It’s been a long time since I last wrote anything here. I do miss the company of bloggers but there are just some things I need to take care of first thus my disappearance from the Cebu Blogging Scene.

Anyway, here’s some interesting news.

Globe Telecom has this social media project, the Globe Tatt Awards which calls all bloggers around the Archipelago to choose the best among the rest. Globe Tatt awards is having there last call for nominations today so go ahead and nominate guys! You got until 12MN of tonight (Cinderella much?)

Here’s more details from the Globe Tatt Awards PR.

TATT AWARDS NOMINATION DEADLINE DRAWS NEAR

The social media hemisphere is abuzz with the first-ever Tatt Awards, recently launched by Globe-powered internet brand Tattoo. The Tatt Awards aim to shine the limelight on technophiles, video vamps, and ardent advocates for change, giving them the chance to be recognized for their passion to create, inspire and lead in social media.

The recent awards launch at the plush Opus Bar at Resorts World was a humor-filled evening with side-splitting performances from improvisational comedy group SPIT led by Gabe Mercado as well as breathtaking acrobatics acts from homegrown talents ZION show. Guests included social media luminaries like digital activist Tonyo Cruz, respected mom blogger Noemi Dado, Tech Talk TV host and creator of wheninmanila.com Vince Golangco, President of Philippine Blog Awards Juned Sonido and RockEd Philippines founder Gang Badoy, all of whom were given a first look at the awards lineup of categories and judges.

Going beyond popularity, the Tatt Awards celebrate the pioneering online efforts of individuals who have used the social media space as their platform to ignite passion and inspiration. Setting it apart from other internet-centric awards, the upcoming Tatt Awards breaks the awards mold by looking not just at how many online followers an individual has but how he or she has expressed an opinion, created a work of art or spurred socially-relevant changes and messages that have influenced their followers in profound ways.

Tattoo Head of Nomadic Broadband Business Dong Ronquillo shares “Tattoo stands for making your own definition of greatness and pursuing your vision with all your power. The Tatt Awards is therefore our venue to recognize individuals who have created a social media space to share what they are most passionate about, in a way that has moved the online world.”

Tattoo has assembled the Tatt Council, a group of celebrated online thought-leaders led by Ronquillo, who will collectively serve as judges to determine the winners in ten Tatt Awards categories. The Council members are award-winning journalist and ABS-CBN News & Public Affairs social media pioneer News and Current Affairs Maria Ressa, revolutionary online educator and Rock Ed Philippines founder Gang Badoy, prolific lifestyle blogger and entrepreneur Cecile Zamora-Van Straten, esteemed tech blogger and Tattoo ambassador Rico Mossesgeld, popular video blogger and director Kring Elenzano, RX radio DJ Chico Garcia and President of the Internet and Mobile Marketing Association Hans Roxas-Chua.

Nominate your favorites for the Tatt Awards by visiting www.tattoo.globe.com.ph/tattawards. But make haste, as the nomination phase ends this July 14. So don’t let your social media champion miss out the chanced to be marked for greatness. After the nomination phase, public votes through the Tatt Awards portal and the scores of the Tatt Awards Council will determine the winners, who will each receive 100,000 Pesos in cash and premium broadband products from Tattoo. Expect the big announcements within August 2011!

Take your cue from Tattoo. Steal the social media spotlight and use your passion to create, inspire and lead. And the first step begins with a visit to the site, now.

IT IS NOW MAY 21, 2011!

IT IS TIME!

IT IS FINALLY THE END!

IT IS THE FINALLY THE END OF THE WAIT!

We now have our official sponsors as we have clarified all things and we have the full support of the sponsors listed below.

