We unlocked the SWARM Badge (50 people) on Foursquare!

For the first time in Africa!

Yayyy!! Wooohooo!

But unfortunately we didn't get to the Super SWARM Badge (250 people). That we'll unlock at the next SWARM Party.

Thank you to all who got behind the one matchstick SWARM Party, especially our sponsors:

• SAB - Castle Lager
• Jolandie Rust
• Glow Bangles
• Distro Tech
• Poken
• Rabin Harduth of Comic Revolution
• Stan of the Bluesroom

Must get some sleep now, after all that celebrating and listening to the awesome bands!

This must be the longest Prize Giving ever!

Steven Tu won the one matchstick T-shirt Challenge last year, and over the last few months we've been meeting up to give him his prizes.

He won this Swatch Watch donated by my late friend and mentor, Craig, which I gave to Tu when we first met up at a Mugg & Bean last year.

He also won R1000 to spend on bidorbuy.co.za, which Andy gave to him at the Johannesburg Premiere of the one matchstick Movie and Tu has had fun spending it already!

Tim of Poken.co.za gave him his Poken, at a tweetup we had recently in Bryanston.

And he won 3 of his Mission: Not Impossible T-shirts from Springleap.com and a coaching voucher from me.

His Prize Giving hasn't ended yet, though. He's still gets 10 VIP tickets to the Springleap Party- which Springleap will be throwing when I finish trading all the T-shirts.


I've so enjoyed getting to know Tu over all these get-togethers. He's witty, fun-loving, warm and the kind of guy who gets excited about things. Like this bag: he's really, really, REALLY excited about this bag. He's been known to say: "Better to be excited about nothing than have nothing excite you." And I can't help but agree, Tu!

I reckon too that if there would be a person first in line to receive more "time" if someone ever invented a way to give us more hours in a day, it would be Tu. If he's not socialising, working, designing a new T-shirt, travelling, blogging or twittering, he's kickboxing! The only way he managed to finish the design for the Mission: Not Impossible T-shirt was to stay up till the wee hours of the morning.

Which I am so glad he did. Because it's an awesome design. Tu said the last time we met that there are some designs that you just can't imagine on a poster, or billboard, or in a magazine. They only seem to fit on a T-shirt. And that's where he puts them. Check out some of his other designs here, and if you like his latest one on Springleap.com - go vote for it!

Congratulations once again Tu for designing the official one matchstick T-shirt: Mission: Not Impossible, and thank you all your continued support for my project. You rock!

Voting for the official onematchstick T-shirt ended yesterday.

10 designs were submitted, and by golly - each one was unique and brilliant! I want to write more about each of the designs over the next week or two, but for now, a big THANK YOU to all the designers who took part and came up with such creative and wonderful designs. Thank you!!


The top 2 designs were so close to each other, so very close!

It is with great delight that I announce that the winner is Tu's design entitled Mission: NOT Impossible.

So, so close behind this design was Caric's design called Fire works.

Congratulations Tu- you've won the Prize worth R5300, including the R1000 to spend on bidorbuy.co.za

TRADE DAY- 18 September 2009
Today is also the day I've coined "T-shirt Trade Day" and it marks the final stages to my tenth trade. I've received 116 pledges from people saying they will trade with me for one of the 375 springleap.com T-shirts. So I'm looking now for 259 more people to trade with.

The official onematchstick T-shirt is now available as one of the T-shirts to choose from to trade with me. This T-shirt is about to go into production, so if you choose to trade with me for the official onematchstick T-shirt, delivery will take a few weeks. But don't let that stop you- it's an AWESOME T-shirt. And there will be a very limited number made, so this is your only chance to own one. There is also going to be a limited time that this T-shirt will be available too- so you better move fast if you want one.

Back to Trade Day. The 116 people have been patiently waiting for today to trade one of my 375 T-shirts for some of their cash. They've needed the official onematchstick T-shirt to be available, and also the special CODE. So here it is, what you've been waiting for - the code that you need to use in the "coupon" section on springleap.com when you make your purchase, so that Springleap.com can track the sales that are to be counted for my 10th trade on onematchstick, is:

Ha! Would it have been anything else? Remember though, that the code is case sensitive- so make sure you use all small letters and one word.

Contact me when you've made your trade so I can track the progress with my 10th trade. And email or call me on 0837302979 if you have any queries

Thanks!

Again, Well done to Tu! Check out the official onematchstick T-shirt here.

Thanks also go to the fabulous team at Springleap.com for running the competition for me, and to the super duper sponsors for the Prize, being bidorbuy.co.za, springleap.com, and poken.co.za

So the designs are in. They are all listed on springleap.com. And they are all fab!

So fab that you need to help by casting your vote for which one you would wear, so that the most voted for T-shirt will then become the official onematchstick T-shirt.

And the designer of that most voted for T-shirt will win the prize valued at R5300, including the R1000 to spend on bidorbuy.co.za, the poken, the swatch, the coaching, the VIP tickets and the T-shirts!

So to vote all you need to do is:

1. Go to and register with the funky site springleap.com.

2. Make sure you're logged to springleap.com.

3. Click on "vote" from the top menu, or go to the voting page here.

4. In the section "One Matchstick t-shirt design competition" click on one of the onematchstick T-shirt designs - any one for now.

