Thanks All!

It was another awesome night at Sonny's with Blackboard Nails and The Chixie Dicks and Maria Hawkins did a wonderful job at The Atomic Rooster.

The Chixie Dicks experience presented a few pleasant surprises as we introduced a few numbers that we hadn't fully worked on but they turned out quite well. The whole set felt good.

Blackboard Nails were their usual awesome selves and had the folks on their feet.

Ted and I took a half hour to visit with Maria at the Rooster and express our thanks for all she had done and continues to do.

Another few hundred dollars was raised (rough estimate) at Sonny's to add to the thousands that is earmarked for food to fill the hampers next week. According to Ted, we're still a couple of grand short but will have to make do if we don't get there. More numbers, though, still trickle in.

Here's hopin' and here's thankin' everyone for their support.

Event pictures and updates soon!

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REMINDER: Tonight's The Final Night

The Chixie Dicks and Blackboard Nails are gearing up for another fun night of fundraising at Sonny's Bar and Grill. Great Music and entertainment will be accompanied by 50-50, turkey and Sens Ticket raffles with the proceeds to In The Spirit Of Christmas.

The Dicks open at 8pm.

When the Nails take the stage, Woody will blast down to The Atomic Rooster and take the stage for a few minutes with Maria Hawkins as she performs and raises money for us as well.

Then it's back to Sonny's to close out.

This has been an incredible campaign of effort on many folks' behalf, not the least of which - the staff and customers at Sonny's who pitched in to help with the bake sale, raffles and Santa's visit to a Christmas party for over 130 sheltered children.

Let's close this out in style tonight.

See y'all soon!

FINAL FUNDRAISER: SATURDAY - BLACKBOARD NAILS & CHIXIE DICKS/MARIA HAWKINS

It's amazing how quickly Christmas is approaching. We're less than two weeks away and it's been a hectic campaign to organize this series of events and coordinate the efforts of others who have generously assisted us, namely Maria Hawkins and BassLine Station.

We have one more weekend of events.

Saturday Night, Blackboard Nails return to Sonny's with the Chixie Dicks and Maria Hawkins performs at the Atomic Rooster, 303 Bank Street.

The Chixie Dicks open up at Sonny's at 8pm. After introducing Blackboard Nails, the Woodman will head over to the Rooster to share a bit of stage time with Maria and then return to host with the Nails.

There'll donations encouraged at both events as well as raffles for prizes.

At Sonny's, a special Sens Ticket raffle will occur - thanks to the generosity of Mark Rushton.
The tickets are for the February 9th game against the Montreal Canadiens.

There will also be Christmas Turkey raffles at both venues, thanks to Brian's Butchery (Cobden and Iris).

We still need two to three thousand dollars more to feel comfortable about furnishing enough substantial hampers for the shelters and families in need.

For all contributions, we remain grateful.

Maria Hawkins Is The BEST!! More proof....

I finally found the time to put together some images to go with Maria Hawkins' "I Want To Believe In Christmas" to make a video. The images speak to what the campaign is all about: People helping people.

If you can believe in community, you can believe in Christmas. Thank you, Maria.


DON'T MISS MARIA HAWKINS this Saturday Night at the Atomic Rooster, 303 Bank Street as she helps us raise funds again.

The Chixie Dicks will be opening for Blackboard Nails again at Sonny's the same night for the same cause but when the Dicks are done, Woody will definitely scoot over to the Rooster to spend some time with Maria.

A fun time and a great cause at both venues.

Santa, Maria, Jammin' with Jenna

Over 130 children from 3 area shelters were treated to a visit from Santa and Mrs. Claus yesterday during Sonny's annual Christmas Party for under-privileged kids.

Each child received a present, made possible through generous donations, as well as lunch, refreshments and cake.

After Santa had seen every child, the crowd enjoyed the music of Jenna Taggart, 15, as she sang with the assistance of Dog And Pony Sound, who also donated their services again this year.