Now for the Pre-event instructions please follow below:

1. Please write:

The Cebu blog Camp  is an event organized annually by the Cebu Bloggers of the Blog and Soul Movement which is the educating leg of the Philippine Blog Awards Inc. which has been running for already four years. This is the largest gathering of bloggers in Cebu. (DON’t FORGET THE LINKS FOR THE TWO NAMES)

2. Please indicate the sponsors:

(PLEASE FOLLOW ORDER AND FORMAT OF SPONSORS, you may simply copy paste this to your post)

THE CEBU BLOG CAMP 2011

is co-presented by

Bronze Sponsors

Geiser Maclang Marketing Communications, Inc.

Media and Institution Partners

Official Online Print Media

Official Photo-Social Media Partner

DONOR

Academy for International Culinary Arts

3. Please indicate top 5 reasons why you love the Cebu Blog Camp (or if you’re still new to it, why you wish to attend the Cebu blog Camp). Minimum of five reasons BUT YOU MAY include even more reasons. We will choose ten most creative entries who will be awarded on the Blog Camp itself!!!

4. Once you are done with this you may email the URL of your pre-event post to cebublogcamp(at)gmail.com . PLEASE use your SURNAME,FIRST NAME- CBC 2011 as your Subject of the email.

5. Once your post has been confirmed we will forward your CBC 2011 entrance pass which you will need to print out and present on the day itself. Each pass has a unique number which is attributed to you. This number will also serve as a raffle entry for prizes during the event.

NOTE: passes will be emailed on Tuesday to give time for the processing of each entry.

SEE YOU ALL BLOG CAMPERS!!!

So let’s have a roll of the updates of the progress of the Blog Camp:

Venue

The Cebu Blog Camp Venue will be in the St. Joseph’s Hall of Sacred Heart Center Cebu. Yep, the venue has been booked a few months ago and you can follow the above link or this link if you want to get a sneak peek at what the place may look like.

Speakers

We now have our speakers for the topics and you can check them out and their blogs in here.

So there you have it for our updates on the Blog Camp. Our Design team is still hard at work for our new banners, theme, and posters which you guys can share as soon as it’s launched. Please do like our facebook page: Cebu Blog Camp FB PAGE so you guys can be updated with the latest additional announcements!

Sacred Heart Center

The Sacred Heart Center is handled by the Sacred Heart Parish Ladies organization. The center is located in D. Jakosalem Street in Cebu City. The common landmarks are Sacred Heart Parish which is beside it and the Cebu City Igelsia ni Cristo church which is one block away.

The Center houses many halls and function rooms for a variety of purposes from receptions, conferences to meetings. Aside from their function halls they also have sports facilities open for those who sign up for membership or lessons. They have several sports programs such as swimming, badminton, basketball, aikido, and many more.

Stage area facing the audience area

The St. Joseph’s Hall seats at least 220 people in Theater style arrangement with a lot of space to spare. They have a stage located in the front area of the hall and a centralized sound system in the back corner of the hall. There’s also a rest room located on the side of the hall. The back portion consists of an open space with a food counter where the center serves their food.

St. Joseph's Hall

Parking Lot

There is a good number of parking space in front of the Center and if this is full you may proceed to the back of the center (road which is right next to the building, left side when facing the building) which can accommodate more cars.

How to get There

When in the Taxi merely ask the driver to take you to D. Jakosalem where Sacred Heart Church is and specifically instruct to be dropped off in SACRED HEART CENTER.

Cebu Blog Camp 2011 updates is here again and for our next update: the theme for this year’s Blog Camp.

Last year we had a blog camp that was dedicated to teching bloggers (especially newbie bloggers) all the blogging 101 related topics. Now that we have learned all we need to learn about the basics in blogging the Team Heads and the Blog Camp counsellors decided that we need to level up for the next blog camp. That is how we came up with our new theme:

LEARNING NEW SKILLS, EXPERIENCE NEW THRILLS

The team believes that the Campers have done a wonderful job with their own blogs and even some campers exceeding our expectations after the blog camp. This year’s theme focuses on developing our campers into better bloggers by helping them sharpen their skills in relation to blogging.

