Gift wrapping ideas

- Use fabric with yarn or strands of raffia for awkward-shaped gifts
- Line re-used boxes with coloured tissue paper (instead of white) and put your homemade treats & goodies instead for a lovely hostess gift
- Buy a holiday mug (Dollar Store, IKEA, Canadian Tire) – place small items inside like chocolate covered pretzels, Christmas tree ornament, or candles
- Wrap baskets in cellophane with beautiful festive ribbon or add a Christmas ball for colour
- Have kids paint, colour, or decorate poster paper to wrap gifts for grandparents, teachers and aunts/uncles
- Use photos of your little ones pasted on their gifts to identify each one – even if they can’t read their name, they’ll recognize the gift is for them by their picture
- Re-use wine bags for skinny or cylindrical shaped gifts
- Comics & other coloured newspaper makes great gift wrap
- Send your special someone on a scavenger hunt to find their gift – start with a card with a clue, and proceed with a series of clues around the house until they find the hidden treasure
- Make Christmas fun and be creative!!

Wishing you all Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year!
Renata Altrão & The Gatherings Team

Setting the perfect Holiday Table

• Start with a simple table cloth (white cotton or linen) – ensure it’s clean, crisp, and ironed
• Add a festive holiday centerpiece – green branches with red & white berries surrounding a large candle
• Look for themed holiday plates – Canadian Tire, Costco, or Home Sense
• Use festive holiday paper napkins to match plates or cloth with a holiday ribbon or beautiful silver napkin ring
• Always use your best flatware and glassware – you’ve been saving it all year, now’s the time to use it!!!
• Silver salt & pepper shaker or source a holiday set featuring bells, angels or snowmen
• If your table is big enough, bring your serving platters, gravy boat, and bowls to the table – it’s always nice to have a “Family” style meal at the holidays
• Place small votive candles (Red or White) in clear glass containers
• Finally use a gold glitter pen to write place cards for each seat
• Sit down & ENJOY!

Wishing you all Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year!
Renata Altrão & The Gatherings Team

Green Event Planning

Whether you’re planning a family reunion, an annual meeting for your workplace, or a community-wide festival, make it a more environmentally friendly event.
Planning a green event takes a little more time and effort, but the rewards are great. You will have the satisfaction of knowing that you’ve conserved resources, reduced landfill waste, and shown a commitment to preserving a sustainable quality of life for our community and our world.

Best of all, you will provide a model for others to follow. Your family, neighbours, customers, clients, and community members will note with approval that you have taken the time to ensure that your event is environmentally friendly.

Top 10 Ways to Make Your Meeting Environmentally Responsible

1. Write It Up
Create an environmental statement or policy for the meeting as simple as, "We commit to minimize the environmental impact of our meeting by increasing the use of recycled materials wherever possible, reducing the amount of solid waste and disposing of waste responsibly." Be sure to get sign-off from hosts and suppliers.

2. Go Paperless
Using Web technology can cut paper use dramatically. A simple Web site for the conference can offer registration and confirmation. Email can serve advertising needs.

3. Meet Close
Insofar as possible, minimize the average distance that participants must travel. Choose venues close to the airport and within walking distance.

4. Reduce, Reuse and Recycle
Ask your hotel and meeting venue to provide visible and accessible reduction, reuse and recycling services for paper, metal, plastic and glass.

5. Avoid Individual Servings
Use bulk dispensers for sugar, salt, pepper, cream and toppings.

6. Choose Green Hotels
Choose a hotel that offers a linen reuse program and bulk dispensers for shampoos and soaps in guest suites.

7. Eat Green
Include vegetarian options, and use caterers willing to provide locally produced foods in season.

8. When You Must Print…
Print all materials on earth-friendly papers, using vegetable-based inks, and use both sides of every page if possible.

9. Lights Out
Make sure that lights and air conditioning are turned off when rooms are not in use.

10. Inform, Instruct, Inspire
Tell participants and speakers about the "green" commitment of the meeting. Include verbiage on printed items and table tents.

Check here more tips of how to make your own green event!

Renata Altrão & The Gatherings Team

FastLane Gadgets and Tech - Woo Buffet and Restaurant

FastLane had its last networking event of 2009 at Woo, an Asian buffet restaurant right in the heart of the city.

With the theme being gadget and tech, there were presentations from many companies, including Palm, iLane, Belkin accessories, Hi-Tech Tattoos and Showcase TV. People could mingle with the industry's best while enjoying gadgets.

Hi-Tech Tattoos were there to personalize people’s mp3 players and phones and iLane showcased their GPS-sized bluetooth device which reads out emails from one’s smartphone.

Door prizes included: WiFi Personal Hotspot, iLane device ($399 value), $100 Hi-Tech tattoo gift certificate, just to name a few.

It was a great tech experience with the opportunity of networking with a variety of professionals.

Stay tuned! Check the website for upcoming FastLane events.

We hope to see you all at our next event on January 19th!
Renata Altrão & The Gatherings Team

Photos by Anthony Parazo