G&G around town this November

Where can you find unique gift ideas like tangrams, funky monogram gift tags, retaso stuffed bears, and monster dolls? At G&G of course!

Check out all these great items and more at Gifts and Graces. Unable to go to our Mile Long showroom? Visit us at one of the bazaars we're joining. This November G&G will be at Rockwell, Greenhills, Eastwood, PICC Manila, and the British school. Check out our calendar below and mark your own calendars for when and where you're going to visit us. Check this space every now and then for new bazaar schedules. See you!

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Wedding Gift Ideas

It's almost December and aside from Christmas, December in the Philippines also means wedding season! Nowadays couples are very hands on about planning their wedding. Wedding themes these days are very creative and are designed to make the wedding unique, memorable, and very personal.

One of the emerging trends that is fast gaining in popularity is an advocacy-themed wedding. Couples who have advocacies such as going green, supporting livelihood communities, or buying fair trade, like to incorporate these advocacies in their choice of invitations such as using soy ink instead of regular ink, and their giveaways. 

We at G&G are always happy to meet these couples and help them with their giveaway needs. Here are some great wedding giveaway ideas for a fair trade wedding!

• Make a good first impression with this shantung invite jacket with brocade band. 
• Give your guests funky re-usable coffee sleeves to make even coffee drinking a reflection of their personality
• Give your bridesmaids these beautiful bag charms to say thank you for their help throughout the wedding preparations. 
• Give your discriminating principal sponsors beautiful matching passport holders, checkbook holders, and luggage tags 
• Give travel candles made out of soy wax to your groomsmen. These are housed in tin cans so you can bring them wherever you go. Available in vanilla, cinnamon, and lavander.

Call us today for more gift and giveaway ideas that we can personalize for you.

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Conversations

At the Partner's Conference. Mike facilitates with
Darlyn Ty and Anurag Goel

Earlier this month we posted part 1 of this Conversation with AYAD volunteer Michael Golsworthy who, like Chiqui Go, shared his thoughts on volunteerism. For our second Conversation, we ask Michael more questions about his stay in the Philippines. Here Michael gives us a unique perspective from someone who enjoyed his 8+ months both in G&G and travelling the country on weekends!

G&G: What are two interesting things about the Philippines that the average person doesn't know?

MG: 1. The Philippines is the undiscovered jewel of South East Asia for travellers. Before working in the Philippines I'd never thought about travelling there, but as soon as I landed that stormy Friday night I realised it was a country I'd have fun exploring. The fun and friendly reception from our Filipino volunteer coordinators, the colourful jeepneys weaving through the traffic blaring out MC Hammer and Justin Bieber and the karaoke on arrival at the hotel.. And it only got better from there. From the great people to the stunning beaches, the perilous volcanoes to the fantastic festivals.. the Philippines has a lot to offer those who venture past the traditional holiday destinations of Thailand and Vietnam.

2. Manila is actually a pretty cool city. Much like my home city of Melbourne, you won't see the highlights of Manila in a tourist brochure. It takes work to hunt out the gems in this chaotic metropolis, like the great live music scene which seems to thrive solely by word of mouth.

G&G: Did anything go wrong that seems funny now?

MG: Most of my favourite travel stories start with something going wrong... While visiting the island of Siquijor, I had a bit of a motor bike accident, when a stray basketball from a game by the side of the road almost went under my wheel.. After riding all the way back to the hotel in second gear with potentially broken left foot, I had to race to the boat, then the hospital in Dumaguete to try to get an xray before my flight was leaving for Manila. I got the all clear 40 minutes before my flight was due to depart, so given you have to check in 45 minutes before the flight time, I didn't bother trying to make it and went to an internet cafe to book another flight. 20 minutes later I got a call from my friends at the airport telling me to get on a tricycle and get to the airport the airport staff said not to worry about the 45 minute check in rule... I got to the airport with 30 seconds to spare and ran/hopped all the way to the plane late and holding everyone up... and then a little behind me a filipino guy moseyed on up to the check in counter, checked in his bag and walked on the the plane, relaxed as you like... Apparently I hadn't quite adjusted to Filipino time in the provinces.

G&G: What was the best moment of the entire experience/trip?

MG: Too many to mention...

At work: Facilitating the strategy workshop with the board and working with the team to pull off a great marketing and sales event across the SM malls.

