion at the MYLead Gala on January 2, 2010.

For those of you who missed the summer Hubbard Lake reunion in July, or the Tigers Game in August, this is our next chance to get together and keep that MYLead energy going, at GameWorks at Great Lakes Crossing in Auburn Hills. It’s going to be on Saturday, January 2 from 4 – 8 p.m. This is our third year hosting our MYLead Gala and Awards Night at GameWorks, and those who went to the gala last year know what a good time we had. We are going to give awards for various service projects and those who achieved the service goal of 50 hours and logged them on the MYLead Web site. We will also be having a presentation during the dinner that will talk about staying involved with MYLead through the MYLead Achievement Program. There will then be a nice awards ceremony for the service award winners with games following that! Everyone will get an unlimited game card to play games throughout the entire night, while catching up with your MYLead buddies.

Bring your family along too. If your parents and siblings want to come and just have dinner, their ticket is only $12 without the game card. Dinner and game card tickets cost $20. Also, if you want to bring a friend that did not attend the MYLead conference, that’s cool too; it’s always great to spread the MYLead experience.

Please come and enjoy this night filled with food, friends, awards, and lots of fun. The rest of the MAP Board and I look forward to seeing everybody at the gala! Stay STUPENDOUS and if you have any questions, please feel free to give me a call at 313-952-3354. You must send in checks made payable to “Michigan Youth Leadership” by December 15^th to:

C/O MYLead

2390 Howald Ave.

Flint, MI 48504

More information is available on the MYLead site by clicking HERE.

Press release:  Plantronics Savi Office Recognized for Unifying Voice Communications and Multimedia with Brilliant Audio Quality and One-Touch Simplicity

New York, New York – November 10, 2009 – Plantronics, Inc (NYSE: PLT), the world leader in communication headsets for over 48 years, today announced that the Savi™ Office Wireless Headset System has been named a Best of International CES Innovations 2010 Design and Engineering Awards Winner in the Headphones category. Products entered in this prestigious program are judged by an esteemed panel of independent industrial designers, engineers and members of the media to honor outstanding design and engineering in cutting-edge products across 36 product categories. 

Unified Communications Made Simple

Plantronics Savi Office is a multi-function wireless headset system for Unified Communications that enables calling from both desk phones and computer softphones (VoIP). Savi Office supports softphone applications from leading providers, including Avaya, Cisco, IBM, and Microsoft, and other popular services, such as Google Talk and Skype with high-end wideband audio. 

In addition to basic call switching, Savi Office delivers advanced call control that enables the audio from the desk phone and the computer to be put on hold, muted or mixed together for easy conferencing. The system supports leading multimedia players so users can also listen to music and videos without missing a call. Savi Office uses the DECT™ 6.0 voice-dedicated frequency, providing users 350-feet of range from the base. Savi Office features adaptive power, meaning the headset uses less battery power when it is closer to the base system. 

“Nearly 50 years of design and engineering innovations have gone into creating Savi Office,” said Elizabeth Bastiaanse Hamren, vice president of Product Marketing at Plantronics. “The CES Innovations Award further establishes that the distinctions between consumer and enterprise products are becoming increasingly blurred. Today’s workers demand business-class audio quality and reliability combined with the ease-of-use and styling of consumer devices.” 

CES Innovations Design and Engineering Awards

The prestigious Innovations Design and Engineering Awards have been recognizing achievements in product design and engineering since 1976. They are sponsored by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA)^®, the producer of the International CES, the world’s largest consumer technology tradeshow, and endorsed by the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA), the voice of industrial design, committed to advancing the profession through education, information, community and advocacy. 

Plantronics Savi Office will be displayed at the 2010 International CES, which runs January 7-10, 2010 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Innovations Design and Engineering Showcase will feature honorees by product category in the Grand Lobby of the Las Vegas Convention Center and will also be featured at CES Unveiled: The Official Press Event of the International CES on Tuesday, January 5. 

The Innovations entries are judged based on the following criteria:

Engineering qualities, based on technical specs and materials used

Aesthetic and design qualities, using photos provided

The product’s intended use/function and user value

Unique/novel features that consumers would find attractive

How the design and innovation of the product compares to other products in the marketplace 

Products chosen as an Innovations honoree reflect innovative design and engineering of the entries. Examples may include the first time various technologies are combined in a single product or dramatic enhancements to previous product designs. 

