Our team of trusty volunteers are scrambling wildly to collect prizes & other assorted goodies to give away on Thursday evening. We’ll be keeping this list updated regularly — heres everything we’ve collected so far —

• 2x £25 iTunes vouchers courtesy of Tesco / @herrbenz.
• £30 worth of takeaway vouchers (+ lots of £2 voucher code leaflets) from the awesome @niftynosh.
• JSC Builders Merchants have donated a bottle of red and a bottle of white wine.
• @lookaly are kindly donating a bottle of Bushmills whiskey as a prize.

If you’re interested in donating something, @/DM @belfastwestival or email andy@goodonpaper.org.

Camphill Communities in Northern Ireland are home to over 130 very special children and adults. We provide care, support, education and work opportunities for children and adults with learning disabilities. The aim of Camphill Communities is to make sure that community members are given every possible chance to lead fulfilled and dignified lives. This is achieved through home life, meaningful work opportunities and a broad range of social and cultural experiences.

Unfortunate thing is that Camphill can’t develop and grow without additional funds and generous help from our friends. House and workshop buildings upgrades and renovations are big capital projects. With never ending changes in legislation these projects are ongoing expenses. There is also need for brand new developments like new Garden Workshop building in Glencraig or renewable energy systems. List of ideas waiting for funding is long. But it isn’t all about buildings. Communities need help with smaller projects or expenses. It could be a new minibus or a new wheelchair. Any amount of money will be put to good cause.

Camphill Communities are very heavily dependent on volunteers. Each year there are over 100 young people, from across the world, coming to gain work experience, take their gap year and have fun in international community.  If you are looking for anything like that, please get in touch with @stillOrange.

And we’re back! Twestival Local returns to Belfast on the 10th of September — we’ll be taking over the Bunatee Bar in Queen’s University Students’ Union from 7pm.

Hundreds of votes came in to decide the charity Twestival Belfast will be supporting — we’re proud to be raising funds for Camphill NI — which was established to teach, train and care for those with special needs because of their various mental, emotional and behavioral disabilities. We’ll have more from them in future blog posts, but you can read more over at their website (forgive — they’re in the process of redesigning currently!)

In the meantime, you can register your attendance now. We’ll be taking donations at the door — with a suggested entry charge of £5 — as well as organising other fundraising activities like raffles and other competitions.

Twestival is an event organised *by* twitterers *for* twitterers. We’ve an excellent team of volunteers together for this years event, all currently scrambling to organise the events entertainment & raise money for Camphill. We’ll be back soon with more on the nights festivities — look forward to seeing you there!

I think it’s safe to say that Twestival Belfast was a resounding success. Around 100 people turned up over the course of the night to drink some beer, chat with other local Twitter users, play some Rock Band and win some awesome raffle prizes. Excluding miscellaneous donations, we collectively raised over £500 for charity: water. Once again, thanks again to everyone that turned up, helped out and donated money - and we’ll see you all back again for the next Twestival Belfast!

To find out who else was there simply tweet “I was there #belfastwestival”.
Find others here.

And so the day has arrived - Twestival Belfast is tonight - from 8pm - in Laverys Bunker. We’ve got a Rock Band Tournament (with games & instruments kindly donated by @designbyfront & Mac-Sys) going on, as well as DJ sets from @muchodanke (Resident @twostepclub DJs) and @emro (Resident DJ at @blackoutclub).

