I'm grateful for my GPS on my phone. It helps me find my way through all the road works and detours on the highway, as I head south in the dark of night to find Broken People. The blue line in the map on my phone finally ends at my destination, a church on the far side of town from where I grew up. I get out my car and the melody rocks it's way from their jamming session inside, all the way out into the parking lot. I move to the beat as I get my camera out, turn it on and start filming...

Broken People is a 5-piece melodic rock band consisting of Chris "Chuck" Naude, Justin Lawrence, Rob Band, Shaun Stols , Stephen Ghandi Scholtz and Vic Vermaak.

Their hope is to make music that lands at the doorstep of people's hearts, making it all the way there without being bullied by all the stuff that people put in the way.

Their songs are written from personal experience about life, love, being real and are meant to make you think. They also intend to inspire you to focus on what is really important. Oh, and to get you moving!

I ask them about their name. Justin explains that everybody has a brokenness about them from different events in their lives. The band is a bunch of broken people trying to live out what they feel is in their hearts and what they believe. They're about brokenness being ok. They're not perfect, and are going to be what they are- flawed from the start, and hope that their audiences can relate to them better.

I'm at ease in their warmth and genuineness, and laugh at their witty sense of humour. I leave with a feeling of acceptance that their message and music brings, a melody lingering in my mind and with some clear directions on how to find my way home. Directions that help be get back to the highway, where the road works have me doing a few figure of eights until I find myself back on the road heading north towards home.

And I smile - because Broken People are going to be playing at the SWARM Party.

Come listen to their tunes too- Saturday 20 November at the Bluesroom in Village Walk.
VIP Tickets include entrance, a Springleap T-shirt and 2 Castles- book with me.

For more info check out the rocking Facebook event or the meetup event.

The one matchstic SWARM Party is coming along nicely. Over 120 RSVP's and many many more maybe's!

And Jolandie recently organised and donated a whole stack of Glow Sticks for us to SWARM with! Thanks Jolandie, you rock!

image from glowsticks4less.org

We've also got 4 awesome bands lined up:

• Broken People
• Book of Thieves
• Finding Noah
• Mantis Moon

VIP Tickets include 2 free Castle Lager beers and a Springleap T-shirt! (book with me asap)

With all the activities of swarming and listening to the bands and lighting up the room with glow sticks, I think we need a funky, funny, fabulous MC for the evening. Don't you think so too?

So I'm asking if anyone would like to step up and be our SWARM MC for the night? Anyone?

Get in touch (call 0837302979) and we can chat about the details if you are keen :)

Thanks!
SWARMer T

[this was updated 13 Oct with date and venue changes]

The 'matchstick girl attempts South Africa's first ever SWARM Party on 20 November 2010 – a social networking game and social responsibility project rolled into one exciting live event.

Telana Simpson, also known as the 'matchstick girl, has been trading a single matchstick up in value with the ultimate goal of reaching office space, which she wants to offer to start-up entrepreneurs to help them get their businesses off the ground.

She traded a matchstick for a pen, and then swapped the pen for a toy frog, and the toy for two books. The books she traded for two cases of First Sighting wine, and has continued trading up in value. She is currently on her tenth trade which involves trading 375 designer T-shirts from the Cape Town based start-up company Springleap, with 375 people. She believes she will get to her offices in three or four more trades once she has finished her tenth trade.

Telana is holding South Africa's first SWARM Party where she has organised three of South Africa's up and coming bands to play at the Bluesroom, Village Walk . The rock/pop bands are Broken People, Mantis Moon and Book of Thieves. VIP tickets for R183 include one of her Springleap T-shirts and two Castle Lagers sponsored by SAB, plus entry to the SWARM Party.

A SWARM Party is an event that involves the exciting social networking, location based game Foursquare.com, which is new to South Africa but growing very rapidly in popularity.

Foursquare is a free online game with a phone application where you create an account and connect with your friends. When at a venue, you check-in to that venue and can see if any of your friends are there as well, or where they are at that time. You can leave tips and recommendations about the venue and see nearby venues and any specials they are offering. The person who checks-in the most in a two month period to a certain venue becomes the "Mayor" of that venue.

The more things you do on Foursquare, the more points and badges you can earn which are displayed on your profile. The points are also displayed on the Leaderboard so you can see if you are beating your friends or who is in the lead.

A SWARM Party is an offline event where at least 250 people get together to take part in an online Foursquare flashmob at a designated time. They get together to be part of the Crowd Swarm, and all 250 people have to check-in on Foursquare at the venue, within the same hour, to get points and get awarded the coveted "Super Swarm Badge" on their profile.

This one matchstick SWARM Party on 20 November is an opportunity for South African players of Foursquare to unlock the hard-to-get Super Swarm Badge. Telana is going for a record of this SWARM Party being the first in South Africa to unlock the Super Swarm Badge on the African continent, while at the same time helping her finish her tenth trade and get one step closer to making her 'one matchstick office' dream a reality.

Players who want to attend the SWARM Party need to get their VIP tickets from Telana on 083 730 2979 or onematchstick@gmail.com

This is my next BIG step that I've been planning for months! I hope you can come join in the fun?



Join us for South Africa's biggest Swarm Party! It's a foursquare flashmob!

Featuring the bands:

• Broken People
• Book of Thieves
• Harbourlight

Date: Saturday 16 October 2010
Time: doors open 19:00pm, event starts 20:00pm
Venue: Tanz Café Fourways, The Buzz Shopping Centre, Witkoppen Road

R183 on VIP Guestlist, pre-booked (includes trading with me for a Springleap T-shirt (excl delivery), 2 Castle Lagers and free entrance) book with Telana onematchstick@gmail.com or call 083 730 2979

Additional Information:

A Swarm Party involves an online flashmob on foursquare.com (the location-based networking site) that unlocks the coveted and hard to get Super Swarm Badge. The party is a way of 250 or more users checking-in to the party location to collect their virtual badge and points.

The Springleap T-shirts are part of the onematchstick.co.za project, and are couriered to VIP's for an additional R36

Entertainment for the night is a pop-rock extravaganza, featuring:

- Broken People (melodic alternative)
- Book of Thieves (contemporary)
- Harbourlight (melodic rock)

RSVP – Book your VIP ticket with Telana on onematchstick@gmail.com or 083 730 2979

Will you be there?

Join the Facebook event here
Join the meetup.com event here