On  25 March, 2010, Brum Twestival will take place, raising money for Concern Worldwide as part of Twestival Global for Education. Through the effort, generosity and energy of hundreds of Twitter festivals around the world, we will help give street children an education and lift some of our planet’s poorest children out of extreme and devastating poverty.

A twestival is a festival for people who are on Twitter. It is completely run by volunteers, is 100% for charity and can take any form - from a straightforward party to a series of events or talks.

We’re now looking for volunteers to join the Brum Twestival team to help arrange the event, promote it, sell tickets or give us a hand in any other way you think you can. If you’re interested, comment below, reply to our Twitter account or send us a DM.

The wonderful and talented Mars Elkins filmed some of our Brum Twestival attendees and asked them what Twitter means to them. Check out what they said:

Tom Hall
Jon Bounds
Clare Edwards
Laura Cuttiford
Becky Cadwallader
Kenny Laurie
Julia Gilbert

Thanks to our friends at Nokia, we are pleased to announce the final total raised by Brum Twestival is a massive £1774.29 for Birmingham YMCA! Worked out based on the airmiles from their N86 Tour, Nokia has donated 600euros, which works out as £533.29 to add to the £1241 raised from ticket sales, donations and raffle tickets.

Thank you to everyone for your support!

Thank you to everyone who bought a raffle ticket at Brum Twestival. Here’s the final list of winners:

• Nokia N86 phone - Melissa Dickinson
• Two first class Virgin Rail tickets - Jenny Drew
• A bottle of Champagne - Shona McQuillan
• Photo shoot from Lee Allen - Heidi Blanton
• Classic Motor Show tickets - Richard Cunningham
• Meal for two at Poppy Red - Nat Higginbottom
• Signed Who’s Who of The Archers - Suki Mall
• A case of real ale from Purity Brewing - Nat Higginbottom
• Cupcakes from Kiss Me Cupcakes - Neil Whelan
• Meal for two at the Handmade Burger Company - Jo Thomas
• Two coffees every day for a week and a bag of coffee to take home from Urban Coffee - Wedge
• Electric Cinema tickets - Vikki Chowney
• Original Shona MacQuillan print - Paul Taylor
• £250 eOffice vouchers - Tom Hall 
• Friends of The Stars cover version - Julia Gilbert
• Backstopp data solution - Neil Houston

Thank you to all the organisations and people who donated raffle prizes. If you have any problems claiming your prize, email kate.s.hughes@googlemail.com

Thank you to everyone who came to, helped out at or donated to Brum Twestival. It was a great night and most importantly we raised £1241 for our charity Birmingham YMCA. More money has been pledged from Nokia, once their team has completed their N86 Tour of Twestivals around the world.

Thank you in particular to our sponsors Hello Digital, Aquila TV and Birmingham BEST for their support.

You can check out some pictures taken by our official photographer Lee Allen here. We’ll have a list of raffle winners up in the next couple of days.

We are proud to announce that Birmingham BEST has kindly offered to sponsor part of the drinks package for Brum Twestival.

Birmingham BEST said: “Birmingham City Council’s BEST programme is pleased to be supporting this event and the people attending. We are keen to explore new ways of communicating and engaging both with our staff, and with our digital community. You can see what our staff are up to by checking http://www.birminghambest.co.uk or following @birminghambest.”

Thank you for your support.

Aquila TV have kindly offered to sponsor the food package for Brum Twestival, so if you are coming tonight, you will be tucking into nibbles courtesy of them.

Aquila is a multiplatform production/post-production company combining design, visuals, web and interactive in a creative and innovative way. It has been a feature of the Midlands media scene for the past 15 years. Part of their key focus is to raise Birmingham’s profile as a destination for digital and interactive commissioning.

Aquila is headed up by technical ninja Nat Higginbottom, after taking ownership of the company in 2007. He has diversified Aquila’s services to include  event management, originated production and feature filmmaking. You can follow @aquilatv on Twitter.

A huge thank you to Aquila for their support.

Today is Brum Twestival!

After all the hard work, the phone calls, the meetings, persuading people to give us things and then selling tickets, it will finally kick off at 6pm tonight at The Sence Bar. We have been overwhelmed by the kindness and generosity of everyone who we have dealt with as we’ve been organising Brum Twestival. People have bent over backwards to help us and we are so grateful.

The biggest thank you, though, has to be reserved for everyone who has bought tickets and is planning to come tonight. Thanks to your generosity, the Birmingham YMCA will help transform the lives of homeless people in Birmingham, giving them a brighter future and a fresh start in life.

You can still buy tickets on the website until 5pm today or you can buy them on the door tonight. Tickets are £10, which includes drinks and nibbles. Looking forward to seeing you tonight!

A huge, huge, HUGE thank you to Hello Digital, which has kindly agreed to sponsor Brum Twestival!

Hello Digital 2009 is taking place at Millennium Point in Birmingham on Wednesday 21 October. Themed around being competitive in a digial world, Hello Digital is hosting talks by industry experts and digital champions including Minister for Creative Industries (and MP for Erdington) Sion Simon. It also offers the chance to meet potential funders, talk about new technologies and gain a new perspective on managing your business in a digital age. You can read about what happened at Hello Digital 2008 here.

Members of the Hello Digital team will be at Brum Twestival on the night so you can chat to them about the benefits of going to their event.

We’re still looking for a company to sponsor the food package, at a price of £100. Anyone who is interested contact kate.s.hughes@googlemail.com

Thank you to Lee Allen and Mars Elkins who make up the Brum twestival photography team. Lee, who is also kindly giving away a photo shoot in our raffle, will be taking photos throughout the night and uploading them to Flickr.

Mars has agreed to film the night and we hope to have some of her videos up on our blog as soon as we can. If you have any videos or photos from the night you want to upload just let us know.