Innovations 2010 Design and Engineering honoree products are featured on www.CESweb.org/Innovations, which lists product categories, as well as each product name, manufacturer information, designer, description, photo and URL.

Lightbox was the official photographer for the GTES awards.  Congratulations
to all the finalists and award winners. Photos are available from the GTES office or
contact us here at lightbox if you require some prints.

GTES awards 2009

Freshman linebacker Kyle Hunte was named the CAA Rookie of the Week, as announced by the CAA office on Monday. The Brookline, MA native made four tackles against Hofstra, while picking off a pass and forcing a fumble in the second quarter, of the Huskies’ 14-13 win over the Pride.

Hunte garnered the award after Northeastern’s 27-7 win over Towson on October 24, as he recorded a sack for a loss.

The Huskies will close the season on Saturday (12:30 p.m.) at Rhode Island.

Sophomore Florence Schelling was named the Women’s Hockey East Defensive Player of the Week for the third straight week and for the fifth time this season, as announced by the Hockey East office on Monday afternoon. The sophomore netminder made 67 saves in the Huskies’ weekend split vs. Maine. 

The Oberengstringen, Switzerland native made 32 stops in NU’s 5-1 win on Saturday, before turning aside 35 shots in a 1-0 loss on Sunday.

Schelling still holds a nation-leading 0.81 goals against average and a .970 save percentage.

The women’s hockey team returns to the ice at Providence on Friday.

Deadline: Dec. 4th – 2009 Midnight PST

metaio //

Best Technology Achievement

Best bootstrapped Startup

Best International Startup

junaio //

Best Mobile App

David Boehm (photo by Karen Winger)

It’s rare you split at home with an unranked team and are still able to move up in the polls, but that’s exactly what happened as UMass rose three spots to #11 in the latest USCHO poll.  Certainly the team benefitted from Michigan and Notre Dame plummeting from their spots in the top ten.  It should be noted that all five of the next five opponents are ranked; #9 Yale, #17T Vermont, #13 Quinnipiac, #17T Boston College, #4 Lowell.  And on the schedule after Lowell is Merrimack who is also receiving votes.

UMass dropped a spot to #11 in the USA Today/USA Hockey poll.

The Minutemen check in at #15 in INCH’s Power Rankings.

Δ

David Boehm garnered Hockey East Rookie of the Week honors for his strong performance this weekend highlighted by the overtime game winner on Friday.

Justin Braun and Paul Dainton made the Top Performers list.

Quick, do you know who this guy is? It’s Chris Coghlan, LF for the Florida Marlins, and – announced today – your 2009 National League Rookie of the Year (A’s bullpen ace Andrew Bailey won in the AL).

Here’s a sad confession – for the first time in my entire life as a baseball fan, a major league ballplayer won a postseason award, and I had no idea who the heck the guy was. I figured the NL’s top rook would be Happ or McCutchen or McGehee or Hanson. I had no idea what the dude looked like, what position he played, or what team he played for. It was the first time in my life, having this experience, and it was a bit of a shocker (since I thought I had followed the season as best I could, all things considered).

Of course, the first reason I thought about that explained today’s surprise was my status as a new (and uber-proud) papa (I’d like to think that this also affected my overall woeful roto baseball performance this year in my keeper league). No regrets there, of course.

But then I wondered a couple other things regarding today’s RoY. First, had Mr. Coghlan played for the Mets, of course I’d have heard of his name. Same with the Phillies. Or probably almost every other team in the league. The whole small market vs. bigger market thang – a topic that’ll rear it’s ugly head in later posts, for sure.

The second, more interesting question is this: is Chris Coghlan the most “unknown” rookie ever to win the award? I’d be willing to bet that unless you lived in Florida or had the fellow on your roto team, you probably never heard of him either…

A final note on Rookies of the Year, generally – and this is a fascinating one. According to research compiled by Wezen-ball:

“Every two years, one of the four Rookie of the Year winners will battle for a spot in the Hall of Fame”. Pretty impressive. It’s rare to see a prediction system with that level of success..

Yeah, that is impressive. Reading about the fellow makes me appreciate the ballplayer all the more. So who knows? Mr. Coghlan might someday be mentioned in the same sentence as Cobb or Cochrane…though I doubt it.