Three Topics Three!

We have three major topics to keep us busy the whole blog camp through and these are: Photography 101, Travel 101, and Social Media Marketing 101.

The team is hard at work in making sure the set of speakers will be sure to satisfy your hungry minds. Brainfood win!

New New New!

We’re also working on  new designs for our Blog Camp along with a further revamp of our website and many other things that we’re sure will make you, our beloved campers, a happy camper (yeah, pun intended)

And we also have some more surprises which we’ll open up on our updates over the next few days but in the mean time, here’s more good news.

REGISTRATION IS OPEN!!!!!

Same rules as last year, but even more limited slots, only 180 slots available. Register now through this link:
CBC 2011 REGISTRATION LINK

First of all a warm congratulations to the graduates for the school year 2010-2011. It was a tough journey and now you’ve all made it! For those who haven’t graduated and are still in school, don’t you just love the sweet smell of summer?

We all remember how Summer 2010 was filled with fun and excitement and as the summer was almost over, the first ever Cebu Blog Camp gave you one great way to end the summer right.

Cebu blog Camp 2010- quick recap

The Cebu Blog Camp 2010 was a huge success. We can all recall the theme Blogging: Expressions and Opportunities. Let’s take a quick recap of what happened.

The blog camp started out with a little fashion contest game where campers got to meet other campers. Friends were made and of course (inevitable in bloggers) link exchanges happened.

Then the series of talks started to happen. We had Aileen from Google, Mica ,a popular personal blogger, some random photoblogger, Janette Toral, the founder of Digital Filipino, Ria Jose, from Davao bloggers, Juned Sonido, from the Philippine Blog Awards Inc., Jayvee Fernandez, the famous tech blogger of A Bugged Life, Tonyo Cruz, our very interesting political blogger and social Media journalist, Hans Koch, our SEO specialist, Wilson Ng, from NgKhai Technologies and also Brad Geiser from GeiserMaclang Marketing Communications.

For those who were there who could forget the fun games, the cool prizes and the new friends they made? Just to name a few of the things I certainly remembered were the Krispy Kreme donuts flown all over from Manila to Cebu thanks to Brad Geiser. Then there were those several Microsoft freebies thanks to Wilson Ng from NgKhai. Of course who can forget along with the eco friendly bags from GeiserMaclang, the Mozilla Firefox stickers, pins, ballers, and.. PARTY HATS!

We also had two very lucky winners of awesome Nokia Cellphones! Thank you Nokia!

So there were talks, games, prizes, and food. Big deal right? Well one of the things I enjoyed that day was meeting the bloggers coming from Davao, Manila, Iloilo, Cagayan de Oro (ka chada ninyo oi) and other places from the Philippines! Networking was really fun especially when we got to see all those famous bloggers! (Yes, I was starstruck, I shook the hands of Chiq, Ria, Drew and so many others)

Recalling all these things makes me sigh in happiness and also makes me wish this could happen again.

BUT WAIT! There’s more

Remember when I also promised you guys that we’ll have a bigger and even better Blog Camp in the blog camp to come? Well I didn’t make a promise to break it. (although promises are meant to broken diba?)

Cebu Blog Camp 2011 is coming soon.
Like our FB page to be updated.

OFFICIAL FB PAGE: CEBU BLOG CAMP FB PAGE

Do you remember one of our speakers? Jayvee Fernandez: tech blogger and cool diver?  Well for most of us who do we just can’t forget the awesome diving videos he showed us during Cebu Blog Camp 2010.

Just recently, Jayvee along with other divers took a nice dive in Pescador Island, Moalboal. (Yeah! here in Cebu!)

They were actually there for the Thresher Sharks (those that can be easily seen in Pescador Island, feeding around 12 noon to 3pm, more details on how to spot them in Jayvee’s Blog.)

So why am I so interested in this? Well, apart from just spotting some cool threshers and a huge ball of a school of Sardines  (yes the ones in cans, only alive and swimming) they were actually in for a rare treat: A WHALE SHARK!

Here’s an account of what happened during their special dive:

(By Jayvee Fernandez himself)

Three months ago, there were reports of millions of sardines mysteriously appearing along the reef of Pescador Island in Moalboal, Cebu. There were mixed reports — some had said the sardines had been there for years while others say that this is a “now” phenomenon. Net of it all: recently, divers from all over the country made the journey to Moalboal to experience millions of sardines dancing and shimmering amidst the blue backdrop of the ocean.

With the sardines come predators. Thresher sharks prey on the balls of sardines stunning stragglers with their tails ’round the clock. It is common to see at least two sharks circle around you. If you’re lucky you’ll get to see 6 in one dive. This was the most spectacular underwater orchestration I have ever seen.

The threshers here compared to Malapascua are smaller, but sightings are more frequent. The fact that divers do not need to wake up early in the morning to catch a Monad Shoal dive in Malapascua is more convenient. In Pescador, you just have to remain neutrally buoyant in one of the hanging coves and enjoy the show. Peak time is noon to around 3PM. That is feeding time.

Right now, Pescador Island is a “no strobe,” and “no tank banger zone” as the threshers are sensitive to light and noise. There is also a “no gloves” policy so divers aren’t tempted to latch onto the reef wall. There is also a “no net” policy for the fisherfolk and fishing is regulated to hand-line casts.

During our trip, we were blessed with a whale shark sighting and got to interact with it for 3 minutes. That was my 75th dive. Amazing. AMAZING!

If you’re planning a trip to Moalboal, I suggest you do so very soon. It is worth it. Nothing compares to the shapeshifting orchestration of the sardines. Due to the limitations of my camera I was not able to document an entire ball of sardines because it was simply too big to fit into the lens.

And there you have it. Aren’t you just proud of the fact that this happened in our very own Cebu? This is basically a reminder to all bloggers out there that there’s just so much to see in Cebu! If you run out of ideas then it would be great to just go out and explore our beautiful Cebu!

For those who want to see the vid it’s here:

Jayvee’s post is in here: A Blow by Blow Account of the Most Exciting 3 minutes of My life

And that’s all for now. Hope that everyone’s blogs are continuously improving. Happy blogging everyone!

The Photoblogger

We know you are all excited for this coming weekend as the Cebu Blog Camp 2010 will finally happen! We just need one more thing so that you can confirm your attendance and presence for the blog camp.

Please see the instructions below.

If you have questions, please feel free to leave a comment.

To all participants of the Cebu Blog Camp, we have an exclusive treat for you this summer!

Padd Solutions, one of our sponsors for the Cebu Blog Camp is launching a contest EXCLUSIVE for the registered participants for the Cebu Blog Camp. (if you have not yet registered please do so here: Registration.)

How do I join?

If you’ve already registered for the event (having filled out the registration form) then you are qualified to join this awesome contest. (even if you have not yet received the confirmation email)

So here’s what you have to do:

Mechanics

The more entries a blogger will submit, the more chances he/she has in winning.  Once you’re done all you have to do is wait until May 22 where the winners will be announced during the Cebu Blog Camp activity. Contest entry submission will end at May 18.

The prizes will be:

1 exclusive custom theme worth $300 from Padd Solutions. The winner will discuss the specifications (including personal branding) of his/her design preference with the designer from Padd Solutions on May 22. An optional free hosting account (in case the user doesn’t have any yet) from Jehzlau Concepts will be provided (excluding domain).

So what in the world are you waiting for? Summer has just gotten hotter with this exclusive contest from Padd Solutions! Join now!

Help spread the good news of Cebu Blog Camp 2010 by simply copying the CODE in the text box and placing it in your blog site. You’ll have your friends and readers joining in the fun in no time.

See you all at the Cebu Blog Camp 2010!