Opera Campus Crew Blog

The SoCCSKSarGen Bloggers is a group of more than 150 bloggers from the provinces of South Cotabato, Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, Sarangani, and the cities of Cotabato and General Santos. The group includes some of the top bloggers in Mindanao (the second largest island in the Philippines), as well as some of the most respected personalities in the region. The land area of SoCCSKSarGen, otherwise known as Region 12, spans 18925.55 square kilometers and has a population of 3,829,081.

Last 21 December 2009, the group had its First Photojournalism Workshop and Christmas Party at the very beautiful and serene The Farm at Carpenter Hill in the City of Koronadal (another announcement link HERE). The venue and the sponsorship of the food for the bloggers was arranged by Mr. Gilbert Tan, a Management instructor at the Mindanao State University-General Santos and the author of KnowRead/KnoWrite.

The Opera Campus Crew Philippines saw this as a great opportunity to publicize Opera through the blogs of the attendees, and convince people to switch to better, faster and safer browsing with Opera through the blogs that reach thousands of visits a day, collectively. The event was organized by Mr. Avel Manansala, a multi-awarded blogger from General Santos City and Mr. Orman Manansala, author of gandaeversomuch.com. The resource speaker for the day is Jojie Alcantara, a famous writer for several magazines, a photographer, TV and events host and an artist.

The day kicked off with the introduction of the participants one after the other. See photos here, courtesy of Mr. Orman Manansala of gandaeversomuch.com. After the brief introductions, Ms. Jojie Alcantara took the centerstage to take the attendees to the very exciting world of photojournalism, and how it can be applied in blogging. After the very engaging lecture, all hands were wanting to fiddle with their cameras to make good use of what they have learned during the lecture. But before the shooting spree, a very filling lunch was served, sponsored by The Farm at Carpenter Hill. After the sumptuous meal, it was time for the Opera Campus Crew to do their thing. Both myself and Xyrilloid are members of the SoCCSKSarGen Bloggers. I did a short presentation about Opera Software and its Products using the provided slideset and a little bit of information on Web Standards and why Opera promotes for such standards, while Xyrilloid gave a demonstration on the cool and unique features of Opera 10.

After the presentation, we then proceeded to the Christmas party and the raffling of prizes! The Opera Campus Crew gave pens, stickers and notepads as giveaways for all attendees. After the raffle, we were given an hour to take photos that will promote The Farm. Most of the bloggers were armed with DSLRs, while Xyrilloid and I had to be contented with the 5-megapixel LG Viewty KU990 mobile phones given by Opera when we were awarded Gold Level membership for the January-June 2009 semester. We were tasked to give five photos that will serve as our entries for the contest for the best photos for the day. At stake are prizes from the speaker, the sponsors, and Opera Software. Three lucky participants each received Browse Me shirts from the crew.

In addition, some of the participants are students from the Mindanao State University and the Notre Dame of Dadiangas University (a university in General Santos City). The event sparked their interest in joining the Opera Campus Crew. In fact, some had even signed up as early as today!

The participants really had a great time specially with the great food, wonderful venue, and the stuff they received from the sponsors, other participants, and the Opera Campus Crew. It was a succesful participation and sponsorship of the Opera Campus Crew Philippines to the SoCCSKSarGen Bloggers' Photojournalism Workshop and Christmas Party and we look forward to more activities by the SoCCSKSarGen Bloggers and the Opera Campus Crew Philippines!

The event was sponsored by Mr. Orman Manansala of Asia United Bank, GenSan News Online Mag, The Farm, SMART Communications and Opera Campus Crew.

More photos here.

Photo 1 courtesy of Frances Baja, author of burstimpression.blogspot.com.
Photo 2 courtesy of Kristan Jan Quiñal Franco, author of kristanfranco.blogspot.com.
Photo 3 by myself, author of DeBlogged.co.cc.
Photos 4 and 8 courtesy of Hector Miñoza, author of www.heckynomic.com.
Photos 5 and 7 courtesy of Orman Manansala, author of gandaeversomuch.com.
Photo 6 courtesy of Ariel Marco Oclarit, author of redeemed-spirit.blogspot.com.