Santa Claus Fund Online Auction Website

The Medicine Hat News Santa Claus Fund is having an online auction starting today and finishing on December 16th. I previously posted about their new website and now we have an online auction version of their site as well. It seems like more and more organizations and charitable services in the city are taking the plunge and going digital, sometimes exclusively; however, you still have to come pick up your items at the Medicine Hat News building – in person!

There’s tons of items up for bidding (over 50) by many sponsors all throughout the city. Many local companies and businesses have graciously donated services and inventory to the Santa Claus Fund in hopes of making money for the organization. As many know, the Santa Claus Fund gives back to local needy families and individuals during the Christmas season, but also throughout the whole year. As with any online auction, be weary of those last minute bidders that snatch up your items!

At the end of bidding and if you are the winner of any item(s), you are able to pay via PayPal, or you can pay with cash/debit/credit card in person when you pick up your item(s) at the Medicine Hat News building.

Santa Claus Fund Auction Website

New look for the Santa Claus Fund website

Lately, I’ve been trying to get around to featuring all the new local websites that have been popping up lately, but it’s really hard writing about all of them on a weekly basis now. It almost seems like around 2 or 3 of them pop up per week – I guess I am not helping the situation either, as it’s part of my profession, haha.

This week we have a new website for the Medicine Hat News Santa Claus Fund (Society). The logo was designed by local design studio, December 2nd, while the website was created and designed by TriCube Media for a Medicine Hat News organization. It’s great when three local companies can come together and develop something; albeit, TriCube Media and Medicine Hat News were already working together. The website URL has also changed over to “mhsantafund” rather than the obscure “mhscf”.

A great section of the site is the event section which is a huge list of events taking place as part of the Santa Claus Fund. The 17 or so events are all happening from July to December and most of them are recurring yearly. Hopefully we can even post a couple of them on Medicine Hat Media when they are near. There was a full story about the make-over posted in the Medicine Hat News today.

All information about the organization can be found on the new website.

Medicine Hat News Santa Claus Fund Society Website

Newly designed logo

Although I’m a tad bit late on this, TriCube Media, local web design and development company has released their new website a long with a new logo and branding effort. TriCube Media has also recently celebrated its fifth year running.

For those of you unaware, TriCube Media is The Medicine Hat New’s web department that branched out as its own company years ago and started servicing their own clients as well. TriCube Media also offers web advertising, company branding and other design related production. TriCube Media currently has offices and representatives in Medicine Hat, Lethbridge, Thunder Bay, and Kelowna.

The new website focuses on a clean and simple aesthetic with a bit of “corporate” feel to it (the stark white areas) offset by some colorful and bright backgrounds. The logo follows that same function but mixes “technology-esque” typography with a simple, yet iconic visual logo playing with the idea of illusion for introducing the “three cubes” as showcased in the intro video on the home page.

TriCube Media home page

Some of you may know that I currently work for TriCube Media and was largely responsible for the outcome of the design and development on both the website and the new branding.

Sean has said that he wants to do a post or round-up of all the web design companies within the city, so make sure to stay tuned for that if you are interested in this kind of post. We will probably also feature each company separately at some point – kind of like this post, but more focused on the company itself rather than if it launched a new site.

TriCube Media website

Medicine Hat News

This can be filled under the “duh” category. The Medicine Hat News website is a great source of free local news. For a bit more, you can subscribe to the digital or physical version of the paper to get more news and events. Typically, less than half of the news gets put online that is in the actual subscription versions which a lot of people surprisingly don’t know. Some places of relevant interest on the site include:

Local News
Top News

102.1 The Lounge CJCY-FM

102.1 The Lounge’s news section on their new website features local news stories as reported by a small team of four including: Joe McFarland, Christy Mitchell, Steve Krysak and Harv Speers. There is quite a few good stories posted every so often and typically 2-3 stories go up every workday. They are usually pretty short, but nice and to the point. As of right now I can’t figure out how to see previous news stories as the news page only shows the 15 last news stories with no option of going further back. Either way, a good free news resource.

CJCY News

Medicine Hat Police Service

With a new re-vamp to their old site, getting police reports has never been easier. Obviously, whether or not this actually counts as real “news” is up for debate; however, it becomes an invaluable tool when doing any kind of research or getting police facts from any other news report about any incident. Their archives also go back to 2006 which is really nice.

2009 Releases
2008 Releases

CHAT TV

Medicine Hat’s own CHAT TV posts a select few video news stories online via their own website and on YouTube for your viewing pleasure. The videos range from topics on bylaws, interviews, breaking news, community events and more.

News Video Archive
CHAT TV on YouTube

2009 Medicine Hat Stampede & Exhibition

With the 2009 Medicine Hat Stampede & Exhibition well under-way, many are excited for this weekend when they will get the chance to visit the Exhibition portion of the event. The grounds officially opened today at noon. The festivities began with a pancake breakfast served at the Medicine Hat Lodge from 7AM to 10AM this morning where an estimated 2,500 people attended. There’s also another breakfast coming up on Friday if you missed this one – make sure you get the details in the guide supplied below.

