Playing Match Maker

We've been playing match maker for almost a year now. 1 year, 4 events, 80 dates, and 160 participants after, and people ask us, "so, has anybody made it yet?" you know, become couple. and we're like Noooo.... When is this gonna happen?

Elaine and I imagine the first My 20 First Dates couple's wedding in our day dreaming sessions (every Tuesday, haha) We're like, we're so going to call on the press and put up posters everywhere and flyers, and Elaine was gonna give cake as a gift (with our logo) haha. Make a website for them, we'll be so into their wedding... but then poof! nothing has happened

So we're thinking maybe people just aren't updating us? But why?! So here's the deal people.

We're calling the attention of all our previous participants, we're crazy curious about what's up? (maybe we should do a reunion edition or something?) Please holler us, call us, email us, text us, send us smoke signals, tell us what's happening!!!

Anyone who has come together because of our event we will be so honored, if you allowed us to have dinner with you, ON US! :)

Singles' Summer Night -- Our 4th Speed dating Event

After 2 months of hibernation, we felt it's about time we do our 4th speed dating event. But it's not like we lost interest in speed dating, we were simply busy with our lives-- renovation in my room and Candie's sister, P, got married last April 26. In short, we had no time to decide on a nice theme for our next speed dating, let alone actually plan it.

During that time, I met with an old friend, L, and she introduced me to this new restaurant behind Starbucks, Banawe. Admittedly, I've never looked beyond Starbucks and upon walking through the alley, CocoAsian Bistro seem to just pop through the scene, it was that unexpected! It has a sort of a fine dining feel to it, or at least a place striving to be a bit more upscale compared to other food establishments in the vicinity.

Candie and I talked to one of the managing owners, R, who happened to be an acquaintance in DLSU. And of course, there were the SOP meetings where we talked about food, budget, space allotment etc. Pretty soon, we found ourselves booking the place for May 16.
what would you like for dinner?

And as usual, we love doing "extra" work. By that I mean improvements on various seemingly unnecessary stuff. It took us almost the whole afternoon trying to redo our vectors, changing the font in our kit, colors for our name tags...pretty much those stuff that our participants might not have notice, but actually improves the total package of our events. Amidst that, we collected participants and were extremely delighted that some of our previous participants joined yet again (3rd time already!). "nicer" tops

There was a slight downpour on the night of the event and a number of people were late but a whole lot were early...as in 30 minutes early! Candie and I haven't even changed into our nice tops yet (!?). Anyhoo, our registration now is a zip! Primarily because the name tags are already printed and we were able to put names on the faces on ALL our participants. Some were obviously pleased, albeit a bit surprised, with our little effort and it made for an interesting first meeting. The night happily wore on smoothly with a lot of ding!ding!ding! and "..next date please..", which is really the fun part! Soon, everyone got to have their 20 first dates and was more relaxed as they mingled with other singles (take that!).

The Tale of No Ethics

I was lounging and watching ETC, as I saw Astring-O-Sol's Launch of their Ice Extreme product line. I thought to myself, "wow, that would be a great sponsor! how they relate sore throat with talking too much..." so i saw the name of the brand manager and tried my luck the next day!


I called GSK hotline and tried to talk to the operator, but nobody was answering, and so on my 3rd try, I pressed a random extension number and asked for the brand manager, then magic, i got connected to his office! Wonderful I thought to myself, so i started talking about how we wanted them to be our sponsor, told them how speed dating was related to their product line. The brand manager was excited, he was very, very interested; and so we got them as our sponsor, they gave us P375 worth of products for each participant on their first support. We were so glad to have such a big company sponsor our event. At that time, it was for our Astoria Event.












Our next event came, when we asked for support, they said, "sure, come and pick it up!" and our driver came back with a sando bag filled with small bottles of mouth wash, we thought "hey great, at least they still supported us." We put up their tarpolins inside the event, gave away bottles of mouth wash and put them in the rest room for everyone to use before the date.

A month after that an advertising agency contacted us, apparently, affiliated with Astring-O-Sol, said they are now looking for speed dating companies that could create events for them.(I remember the brand manager telling me that when he pitched that idea to the bosses, they liked to be related to the speed dating market.) We said, Oh! ok.. so you mean you're looking for other speed dating event companies even though the idea came from us? They said yes, as a matter of factly.We sent a proposal, as they requested, and no response came. 3 months later, Elaine saw on a TV advertisement, oh! Astring-O-Sol dating marathon! oh wow, what great idea! and wait! we did not help them organize this event for them. So someone else benefited from our idea. Just as we thought, a competitor.

So I texted the brand manager, "saw you have a speed dating event now, congrats ah!" No reply. Next day, the ad agency called me again, asking for our schedule, they're looking for other speed dating companies again, coincidence?

So i tried visiting their website http://www.astringosol.com.ph/ and saw WOW! my tagline, manipulated:

Left is my poster for the event sent to the brand manager when I solicited for sponsorship. My tagline: Single? Mingle!

Right, Astring-O-Sol's website with a bit of twist on my tagline: Mingle with other singles.

How original!




And then I browsed through their website and saw, guess what! they are holding an event in Moomba!!! Where I held my first event! Moomba is a secluded restaurant that is familiar only to the people who lives near Timog, but the ambiance? perfect for speed dating! Of course they saw our photos in our website!

What can we do then? People who needs to climb the corporate ladder needs to do this. I guess we'll just have to come up with better ideas and not tell people who can benefit from it.