I HAVE CAT is officially an award winning blog! I woke up today nervous that my post for the week was not complete only to learn I was the recipient of the “Honest Scrap” award.  Honest Scrap recognizes bloggers who “oftentimes put their heart on display as they write from the depths of their soul”.

Thanks so much to Glogirly for bestowing I HAVE CAT with this honor (check out her blog, you’ll love it ) and for giving me something to write about today!

The origins of “Honest Scrap” are elusive and all I can find is that it's likely been in circulation since December 2008 and many posts reference beginnings in Eastern Africa – how cool is that?!

The stipulations of accepting the award are as follows:

• Highlight the award on your blog and link back to the person who bestowed the award to you (check!)
• Post 10 interesting things about yourself
• “Pay it forward” by presenting the award to 5-10 other blogs

I’m not sure how interesting these are but you probably don’t know them about me and might find them entertaining.

Hottie violinist

1 – Band Camp (kind of): I started playing the violin at the age of 4 years and received a music scholarship to college but haven’t played the violin since graduation (sad I know).  Joshua Bell alone was good reason to pick up the violin.

My name in Armenian

2 – ESL: My first language was Armenian and I still speak at about a 3^rd grade level.  In High School I tried to take the TOEFL* instead of the SATs but that didn’t fly (can’t blame a girl for trying).

*TOEFL = Test of English as a Foreign Language

3 –My Dr McDreamy: My celebrity crush is Dr Gregory House the character played by Hugh Laurie). It must be that “I’ll save you” gene women seem to have.

4– Little Drummer Boy: For many years I only dated drummers and this was not necessarily a concerted effort. Sure in my teenage years I crushed on drummers (lead singers and guitarists were too obvious) but later in life I’d find myself on a date with a preppy guy only to find out he had a band or played the bongos.

Is this goodbye?

5 – Eggs + Oil = Yum!: When younger (much younger) I used to eat mayonnaise straight from the jar by the spoonful. And no, Miracle Whip doesn’t count. Even today I love it on a sandwich or in tuna salad. But seeing that I’m considering going vegan, it might be time for this love affair to end.

It was recently “suggested” to me that my postings be shorter. So keeping that in mind I will refrain from posting all 10 “interesting” factoids about me and will leave this “to be continued”.

Passing the Torch:

Hopefully I’m not giving this to anyone who already has it, but getting the same award  twice can’t be too bad right?  In no particular order – -

• Single Gal in the City - I’ve only recently discovered Melissa’s blog but she’s a single girl in NYC and she tells it like it is!
• Little Cat Diaries - Tom Cox clearly doesn’t need my help because he has a book published in the UK titled “Under the Paw: Confessions of a Cat Man” (sadly not yet available state-side). I couldn’t help supporting a self-professed cat-loving man!
• Old Cat’s Rule – This site is both fun and serious and celebrates the joy of life with a senior cat – which surprisingly includes any cat over 6 years old according to the literature (I’ve always wanted to say that!).
• Lucky Fiona A company named after a very lucky dog called Fiona who was rescued from a kill shelter. Not only can you find stylish dog collars (I’ve seen a few on cats too) at this website, but Fiona’s owner has a great blog and she recently rescued a fourth lucky dog.
• Albert the Cat’s Blog – Albert is a mancat who lives in London with his “poncy brother” and “stupid sister” (and 2 house staff of course).
• Tabby’s Place - Tabby’s Place is a wonderful cat sanctuary in New Jersey that accepts even the most handicapped animals.  Their blog tells the stories of various cat residents and really gives you a sense of what a labor of love this is for all the amazing folks that work there.
• Men and Cats – The title says it all

The final of Miss Virtual World 2010 will take place on Saturday the 19th of December at 11:00 AM SLT and I am very proud to be sponsoring this incredible event by designing an exclusive crown and matching jewels.  The top 5 finalists will each receive an exclusive CCD design which includes a tiara, earrings and a necklace.  I am very happy that CCD will be involved in this great occasion and I wish all the contestants of this prestigious event the very best of luck.

In a pink Jason Wu cocktail number, Somali beauty Iman presented Rihanna with the 2009 Woman of the Year Award at a benefit for Glamour magazine. How Iman manages to NOT like she stole some of Big Bird’s swag in THAT dress is beyond me!

Iman shortly after was seen out and about on the streets of Manhattan (Soho to be precise) alongside her daughter Alexandria Bowie.  Mrs. David Bowie also has another daughter from a previous relationship as mentioned in this previous blog post.