5. If you're logged in, you'll see the voting options: thumbs up- thumbs down and 3 other options in between.

6. Vote by choosing one of the thumbs!

7. It'll then bring up the next design for you to vote for, and keep going until you've cast a vote on each of the designs.

Easy peasy!

You can also leave comments for the designers in the "shout back" section. I'd love to hear your comments, and I'm sure the designers would too!

Cool. So go vote!

Let me know if you have any questions :)

VOTING CLOSES THIS THURSDAY 17th September- because Friday 18th is T-shirt Trade Day- the day I officially start trading the 375 t-shirts with 375 people!

If you don't ask... the answer is 100% "no!"

If you do ask, the odds go to 50% "no", 50% "yes". I asked, and got more yes's than no's.

When I finalised the trade with Eric and Eran, and learnt more about the cool website Springleap.com, I realised that I needed to find an splendid prize for the T-shirt Challenge. Otherwise there wouldn't be much incentive for peeps out there to design a remarkable Tee and enter.

So I started asking people and even put out a tweet saying I was looking for sponsors. One of the things that keeps me going with this project is the warm response I get from people.

5 people stepped forward and answered my question. 5 awesome people!

Eric and Eran offered me 10 VIP tickets to the Springleap Party- the one they are going to hold once we've finalised our trade and they have the voucher for DJ Al.
And they are also throwing in 3 of the winning T-shirts.

Andy offered R1000 to spend on bidorbuy.co.za, and they have a heap of items to choose from.

Tim and Amor of poken.co.za have also donated a poken.

And Craig met me for a drink at Newscafe and threw in the nifty "Disco Vibe" Swatch Watch (Model supb100).

I have also donated a 2 hour breakthrough coaching session, which can be face-to-face or over the phone/skype. After all, if these 5 guys can make contributions to my dream, I'm sure willing to step up too!


So I am delighted to present the prize for the onematchstick T-shirt Challenge. It's a fabulous bundle of things to the value of R5300 and can be enjoyed by anyone in South Africa (and even abroad-you'll just have to come to South Africa for a visit for the party):

• R1000 to spend on bidorbuy.co.za- Africa's largest online market place
• A "Disco Vibe" Swatch Watch
• A poken
• A 2 hour Breakthrough Coaching session
• 10 VIP tickets to the Springleap.com Party
• 3 of the winning T-Shirts

So that's the prize. What are you waiting for? Check out the onematchstick T-Shirt Challenge details here and enter now!

Nikita Ramkissoon waved me down at the last 27 dinner after I gave my 270 second talk on onematchstick, and she asked me lots of questions, scribbling down some notes on a white paper serviette... the same kind of white paper serviette that Magician Marcel used to make a sweet smelling rose for me- not sure how he got the white paper serviette to smell like a rose- but it did! Must be magic.

I asked Nikita if she pokens, but she doesn't poken... yet... so I gave her my matchstick business card instead. Maybe next time I see her I'll give her a fridge magnet.

Today I got an email from Nikita with a link to the Wits Vuvuzela- the Wits Newspaper. She used 2494 characters to tell the tale so far of onematchstick. Being a graduate of Wits, I'm quite chuffed to have found my way into their paper.

She says

Can a matchstick be exchanged for an office? One Johannesburg woman seems to think so. In fact, she's in the process of doing so right now.

And yip- she is so right! I'm in the process right now. Processing along.

You can read the great article here.

Thanks Nikita! And by the way, Rod says hi too, and he hopes to get some road trip invites soon!

And I'm one of the first to own an alien poken! Here's the story.

Don't you just love those evenings that start out with no plans, and unexpectedly turn out to be such great evenings? I had one such evening last night.

Mike sent out a reminder via facebook and Carl on twitter, that the 27diner was happening last night on the 26th because of the cricket today. I happened to be in Sandton finishing off a meeting, so spontaneously decided to pop by Capello's to say hi, planning to just stay for a bit and then head home.

Turns out the format was an unconference, and they were asking for speakers from those who attended to take part, and who would get 270 seconds to share something interesting. Lantz and Christopher put my name down to talk about onematchstick. So it's their entire fault that I own an alien poken now! (PS- Thanks guys :o) )

There were many interesting topics, like Christopher who shared how he manages companies' online reputations, and Heidi who turned off the lights during her talk in support of Earth Hour on Saturday. Lantz shared about all the smells he experiences on his scooter as he zips through the traffic to work every day, and I learnt the story of Madam Zingara from Marcel just before he dazzled us with his magic! We even heard about yummy VitaminWater and I got to sample the orange flavour. Sweeet!

There was a prize for the best speech, and I was voted as the winner! So Tim and Amor of Poken.co.za let me choose my poken and showed me how to work it. I went for this green monster, but the bee and panda bear were cute too!

Poken is a nifty gadget that lets you share your contact and social networking details with others who poken, in just a few seconds. Only thing is I feel like the first person who owned a fax machine must have felt like... So I need you to get a poken too, so when we meet, and I ask "do you poken?" I'll get an excited nod from you and I can show off my little green alien! Ok?

What a great evening- thanks 27dinner, and Poken.co.za for my alien!