HELL YEAH PRINCE GEORGE
OCTOBER 2015
HYPG
CONTENTS A Win/Win Opportunity Meet your HYPG Admin Team HYPG Inception Hell Yeah Ambassador Award 30 Days of HYPG Awesomeness
Helping Women in Need Why Or Why Not? How it All Started It’s a Compliment to be Replicated Feeding the Neighbourhood Selling Chocolate to Raise Funds for BC Children’s Hospital Hell Yeah Cash Mobs Started by HYPG and Chamber Hell Yeah Social Media Model 100 Days of Giving Hell Yeah to HYPG Partners The Future of HYPG
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Join us on Facebook! facebook.com/HellYeahPrinceGeorge Cover photo winner Shawn Haines This product is produced by
Hell Yeah Prince George in partnership with
Thank you to the members, businesses and volunteers who support Hell Yeah Prince George, and make it a shining example of how much this city has to offer.
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PAGE 4 HYPG A dmi n tea m part n e r w it h t h e C itizen
A WIn/WIN OPPORTUNITY The HYPG Admin Team and I are extraordinary happy to partner with the Prince George Citizen on the exciting initiative of creating and releasing the first ever HYPG Magazine. An opportunity like this allows for the substantial amount of positive energy, beautiful imagery and phenomenal posts witnessed on HYPG to be showcased through Northern British Columbia’s premier print medium. This is why partnering with the Prince George Citizen is a win/win. Many people recognize me as the founder of the Hell Yeah Prince George Facebook Group. Although I did start the page in March 2014, I did not “create” it. That honour belongs to the dedicated HYPG Admin Team and all the members who believe in the City of Prince George and continuously recognize it as the perfect community to live, work and play. I would like to take this
time to thank every single HYPG member for your various contributions to the page since its inception, whether it’s a post, like, share or simple browse down the feed. HYPG has put smiles on many past, current and future Prince George residents’ faces and we sincerely hope the page has had a positive influence in your life. Hell Yeah to that! I hope you enjoy the amazing photography of our city and area captured by our fantastic HYPG photographers on the following pages as much as I do.
October 2015
- Scott McWalter, HYPG Founder and Administrator
HELL YEAH PRINCE GEORGE
PAGE 6 T H e p eo p le b ehind t h e s c e ne s
MEET YOUR HYPG ADMIN TEAM ALANA BULL My name’s Alana Bull. I am married to my sweet heart of 12 years Dale Bull and we have two boys aged 3 and 5. I love Prince George because of its amazing support of small businesses. I am the creator and owner of Works of heART and have been blessed by the support from clients and the community. We enjoy all the things Prince George has to offer such as many lakes, trails and parks. I am Prince George born and raised and am happy to be raising my family here as well.
APRIL TODMCLEOD April Tod-McLeod is a proud Alumni and Staff member at UNBC who is happily raising two proud little Northerners in PG. April moved to Prince George for a school semester nearly two decades ago and after falling in love with the community has never left. She is constantly amazed at the wonderful people in this beautiful city and is thrilled to help showcase that on HYPG. April lives with her family and beloved dogger in the College Heights area.
Chuck CHIN A retired Canfor pulp mill engineering/process supervisor and a resident of PG for over 41 years, I love to share the seasonal beauty of PG and the city’s area surroundings. My wife and I love to do daily trail walks (in the city or area surrounding lakes), pack the camera along and if you see something “nice”, we will share it with our friends. As one of the original HYPG Admins (since being on line in Mar, 2014), one of my passions is to showcase the beauty of PG and it’s surroundings!
DAVE MOTHUS David Mothus is the owner of both Mothus Dawes Insurance & Investment Solutions and the PG Entertainment Group. A life long resident he wanted to take part in the creation of Hell Yeah because he is unashamedly proud of where he lives. He has two dogs and a wonderful girlfriend, Sarah. He lives in Blackburn and loves it.
Background photo courtesy of Mike Hochachka October 2015
Diane Nakamura Diane Nakamura is a former social worker and passionate about PG. She has spent much of her free time helping non profits and youth in crisis. Recently semi retired she is the newest addition to the Hell Yeah team.
JES HOEG Jes Hoeg lived in Prince George for her teenage years but left to attend school in Edmonton and later Vancouver. After nearly a decade of working as a Realtor in the lower mainland, Jes, her husband and her two kids moved back to Prince to be closer to family and to enjoy the slower paced lifestyle that is offered here. She has continued with real estate in town and is passionate about making PG a better place because she wants her children to grow up in a town they are proud of.
HELL YEAH PRINCE GEORGE
PAGE 7 KRIS FOOT Born and Raised in Prince George, Kris Foot is an outgoing individual with a very strong passion for photography and displaying the true Beauty of PG. He helped create the Hell Yeah Prince George Facebook Page with the purpose of attracting people to the Gorgeous Northern Capital of British Columbia, and showing the World truly how kind and loving the people who live here are. Kris is a Huge Animal Lover, Ricky Bobby (cat) and Teet’s McGee (dog) are a huge part of his life with his photography and being out and about in the community. Don’t be shy, Tito loves to say Hi!!!