Leave it to Iman to show how to be classy off and on the red carpet.

photos: getty//daylife

At kitchen tables across America, we’re mulling over what the current economic situation means for each of us. Jobs, bills, education, loans, investments, travel, holiday shopping, donations.

With the exception of holiday shopping and perhaps travel, similar conversations are happening around foundation boardroom tables as well.

Decisions to shift funding guidelines, focus areas, investment practices, grant timelines, grant payouts, internal staffing and organizational short- and long-term priorities – the list goes on – are not made lightly or quickly. And for many board members and trustees, this is the first time they’ve encountered such significant and perhaps drastic discussions.

These conversations and decisions by foundation leaders are critical and necessary. MCF’s Effective Governance Principle calls for its members to share a commitment to excellence and achieve effective governance by ensuring performance in the areas of stewardship of assets, donor intent, fiduciary responsibility and sound decision-making.

Join the conversation: What types of effective governance decisions has your organization made during these challenging times? What shifts and changes in how your organizations does its work have resulted from discussions by your board or executive leadership in response to the economic stresses we’re facing?

Here is one example: Marina Munoz Lyon, vice president of the Carl and Eloise Pohlad Family Foundation, recalls going to the offices of Pohlad family members to discuss how the foundation could step up to support communities in need.  The foundation, winner of the 2009 Minnesota Nonprofit Award for Responsive Philanthropy, established a $20 million Economic Crisis Initiative last spring.

In the video below, which was shown at the awards presentation at the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits and Minnesota Council on Foundations Joint Conference Nov. 5-6, Jim Pohlad, Pohlad Foundation board member, says, “We took a big chunk of principle and decided that it’s more important to spend it now.”

- Chris Murakami Noonan, MCF communications associate

The Shells | ensEyeView.

By Bianca

About a week and a half ago, we were tagged over at Flying Cupcakes, as the most awesomest blog to have ever have existed on the internet ever. Like ever ever.

What?

Ok, maybe not the awesomest blog ever, but it was still pretty cool to get The Honest Scrap thingie. For those who are wondering, I’m the honest and Sylvia is the scrap.

So we decided to go ahead and tag a few other bloggers, who better respond immediately or we are going to use the considerable power we don’t have and get them kicked off the internet forever. We are totally down with resorting to bribery if we have to.

So here are the rules of winning this award:

1) Present this award to 7 others whose blogs you find brilliant in content and/or design, or those who have encouraged you.

2) Tell those 7 people they’ve been awarded HONEST SCRAP and inform them of these guidelines in receiving the award.

3) Share “10 Honest Things” about yourself.

We’ll start with #3, because as you all know, Sylvia and I love to talk about ourselves.

But we are also lazy, so instead of hurting our heads with trying to come up with 10 things each, we decided to do 5 each, and let you guys figure out which 5 belonged to each of us.

I can tell the suspense is killing you, so without further ado:

1. I was in a movie that stars Harrrison Ford

2. I never went to the same school twice until I was in 7th grade

3. I knew how to draw a beer from a tap (beer keg) by the age of 5

4. I’m not a big fan of long walks on the beach

5. I lived in a teepee when I was 3

6. My nickname growing up was “Rocky”

7. I am related to F. Scott Fitzgerald, Francis Scott Key, and Mary Queen of Scotts

8. My first word was ‘Schlitz’

9. My husband used to date Bryce Conway

10. As a child, I was a vegan, anti abortion, anti death penalty and would not allow my mother to buy products that were tested on animals.

We also decided to flaunt the rules by tagging 9 bloggers insetad of 7. Why? Because we can.  No offense to those not on the list!  We love y’all…..

In no particular order, here are our picks:

Sun

Corpulent 

Atchka 

No Celery Please

Fat Sisters

Ivan in NYC

Big Liberty

Sleepy Dumpling

Life on Fats

Congratulations to Nisa for
being the first person to
achieve a Silver Mathletics
Award in Year 5.

While cash is king in a recession, return on investment is equally as regal.

If your company has both, your firm might be in as fortunate a position as Columbus-based Webbed Marketing LLC. The Internet marketing firm carries no debt, is profitable and has doubled its revenue and employee roster on an annual basis since its start in November 2006.

Bill Balderaz, the company’s founder and chief innovation officer, says it all comes from recognizing what clients want now that money is tight.