Many people (like myself), wait until the weekend to enjoy all the festivals. This year it will be running until the 25th (Saturday). There’s plenty to do including rides, shopping, sightseeing, and don’t forget to spend a couple dollars trying to win overpriced stuffed animals! I’m a sucker for those coin pushing games, I probably spent like 25 dollars last year on them. How could I forget about the food? With a concession and/or food and drink place every couple steps you are sure to get your “eat” on. Some of my favourites include the real lemon aid stand with a side of Elephant Ears! Mmmm…

Already concluded in this years festivities was the Stampede Queen Contest, won this year by Candice Wutch followed up by Stacey Kading (crowned princess), and Cymara Shock. The event was on Saturday, July 18th and you can check out the Medicine Hat News video on the event here. Another one already finished is the annual Visual Arts Show which I sadly didn’t enter this year due to time. Dusty didn’t enter this year either; however, she won 1st place last year. I’ll post the results of that event here when I find them out. Most of the works should still be up though for viewing in the Cypress Centre – don’t quote me on that though.

There’s really too many events and things going on to talk about here though. If you want anymore information, please be sure to check out the official website, or grab yourself a PDF copy of the Stampede Event Guide 2009. Careful with the PDF. There’s some huge complex artwork included in it that brought my computer to a slowed halt. *Update* Alternatively, you may view Medicine Hat Media’s compressed computer-safe version here.

Official Medicine Hat Stampede & Exhibition Website (brace yourself for loud Country music)

Stampede starts on full stomach – Medicine Hat News by Alex McCuaig

Ticked Off
I’m ticked off at the placement of the pap test ads. First they were next to a headline talking about student accomplishments, then beside a muffin. Appetizing. Now they’re a Canada Day treat. What a fantastic way to celebrate Canada Day.

I more or less read the paper everyday, but mostly just the headlines so I didn’t see what he or she was talking about days earlier. I flip the page back over, and see the following:

Talk about unforunate ad placement, it’s even worse than the location he or she described, especially since the arrow in the ad points to “Salmon”. I know most of this stuff is fairly automated or at least not a conscious decision by the layout person, but, sheesh…

The Gas City? - Original Photo by Mitch Woods via Flickr

To those of you who haven’t been following this, several weeks ago, Mayor Norm Boucher told the Medicine Hat News’ Amanda Stephenson that he was thinking of trying to re-brand Medicine Hat; he described that the current slogan and marketing might not be giving us much credit in terms of recognition. He also brings up the point about how Medicine Hat is ranked 82nd out of 157 best places to live in Canada which he postulates might be a matter of “how we sell ourselves”.

There’s been a huge uproar over this in both the comments section and in the Ticked Off & Tickled Pink sections on the Medicine Hat News. The majority of which are personal assaults against Norm Boucher – real mature, guys/gals.

Released today in a Medicine Hat News story by Amanda Stephenson, the slogan will officially stay “The Gas City” after the much criticism against the change. The votes against the change was unanimous by the Medicine Hat Aldermen who meet last night to settle the fate of the slogan.

While I understand the heritage and long standing culture behind the slogan, does it really represent what Medicine Hat is now or where it is going in the future? If we are keeping it for the sake of tradition then what’s the point of a slogan that doesn’t describe the place that you live accurately. I originally moved here from Regina, “The Queen City” and even though I am attached to the slogan and heritage behind it, It doesn’t represent it anymore – its slogan, like Medicine Hat’s becomes functionless nostalgia. I’m a little bit torn on the whole thing.

Rebranding the Gas City – Medicine Hat News
Gas City slogan to stay – Medicine Hat News
Mitch Woods’s Photostream @ Flickr

Also, keep in mind, as posted earlier, The Farmer’s Market will officially open Saturday as well. Looks like I got lots of shopping to do tomorrow!

Medicine Hat Menus Logo

Quite a few restaurants (30+) are listed but there is also some that aren’t – most of these places that aren’t listed are chains or corporations. Medicine Hat Menus is more about local food and restaurants and big chains probably don’t see any value in a site like this – but I still think they should at least take advantage of it. I think it’s a great service and probably more useful than any traditional advertising restaurant owners in the city use; however, Medicine Hat Menus also promotes itself and its clients in the Medicine Hat News newspaper (physical print advertising) and on the Medicine Hat News website through skyscraper ads which really justifies the cost. I’ve also spotted some promotions in hotel and motel room directory books, catering to out of town people. I’ll also say while I am involved in the design and development of the project, I do personally believe in it 100% and I also just struck a partnership (link exchange) between our sites.

Medicine Hat Menus

Since YouTube is the video God of the Internet, and Vaughn and I are no exception in having accounts to upload videos, I set out to find some prime Medicine Hat YouTube accounts, so here they are:

MHCVideo is my user account I made to upload not only my own videos, but videos from the Video I and II class I was in during college, so there are also a few student videos to view.

Drathy is Vaughn’s user account (one of his internet pseudonyms), mostly used to upload his own videos done in college, as well as gaming videos that synergize with one of his websites, The Gamer’s Journal

Bent Radio is the user account for someone that was in First Year when we were in Third Year. His name is Matt and that is about all I know regarding him. He has a funny video though that we saw at the Video Show in December-ish.

The Newsom Brothers generally do short 10-45 second videos regarding a lot of questionable stuff. Pretty funny if you are not grossed out easily.

And some others:

Medicine Hat College Campus
Medicine Hat Blog
Medicine Hat News
Tiger’s Hockey
Kim Johnston
Chat TV

Some featured videos after the jump:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFInEkCJS-E

www.youtube.com/watch?v=czvgnapVi9M

www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDgKUvwnZaE