Filipino Bloggers Worldwide (FBW) First Grand Eyeball : Red Is The Color of the Day

The Filipino Bloggers Worldwide group celebrated its First Grand Eyeball / Anniversary / Christmas Party last Friday night December 7, 2012 at a small and modest portion of the Megatrade Hall 2 of SM Megamall in Mandaluyong.

An approximate less than a hundred bloggers attended the event scheduled at 6 pm until 10 in the evening.

Great food and raffle prizes from generous sponsors were provided to all the bloggers and some guests. Sponsors included MannyO wines , ShareLeaf Tea, Speed Magazine, Breakfast Magazine, Azta Salon, ExLink Events, Minute Burger, Water For Less Purifying System, Tough Brat Bags, and a few more others including Ystilo Salon owned by the actress Vina Morales.

 

The event venue was actually shared with another event, I think an Expo for OFW's Balikbayans, etc.The organizers occupied a portion of the Megatrade Hall and modified the existing stage to serve as an alternative stage for the FBW Grand Eyeball.

Formed by Tess Chancellor, the FBW group is composed of more than 2000 members. Unfortunately, less than 5 percent attended the event because the group is actually composed of even bloggers based outside the country, and also, other events were done at the same time. Too many events are happening nowadays because Christmas is fast approaching and almost everyone else is having their own group Christmas Party.

There were a lotof familiar faces and a few new faces. Gosh! I can't really imagine the fact that I've most of them already. ....or is it just because many of the Filipino or Pinoy bloggers do not really mingle with the rest of the blogging community.

Let's take for example the six guys (one was the one who photographed us) seated with me on our table, except for my son who's beside me, I only met two new bloggers here. So that only means that I have not met just 1/3 of the bloggers population.

I had to bring my son with me because one of my sponsors colleague told me that one person couldn't carry the gifts/tokens they were to give me for the FBW Grand Eyeball. But when I got into their office, I was informed there was a confusion and that I only need to carry a few items with me.

So that's it, I'm left with a son to bring along at the party with nothing to do but browse the Internet on the laptop borrowed from a fellow blogger.

A fellow blogger offered to give him a food stub so he could have a meal rather than just share with me. Some iced teas, a few miniature cupcakes, and some sapin-sapin for dessert kept my kid satisfied throughout the evening otherwise he will be asking us to leave early.

I would like to thank Ystilo Salon for providing loot bags for every blogger. The loot bags contained a shampoo and conditioner in a Christmas themed box which says "Merry Christmas".

Ystilo salon is owned by Vina Morales, an ANBS-CBN regular star, and her older sister with husband. We previously had a bloggers event at the Ystilo Salon Greenhills branch and that's where I got to meet her sister, mother and daughter. Too bad Vina could not make it.

We were at Ystilo covering a presentation of winners of their Ystilo Ystylized Make-Over contest open to their regular customers. Four contestants, two boys and two girls, were declared winners.

The event also had a great guest speaker who happens to be one of my co-writers at When In Manila. Jason Cruz of MRM Worldwide shared with us some tips and guidelines in blogging. Many learned a lot from the guy, and hope he gets to share more to us even online. He did promise a reply to all inquiries either on his email or social media accounts.

I won an orange laptop backpack from the raffle courtesy of Tough Brat bags. That's me wearing red. Not to be confused with the admins as the red polo was unintentionally worn out of haste to get some sponsor items from a Makati office all the way to Megamall in SM Mandaluyong.

I also would like to thank a few friends especially the two people beside me (left and right) for sticking with me until I was able to fetch a taxi. The long line of commuters waiting for a taxi caused us to look for an alternative location to find a taxi. It was a bit difficult being late in the evening already and many of the taxis are becoming selective in choosing their passengers.

These guys were with me until my kid and I were able to get a taxi. Thanks guys!