“On the Internet, we can track and measure ROI very closely. If someone made a purchase, we can find out what site led them to that,” Balderaz said. “It’s benefitted us because we can track marketing dollars very precisely.”

The International Superyacht Society released the names of its 2009 Design and Industry Award winners today. (Actual awards were presented October 29, during the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show.)

Managing Director Tony Hambrook of Alloy Yachts International won the Leadership Award. Founder Frans Heesen of Heesen Yachts was named Business Person of the Year, while founder Mark Drewelow of YachtAid Global won the Distinguished Crew Award.

Among products, NightFinder Searchlights by Carlisle & Finch won the award for Excellence in Innovation.

In the yacht categories, the winners for 2009 are:

• Best Power 24-40 meters, 131-foot Alloy Allogante
• Best Power 40-65 meters, and Best Interior, 197-foot CMN Slipstream
• Best Power 65 meters plus, 390-foot Blohm & Voss A
• Best Sail 24 to 40 meters, 120-foot Yachting Developments Bristolian
• Best Sail 40 meters plus, 169-foot Alloy Mondango

A new award for SOTA chasers has been announced by the Summits on the Air Management Team, called the Mountain Hunter Award. It was announced today by Barry GM4TOE The SOTA Awards Manager on the reflector to complement the award recently announced for Activators (I think I missed that one!).

The ultimate award is to encourage a Chaser to Work All Associations (this does require the use of HF and is not practicable on VHF without moonbounce!) but we also wanted to encourage VHF/UHF operations and so have also introduced an award that requires qualifying contacts on 70MHz and above only. The award is NOT points based like the existing awards but relies on valid contacts between Chasers and Activators on a qualifying number of summits in a number of Associations.

It is feasible at present for a Europe based Chaser to work 24 Associations on VHF with the possibility of 7 more in the offing. We have Associations on 4 continents at present and there is the possibility of Australasia joining in the future.

Both African and Asian Associations have a rarity value so this might encourage activity from them or persuade other countries to join the scheme (Who is up for Activation from the High Atlas?). It is recognised that the VHF award is very Europe biased but it is foreseen that the USA /Canada associations will, very shortly, be able to qualify for the entry level VHF qualification. It should be noted that, although Europe does not have the 1.25m and 33cm bands, this does not prevent those countries with these bands from using them.

The inclusion of the requirement to work some intercontinental associations (for the all bands award) does make this award different from the existing Chaser awards and will run in parallel to the existing Chaser awards; by introducing the requirement (except at the entry level) to work other continents this award should encourage activators in less active associations to operate as there will be demand from chasers for the rarer associations.

a) VHF (70MHz and above) Award

Hunter should contact at least 2 different summits in each of 5 associations using just VHF/UHF any mode.

Endorsement for UHF only qualification (430MHz and above)

Steps of 5 Associations for each award: 10, 15, 20, etc

Level/ No. Associations/ Min. no. of summits
1 /5/ 2 per association
2 /10 /3 per additional association
3 /15 /4 per additional association
4 /20+/ 4 per additional association

b) All bands Award

Hunter should contact at least 2 different summits in each of 5 associations The higher level awards require that at least one association claimed is on a different continent from the claimant’s normal residential QTH. Level 1 can be claimed with contacts only on the claimant’s own continent (1 continent); higher level awards require intercontinental contacts.

Endorsement for all 50MHz qualification

Steps of 5 Associations for each award: 10 (including 2 continents), 15 (including 2 continents), 20 (and 3 continents),

Worked all Associations

Level No./ Associations/ Continents /Minimum no. of summits
1/ 5 /1 /2 per association
2 /10 /2/ 3 per additional association
3 /15 /2 /3 per additional association
4 /20 /3 /4 per additional association
5/ WAA/ 4 or 5 /4 per additional association

The Award will be issued from January 2010 and summits may be claimed retrospectively (you do not have to start over; summits previously chased under the programme will qualify). Each claim must be registered on the SOTA database in the normal way and a new filter will be incorporated onto the database to track progress and allow checking of activators’ claims.

This award will be certificate based as with the Activator award however the MT would like to consider the possibility of producing a trophy for the Worked All Association award. Several suggestions have been made and we will seek input from participants to determine the level of interest in producing a suitable item.

O evento da BBC, Switch Live Awards teve uma dobradinha das Girls Aloud, além de Kimberley Walsh ser uma das hostest do evento Cheryl Cole ganhou o prêmio de “Prom Queen”, mas não recebeu o prêmio pois estava no programa X-Factor. Confira os videos:

Resumo de Kimberley no evento:

Part 1.

Part 2.

Cheryl Cole ganhando o prêmio “Prom Queen”.

The updated materials for the ABA Jim Keane Award for Excellence in ELawyering have been posted on the ABA website for the 2010 Techshow and on the ELawyering Task Force website.  Requirements to be considered for the award are listed as well as an online nomination form.   Please also read my previous post about the award.

1. Indianapolis Colts(LW1)
2. New Orleans Saints(LW2)
3. Minnesota Vikings(LW3)
4. Cincinnatti Bengals(LW6)
5. Arizona Cardinals(LW11)
6. San Diego Chargers(LW12)
7. New England Paatriots(LW5)
8. Dallas Cowboys(LW7)
9. Denver Broncos(LW8)
10. Pittsburgh Steelers(LW4)
11. Atlanta Falcons(LW9)
12. Houston Texans(LW14)
13. Philadelphia Eagles(LW10)
14. New York Giants(LW13)
15. Jacksonville Jaguars(LW18)
16. Green Bay Packers(LW19)
17. Baltimore Ravens(LW15)
18. Miami Dolphins(LW21)
19. San Fransisco 49ers(LW22)
20. New York Jets(LW16)
21. Carolina Panthers(LW20)
22. Chicago Bears(LW17)
23. Washington Redskins(LW27)
24. Tennessee Titans(LW25)
25. Seattle Seahawks(LW23)
26. Buffalo Bills(LW24)
27. Kansas City Chiefs(LW31)
28. Oakland Raiders(LW26)
29. Detroit Lions(LW32)
30. Tampa Bay Buccaneers(LW28)
31. St Louis Rams(LW29)
32. Cleveland Browns(LW30)

Vote for Real Ale Reviews in the Golden Twits

As some of you will have seen last week, this blog (well, our beer related twitter account) has been nominated for a little award. The Golden Twits are an “award scheme that aims to celebrate the best in Twittering” and are organised by The Drum magazine (a news mag all about marketing, design and media). The standards are high in the awards and in our categories we are up against the likes of fellow twits from 4Homes, White & Mackay, Ogilvy, Cisco and the Guardian.

This makes us very proud, as we only started writing about beer five months ago.

For those of you that don’t know lots about us, I started this blog in May with Alan. It was a rainy summer night and Alan and I were watching series 4 (I think) of the West Wing… I was itching to write something, thinking about some sort of digital marketing blog (which also happened) and Alan had been penning for quite some time the first chapter of a book about the similarities between some modern musician and an equally hedonistic renaissance artist (best to ask him about that!). The West Wing was a catalyst for much debate and true to form, we started discussing how we could put our pen hands to good use. I think it was the bottle of Old Hooky in front us that sparked the idea of turning our attentions to beer, after all we’d single handedly kept Old Hooky and St Peter’s Organic Ale in stock at our local ASDA for about 18 months by this point.

A few hours later and our first incarnation on WordPress was up and running and there it sat for a few weeks whilst we fine tuned some articles and formulated a plan of action. Over the coming weeks a Twitter account popped up and we got talking to beer bloggers and beer lovers, many of who inspired us to take the blog to the next level, buying ‘proper’ hosting and getting Sam involved, who with his home brew experience, Yorkshire charm (and Yorkshire no-nonsense frugality) has added to our writing team.

Only a handful of months later we are now listed in the Top 20 Wikio Blogs for Wine & Beer, have a dedicated following of over 1,000 tweeps and have joined the British Guild of Beer Writers, all of which makes us puff our chests out in pride and smile very widely indeed.

Which brings us up to date, and finding out last week about our nomination. And of course, asking all our friends and followers to vote for us too! Voting is open at the Golden Twits until Tuesday 17^th November (tomorrow!), so if you like our blog, our tweets, Alan, Sam and I will be eternally grateful if you could vote for our little blog’s twitter account. Do it for us, and do it for the beer!

A massive thank you to everyone who reads the blog, follows us on twitter and has helped to make the first 6 months of our existence so rewarding. The beer community rocks!

Thanks, The Real Ale Reviews team.

http://www.goldentwits.com/corp-individual/15-10-0994023/

Vote for Real Ale Reviews in the Golden Twits