It was an extra-special moment when Ottawa's Blues Lady, Maria Hawkins, stopped by and shared her time and talents with Jenna and the rest of the kids.

Maria will also be fundraising this weekend for In The Spirit Of Christmas at the Atomic Rooster on Bank Street. More details coming.
With some of the funds raised so far and, with the kindness of strangers, we were able to treat Trinity Duffy, 7, to an evening at the NAC to see The Nutcracker. The story of Trinity and her family is here.

After a hectic but fun afternoon the clean up began to prepare for the evening's Jam Session with some of the Chixie Dicks and members of Circuit and Blackboard Nails.
Jadon Bailey, generously donated his drum kit for the event and Kevin Wright arrived with keyboard in tow.

In all, it was a great day and more money was raised. But there's still a ways to go, friends.

We have a lot of fun with this kind of fundraising but we haven't lost sight of the reason we do this.

The need is real and it seems to growing at an alarming rate. We'll do our best to meet the numbers and, really, it's all we can do.

Details on our final gasp coming soon!

THIS WEEKEND: WISE GUYS AND WOODY'S CHRISTMAS JAM

Friday night at 9pm, the fundraising fun continues with The Wise Guys at Sonny's Bar And Grill.

This is an excellent classic rock party band with an impressive song list that includes music from The Rolling Stones, Doobie Brothers, Ray Charles, Wilson Pickett and much more.

Then, Saturday Night, it's Woody's Invitational Christmas Jam with members from the Chixie Dicks and some of the other acts that have performed over the past few weeks to help In The Spirit Of Christmas.

It's going to be pretty loose and improv and definitely a good time.

No Cover - Donations ENCOURAGED for both events.

50/50 and Turkey raffles will also help in the fundraising effort.

Thanks To Maria Hawkins And Moonrunners

As I stated in my previous post it was a successful night from both Sonny's and Bass Line Station on Saturday.

Thanks to AJ and Lionel at Bass Line for not only providing the venue and supporting the effort, they also carved a healthy cheque for the cause, which was a complete and quite pleasant surprise (although, when one considers the community spirit and awareness generated from there, it shouldn't really come as a shock).


Such a gracious performer, as well, Maria Hawkins not only shared the stage with the Woodman for a most generous period of time, she was a marvel to watch as she worked the room effortlessly with wireless mic in hand, ad-libbing lyrically to the thought of the moment - always rhyming, always with timing. And the band kept the pace and mood at every turn. They were a treat to witness.

I recommend taking advantage of any and every opportunity to see this marvelous "Blues Lady" perform, especially when she's doing it for a cause (which is quite often). She's most worthy of the support.

The Moonrunners were everything I imagined they'd be from viewing earlier videos. Those videos, which had appeared it an earlier post on this blog, were from over a year ago.

As I suspected, they grew in their repertoire, skills and timing and their stage presence held poise well beyond their years. Fifteen year old kids can, more often than not, exhibit any range of impressions from nervousness to pretentiousness. But not these guys. They were confident, comfortable and legitimately had fun playing. It was very impressive, to say the least.

As for where that came from, it would be no small measure of rationale to suggest their music teacher is the one and only Robert Farrell, one of Ottawa's greatest guitarists and long time friend of the Doc and Woody show, who happened to drop by for the first set.

The crowd was quite strong and it was evident that these talented lads have already cultivated a fan base that has begun to transend the requisite friends and family support posse.

And, while the proud families and neighbors were in attendance, it was the reaction from the Sonny's regulars that was most effective. They could be forgiven for being mildly skeptical as they observed four pre-shavers assembling their gear and drinking coke.

But, with the authoritative strike of the opening chords, The Moonrunners had their attention and didn't release their grip through the entire performance.

I'll tell you, it made this little rookie event planner damned proud of his decision to bring these young men in.

Thanks, gents, for makin' US look good, too.

They'll most certainly be back in the new year.