Around Manila: Dancing the night away at a Bruno Mars concert

On holidays: Swimming with a whale shark in Donsol, rock climbing up waterfalls outside of Moalboal and joining the fun for a couple of brilliant town festivals.

G&G: What did you learn about yourself?

MG: That I should avoid basketballs..

From L-R: Darlyn Ty, Greg Perez, Michael Golsworthy,
Jonalyn Dupa, Marge Obligacion, Nanding Regalado

G&G will be at the Yabang Pinoy global PINOY Bazaar!

Filipino Brands Get Bigger and Better at Global Pinoy Bazaar 2011


Yabang Pinoy—the pioneering Filipino Pride movement known for fun, creative, and contemporary Filipino pride projects and events—constantly strives to convert Filipinos into shouting proud Pinoys.


Now, Yabang Pinoy is out to prove that Filipino brands are getting bigger and better with the Global Pinoy Bazaar 2011, a showcase of local products made with 100% Filipino Love and Pride, on November 5-6, 2011 at the Rockwell Tent. The organization encourages everyone to put the Filipino First and patronize home-grown ideas, products, and services. Global Pinoy Bazaar 2011 is zoned into Fashion, Pinoy Art and Design, Music, Tropical, and Home and Travel.


Mark your calendar now for the best Filipino Christmas shopping experience. Visit the G&G booth to see unique items that are not only Filipino made but proudly made by livelihood communities supported by Gifts and Graces! Call us today for more information. 

Social Enterprise: The Next Business Model

On October 20 and 21, I attended the Social Enterprise Conference organized by the Peace and Equity Foundation (PEF) together with Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP),  Management Association of the Philippines (MAP), League of Corporate Foundation (LCF), and PinoyME Foundation held at the Intercontinental Hotel. 

The Conference brought together social enterprises, NGOs, People's Organizations, Cooperatives, and big business in a two day forum of sharing experiences, dialogue, and determining next steps. It was great to see old faces and meet new practitioners in the field. The social enterprise space is growing and the conference was a great way to start building an ecosystem of support, from the ground level to the "industry" level, to enable social enterprises to continue to grow and flourish.

All the sessions were informative and provided a lot of insight. The forum opened strong with the Keynote address by the father and son team of Ramon Uy Sr. and Ramon Uy Jr. who shared their journey from manufacturing spare parts for sugar mills to putting up RU Foundry that creates appropriate technology machines for smallholder farmers, to creating Fresh Start Organics. 

Thanks to Ms. Gisela Tiongson Executive Director of Jollibee Foundation, for mentioning Gifts and Graces in her presentation on the landscape of social entrepreneurship in the Philippines. Gisela shared Jollibee's inspiring initiative to open their supply chain to farmers in Nueva Ecija.

One of the speakers that made an impact on the audience was Rico Gonzales, Managing Director of X Change. Rico talked about the 5Ms of social entrepreneurship and shared a tool he uses for visually representing our social enterprise models at www.businessmodelgeneration.com. It looks like a great tool to understand, review, and tweak business models to ensure that we are able to deliver value to our clients. Rico also made a very compelling case for scaling up, both for impact and sustainability, and scaling up fast or else risk not being able to achieve the impact we want.

Finally in the last session facilitated by Dan Songco, Executive Director of PinoyME Foundation, PinoyME, PBSP, and PEF shared their initiatives for continuing to encourage social entrepreneurship. Read our blog post about the People Powered Markets initiated by PinoyME in February on the occassion of their 5th year anniversary. Dan then opened the discussion to suggestions from the floor. 

My own suggestion was to look at how we can respond to social enterprises' HR needs and challenges. It is imperative that we build the team right, and as we grow, we need to find the right people for G&G. Ateneo de Manila has several programs to offer social entrepreneurship as an alternative career to undergraduates. Perhaps PinoyME can add a jobstreet for social entrepreneurs portal in its People Powered Markets website. 

For those of us already in an SE I think continued executive education, such as the MAGIS workshop the Ateneo GSB conducted for G&G and our partners, and the Social Enterprise Management Training Program conducted by Fundacion Codespa and the University of Asia and the Pacific will help ensure that SEs are able to build the necessary HR capabilities for growth and scale. 

Overall I learned a lot at the conference and with initiatives like this, it is hoped that social entrepreneurship model will one day become the norm. Kudos to the organizers. I'm looking forward to the next one!

-Greg