The date has changed! 19 - 21 March 2010!

Hear ye! Hear ye! Hear ye! With the date gremlins playing havoc with the City's diary, we double-booked ourselves with the Argus if we hold the Carnival from 12 - 14 March 2010... We wouldn't want all the cyclist fanatics to miss out on the biggest party to hit Cape Town for the year!

So we've reshuffled the diaries and now have official City permission to hold the Carnival on 19 - 21 March 2010. The aim is to have the annual Carnival on the 3rd weekend of March every year, in between the Argus, the North Sea Jazz Festival and the Two Oceans.

The bonus of 2010's date is that Sunday, 21 March is a public holiday, which means that the Monday will be a public holiday! So for all the people from the North, that means that you can stay for a looooong weekend!

So put the date in your diary... you do not want to miss this!

finding a logo that says it all...

with our bank coffers still empty we needed a logo to be designed and approached some of our colleagues and friends that we've worked with before to assist with some pro bono work...

the one was almost ready to get married, another was on maternity leave, one wanted to start her own business and another was running her own business... but they all pitched in and came up with amazing ideas.

here's a pick of some of the beautiful designs we had to choose from:

After some extensive elaboration we decided upon the one with the heart.

The graphic designer, Kurt Samson from Itopia (www.itopia.co.za) designed the winning design in the early hours of the morning. This is what he had to say about it: "I've loosely used the colours of the City of Cape Town to create the Cape Town Carnival logo. I change the colours slightly to be brighter and sharper, so that the overall logo becomes more colourful and exciting.

The coloured strokes leading to the stars represent our diverse cultures all originating from a single source, the heart of Cape Town, and all being allowed to sparkle at this spectacular event.

I've used the black table mountain (as used in the City Logo) because it is the most identifiable landmark of Cape Town. No other landmark can compete with this icon.

I've brought one added colour into the design, the colour of the year. This colour would change each year, but its tone should be bright and festive. The year also becomes the base of the design, holding all the other elements together."

We want to thank Kurt, Anne-Mart Swanepoel (Option A), Rache Kitching and Suki Locke (www.jaggeddaisy.co.za) for their contributions. We are really thankful!

.... so where dit it all start for me...

a call from Rachel Jafta on a Friday afternoon 18h30... "you know that Koos and I are busy with community projects".. "mmm no"....

"Well, we went to Rio and realised there is nothing like that in Cape Town that brings together rich and poor, young and old, from all walks of life and Koos Bekker (CEO of Naspers) said: 'Why don't we have something like this in Cape Town?" explained Rachel and everyone else said "Why don't we?" and on returning to Cape Town he phoned Rachel and asked her to put together a trustee team.

They went and saw Executive Mayor Helen Zille and she loved the idea... and then Rachel realised that she needed someone to drive this as all the trustees had full-time jobs.

And that's where I came into the picture. With a background of project management, business, marketing and communication strategy, a passion for the creative arts and technology, Rachel thought that I'd fit the job description.. the one that was still forming in her head!

and that is how I became the CEO for Cape Town Carnival.

Mostly everyone we talk to takes a while to understand what we would like to achieve, then gets very excited and then tells us that we're all rave starking mad to undertake this... but all still stay excited... So here's to the Cape Town Carnival... why not!