Thanks again to all the local businesses and Twitters who helped us put together some prizes last minute. First prize for the Rock Band tournament is a Replica Fender Stratocaster - which is a pretty amazing donation from the Belfast Guitar Emporium. We’ll also have a small raffles, the prizes of which include:

• £40 meal voucher for McHughs. (thanks to McHughs Bar & Restaurant)
• £20 food & drink voucher for Charlies Coffee Shop. (thanks to @charliescoffee)
• £25 iTunes Voucher. (thanks to Tesco and @itsabenzbaby)
• 2x Web Standardistas Books. (thanks to @standardistas)
• 2x tickets to Lowly Knights on 19th February (thanks to @twostepclub)
• 2x tickets to Bop Yestrum. (thanks to @bopyestrum)
• Foy Vance CD. (thanks to @foyvance)

Thanks to Duke Special we also have:

• Signed “Special edition CD”: ‘I Never Thought This Day Would Come’ album
• A ‘making of the album’ photo book
• A short Duke Special storybook
• A metal pin badge of the Duke Piano taken from the album artwork
• 3 black and white ‘paint yourself’ album covers
• A set of paint with painting competition rules

Remember, the biggest part of this (apart from raising money from charity obviously) is uniting the local Twitter community. We’ll have stickers for everyone to write their usernames on - the bar will be open so grab a beer and get chatting!

It’s also worth thanking everyone thats supported us with tweets and blogs in our efforts to bring this to Belfast. It’s been a mad scramble to put something together at such short notice, and while it might not be as “impressive” as the other events around the world, it’s still an excellent opportunity to get together and raise some money for charity. See everyone tonight!

Along with the Twestival events of over 175 cities across the globe this Thursday, 12th February, Belfast will be hosting its own event with a small but passionate bunch in support of Charity:Water.

The event is being held in Lavery’s Bunker at 8pm, who have kindly given the venue for free and allowed all door takings for the night will be donated to the cause.

There will be a Rock Band tournament, raffles, DJs and a host of prizes including a £40 meal voucher for McHughs, signed Foy Vance CD, 2 copies of the book from Web Standardistas, £25 Tesco voucher and a replica Stratocaster generously donated by Belfast Guitar Emporium.

Twestival is a wordwide collaborative effort to raise money for Charity:Water, a non profit organization bringing clean, safe drinking water to people in developing nations by funding sustainable clean water solutions in areas of greatest need. Still unsure? Read about the project and all the cities taking part at Twestival.com.

Help spread the word through a blog post, twitter or simply tell a stranger.

Tickets are €7 with all proceeds going to charity.
Purchase your ticket here.

If you can’t make it on the night, but wish you could - make a donation anyway.

Just a quick one - we’re now taking over Laverys Bunker from 8pm - 10.30pm (currently before Radiation / Laverys DJs) and not the Black Box Cafe as previously announced.

We’ll have a full lineup for DJs, music and the raffle together shortly - in the meantime, keep an eye on the Twitter feed at @belfastwestival. Woop!

Information has dripped out here and there - but this morning, we’re officially announcing Twestival Belfast - venue, lineup, tickets - the whole shebang.

So, 12th of February in the Black Box Cafe (now Laverys Bunker from 8pm!) for DJs, music, beers and a Rock Band tournament (game & instruments generously donated by Front). At this stage we’re now phoning round to collect prizes and potentially organising a pub-quiz type setup for the evening - but we’re interested to hear ideas and will be constantly stealing from other Twestivals going on elsewhere.

Tickets can be purchased here at £5 each and again, every penny goes to the Twestival chosen charity, Charity:Water.

Belfast just one of over 100 cities proud to be hosting a Twestival event on February 2009 in order to raise both money and awareness for Charity:Water.

Charity: water is a non profit organization bringing clean, safe drinking water to people in developing nations by funding sustainable clean water solutions in areas of greatest need.

Right now 1.1 billion people on the planet don’t have access to safe, clean drinking water. That’s one in six of us.

This is where charity: water and their partner organizations come in. Drilling a well can cost from $4,000 - $12,000 USD and many living on less than $1 a day cannot afford one in their community, even if the money is combined.

Over the next few weeks there will be a massive push to make this a great event, and we need help getting the word out in any way you can, as well as volunteers and sponsorship.

Let us know your suggestions for venues and event ideas through comments, email or Twitter.

The Team:
@icedcoffee
@goodonpaper

@belfastwestival