Valentine's in Little Asia

February 28, 2008





We were so excited about Valentine's, we said to each other, WE HAVE TO HAVE A VALENTINE'S EVENT! and so we finally exhausted our Little Asia connection, Charlemagne.


Working with Little Asia was such a breeze, they were sooo accomodating, flexible, delicious AND afforadable (for minute, i sounded like home tv shopping, haha) Anyway, this event was so smooth sailing, it almost bored us! (just kidding)


We started advertising a month before the event, registrants poured in, this event was so great because we even had someone who flew all the way in from Cebu to join our event! It was so cool.

This was the first time we tried to adjust our age group from 22-25 females, 25-32 males to 28-38 females, 30-40 males. This time, it was still for the Filipino-Chinese community. Actually, this is one of our dilemna, or weakness if you may. We, as Filipino-Chinese understands so much how our community works, we're having a great time organizing for this niche market. To the extent that we've contacted, what we call, Astoriaphobia. I think i did not mention this before, Astoria was our only non-filchi event, and then Trillanes happened.


Anyway, we wanted to market our speed dating event, not as LOOOVE HUB perse, but somewhere you just make friends. We thought of the love theme would make people uncomfortable, afterall, it is everyone's First 20 Dates. hehe. We could've gone from heart-shaped balloons, to heart shaped confetti, to heart shaped name tags, ugh, this is making me nauseous. We want us to be a place where you meet new friends, make connections, AND luckily find someone you want to date again!


And so!! That's how Elaine and I got the theme of Black and Red! It doesn't convey that we don't believe in love haha, but at the same time, its not tweetums cute like red and pink. then black, its just cool. We went to buy black and red balloons and decorated the place in black and red! I wore black dress with red earrings, Elaine wore red dress with black leggings! haha sometimes we just get carried away!

People came in, everyone has already deposited they payment so we didn't have to think about collecting the money, the booklets were perfect, everyone was ontime, the food was enough, the drinks were enough, awww... in short, the event was a success! :)

Almost Disastrous Astoria

December 1, 2007

Our second event, in Astoria Plaza was one of the best challenges in our almost year-long career!

Of course November 24, 2007 was apparently the day Mr. Trillanes decided to mess up the whole Metro Manila; thus making the government react in the usual dramic way, CURFEW.

Our event as usual starts at 8PM. At around 2pm, people started texting us, "are we still on for tonight?", "will the event push thru?". Of course it will push thru we answer everyone.

It was a gloomy afternoon, it started raining and it was depressing. We were worried, and irritated.

We got to the hotel at around 5pm, starting to set up. Texts still came in asking if we would push thru, but now, people started to back out. "I'm sorry my mom said i cant go", "do you know there's a curfew? I'm not sure if I can go anymore." My head was spinning.

When we reached the function room, I was overwhelmed. My eyes spotted so many problems! The table setting was ugly, the table cloth was crumpled, crease line all over. They used left over table setting from last night's banquet. gawd, and the worst of all, empty room. I feared that at 8pm, it would still look the same.

I kept my composure, took deep breaths, and continued on working. 1 came, 2 backed out, 2 came, 3 backed out. ugh, I had a hard time swallowing, there was a lump on my throat. There was even a person who came in, looked at the place, and said he had to go home. ugh.

After awhile, a highlight came. My mom's friend brought his sons and daughters!!! oohhh... it was a relief, a bunch of great looking people coming to join my event! haha. People who attended are the ones who were pretty much carefree about whats happening and was just enjoying the moment before everyone had to go home by 12mn.

Ding, Ding, Ding! Date 1 started and continued on..."to the left, to the left" we played the song of Beyonce as we asked the guys to move to the left, to their next date. 10:45pm came and the 15th date ended...

Everyone was so understanding, maybe because there was a coup, people had lowered their expectations, and so they had more fun than what they expected. 25 people met and became friends.

We all felt like Cinderella, scrambling to go home. A sigh of relief came over me, the dark cloud was blown away as we came out of the hotel door. The night is young, but we had to go... I was happy to go, smiling as I drove away.

Giddy Feeling

November 9, 2007

Numerous people have asked us, "what made you want to do speed datingevents?" followed by an almost emphatic question "are you looking forpartners yourselves?" I would very well like to direct to thosequestions as this is my first blog entry to My 20 First Dates. Yay!
Curiously enough, we're not looking for partners. Our drive increating this company is from simply wanting to have an excuse tospend time together, have milk tea and chat.
Well okaay, that's not entirely true because we do a bit more thanthat. We scout for nice venues and try their food. We call up friendsand chat with them. We create our system and spend time makingstickers and stamps. Yes, horrible, this work we have.
But, if there's one thing I want to impart to our detractors (ofcourse we know who you are), it isn't just the system that is workingfor us; what's REALLY working for us is US. We don't get into eachother's nerves because we are already in each other's nerves.
So, go ahead and experience My 20 First Dates with us and see how muchYOU'LL have fun! =)
CHEERS!
P.S. Have you ever had the feeling that you're on to something greatwhen you first came across it? Well, luckily for us, Candie and I did!
Yesterday was a wonderful day in that we think we already found(*fingers crossed*) the perfect venue for our next event! We had thesame giddy feeling of excitement when we first realized where ourfirst event will be held! All I can say is this time it will not beheld in a restaurant, so this is pretty much going to be something newfor us!

I thank you.hyukhyukhyukhyku