Category Archives: Charity Events & Fundraising

Calgary Expo: Goodbye and Thanks for all the Fish

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Those of you who know me know I love to cross the fandom streams.

Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo 2017 marked our 7th and final year as a vendor at this wonderful convention. CCEE is where we got our feet wet running charity booths and met people who have become as much family as they have been friends.

We’ve been attending Calgary Expo since 2010 and have always had a wonderful time. Each year we’ve watched it grow in size and duration and we’ve had a ball meeting Browncoats from around the world. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end – even if only temporarily.

For those of you who aren’t aware, the AB Browncoats is a 100% volunteer run organization. In addition to volunteering our time, those of us who attend conventions also personally pay for the privilege to chat with you, sell you draw tickets and shiny goodies, and run panels, screenings, or post-con concert events.

What this means in practical terms is that convention volunteers take vacation days from work, pay to travel all around the province to conventions, pay their own hotel and food bills, and often pay for tickets to attend the convention just to stand behind a booth all day when extra vendor badges are required.  In our first few years of operation, these individuals also pooled funds to pay the booth rental fees and for all stock carried at the booth. Dedication and love kept this group flying at conventions in its early years and shiny fans like yourselves ensured we were always able to donate funds to a variety of service organizations.

One thing has remained constant over the years, our volunteers give a lot of themselves to each and every one of our events and we’ve never properly acknowledged their sacrifices and commitment.

Due to changing life events – our board chair is returning to school while working full-time, other board members have changed jobs and have limited vacation time, while still others have retired and are living on fixed incomes, etc. – we are unable to staff and finance the annual trek to Calgary in 2018. Accepting this reality broke our hearts a little, as we’ve met so many wonderful people, had a great time on our travels, and know the chances of returning to Calgary Expo as a vendor in years to come with be a challenge as the waiting list is long.

While we’ll be absent from Calgary Expo for a while, we hope to continue to see you out and about in our home base of Edmonton.

Edmonton Expo & Serenity Screening at the Garneau

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Looks like we may have lost a nothing part a while back and our website post authors were down for the count. We’re firm believers that late is better than never, so we’ll try to catch everyone up on what we’ve been doing lately.

AB Browncoats began as a small group of friends who registered a new not for profit organization in fall of 2009.  We’ve run a variety of charity events throughout the province since 2010 and have raised over $58,000 for mainly women’s and children’s charities in that time.

Sept 22-24 found us in the thick of things at Edmonton Expo running our annual charity booth. We had a great time chatting with everyone who stopped by and raised $1825 for our partner charities YESS and WEAC (e4c Alberta). Youth Empowerment and Support Services (YESS) and e4c Alberta’s Women’s Emergency Accommodation Centre (WEAC) offer safety, shelter, and support for individuals in need in Edmonton.

On Sept 28th, we joined with the Metro Cinema Society to present a screening of Serenity. Ticket proceeds supported the non-profit cinema while poster sales and a silent auction raised additional funds for YESS and WEAC. The screening event raised $934.50.

A great variety of auction items were donated by:
  • Qmx,
  • Sean Abbott,
  • Bev Williams,
  • Scott Irving,
  • Clinton Ouderkirk,
  • Alan Tudyk,
  • Drew Semper & Sheelagh Semper, and
  • Nathan Fillion.

We owe a great deal of thanks to the Metro Cinema Society and their staff and volunteers; Pete, Dan, Nic, Shania, Antoine, Connie, Hitomi, Miro, Brent, Owen it is always a pleasure to work with your team!

For those of you figuring the math at home – we’re certainly not dividing nuttin’ into nuttin’. Our donation total for our week’s activities is $2759.50, which will be split equally between YESS and WEAC.

Even more exciting?  With the donation totals from this past week, we’ve raised $62105.55 since we started on this journey 7 years ago!  I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty proud of all of us this evening!

2016 Serenity Screening @ Garneau Theatre

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On Saturday June 25, the Alberta Browncoats teamed up with Pete, Dan, Brad and
the rest of the Metro Cinema Society to host a screening of Serenity.

Over 130 people came to the screening and partook in the Browncoat
experience. They enjoyed hearing about the work we have done over the 6
years we have existed. Many came in costume so we knew that most people
were already unaffiliated Browncoats. The door prize competition had 8 very
happy winners as they searched the theatre for the prizes of Alberta
Browncoat merchandise and Nathan Fillion autographed items.

We hosted a very success silent auction and raised $600 for our two
charities. The auction proceeds will be split between WEAC (Women’s
Emergency Accommodation Centre) and YESS (Youth Empowerment and Support
Services).

Many of the Browncoats promised to visit us at our Booth at comic and
entertainment expo in September 23-25 in Edmonton.

Thanks to Drew and Sheelagh for organizing everything beforehand. Thanks
also to Andy, Natalie, Clinton & Doug for showing up and working on the
event.

Red Deer Expo 2016

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June 11th and 12th you could find us at the inaugural Red Deer Expo!  We had a fabulous time with our con family and got to spend a few minutes basking in Morena Baccarin’s glory. For those of you who’ve been following our Geekograph’s progress, it has now been signed by Nathan, Jewel, Alan and Morena. We’re hoping to fit a few more signatures on to it before we auction it off to charity.

A familiar face dropped by the booth and won our weekend draw. Congrats Alvin!

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We combined our proceeds from EEK! Fest and the Red Deer Expo and were able to donate another $500 to the Red Cross’ Ft McMurray Fire Appeal.