Leslie Allen Leslie Allen embraces all that Prince George offers. Whether enjoying Aboriginal/Metis Day in the park, or hunting for agates along the Nechako river, she greets each day as an opportunity to interact and converse with fellow residents. As Social Concerns Coordinator with St Vincent de Paul Society, Leslie connects those in need with a variety of community resources. Moments of shared history, stories, and experiences adds beauty to her world.
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Scott Mcwalter Scott McWalter, founder of the Hell Yeah Prince George Facebook Group, is a Marketing & Communications Officer at the University of Northern British Columbia, where he earned his Bachelor of Commerce (2008) in marketing and Masters of Business Administration (2014) degrees. In addition to being a lifelong promoter of Prince George and fierce advocate for Northern British Columbia, he is also a Group Fitness Instructor at the Northern Sport Centre, Lead Organizer of the Prince George Terry Fox Run and former Vice President of the British Columbia Indoor Soccer League.
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HYPG Inception Date: March 9, 2014
24 Hours:
3,500 members
Two Days:
6,949 members
1 Month:
10,200 members
6 months:
15,000 members
One Year: 25,000+ members
Background photo courtesy of Mike Hochachka
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IN THIS PHOTO Norm Coyne accepting the first ever Hell Yeah Ambassador Award during the 2014 Business Excellence Awards. Photo courtesy of The Prince George Chamber of Commerce
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Hell Yeah ambassador award The Prince George Chamber of Commerce approached Hell Yeah Prince George administrators to ask if they would consider putting their name on an ambassadorship award as part of the Business Excellence Awards for the second year in a row. “The Chamber contacted us and said that Hell Yeah Prince George (HYPG) in their opinion had one of the largest impacts of anything that’s happened in modern history in the community and they thought it would be a fantastic idea to create the first new award,” said David Mothus, a HYPG administrator. “It’s a brand new concept basically just to recognize who brings the most positive attention to the community, so it can be a business or an individual.” Last year’s winner was The Prince George Citizen’s Norm Coyne and this year the four finalists are all businesses, including Bites of Bliss, Prince George Cougars, Northern Lights Estate Winery and Mr Mike’s Prince George. The Hell Yeah Prince George Facebook page asks for nominations from the community then it’s voted on by the membership, Mothus added. HY administrators take the top 10 and short-list to the top four. The Chamber membership and Hell Yeah Prince George membership then pick the winner by online voting. “So it’s a three-part process to pick the best ambassador of our community,” said Mothus. The winner will be announced on Saturday, Oct. 24 at the Prince George Civic Centre.
It’s a brand new concept basically just to recognize who brings the most positive attention to the community, so it can be a business or an individual. October 2015
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Contest increases membership dramatically
30 days of HYPG awesomeness Three short months after its inception, the Hell Yeah Prince George Facebook page needed fresh new ideas to keep growing. “This is good information to get out to the membership because a lot of people keep asking us why do we do what we do?” said David Mothus, one of nine administrators of HYPG. Members of the page would ask why Hell Yeah ran contests based on businesses. About three months into the Hell Yeah Prince George’s Facebook page, the thrill of having a positive page about the community wore off, he said. “We noticed that there would be whole hours where there would be no posts, no likes, no comments on the page, said Mothus. Even though there were 10,000 plus members, interest was dwindling,” he added. “We had to find a way to get the page engaging with the community again so it didn’t just fade and end up having a negative membership as people leave the page and so we ran a couple of little contests and would see another 1,000 people join within that week,” said Mothus. So after the first two contests ran, HYPG had 100 companies asking to be part of the next contest. “So Scott (McWalter, the founder of the HYPG page) being a marketing major said if we’ve got this many companies let’s do a campaign and let’s call it 30 Days of Awesomeness and cover 30 companies in 30 days,” said Mothus. “It was totally random how we picked the businesses but that’s how we got the membership from about 10,000 to about 15,0000 in 30 days.” So it saved the page and now there is a membership of more than 27,500 strong and now content is not a problem any more, Mothus added. Depending on who’s looking at the Hell Yeah page, it serves different purposes. For Mothus it’s all about helping charities. “I don’t have to do it alone any more,” said Mothus. “I can post them on the HYPG page and get help from the community.” October 2015
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HELPING WOMEN IN NEED
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Prince George women are getting off the street into a real address of their own, thanks to a new partnership with local help agencies. Those women are getting clothes, furniture, and a real home thanks in part to Hell Yeah Prince George. The newly restored Victoria Towers highrise (revamped after a fire in 2011) is now owned by BC Housing and they have directed one of the building’s floors to the Association Advocating For Women and Children (AWAC). One of the apartments involved has been set up as an office and common drop-in place with a staff member present to help the AWAC women living on the floor. The other apartments are for women who have no home and no financial means of affording one anywhere but the seediest of locations. Each of those women has been street-involved. Crime and incarceration is a typical part of their backgrounds, as is addiction to drugs or alcohol, often there is a history of suffering through violence and other abuse. Affording a home was a lost dream to these women, if it was ever a consideration in their lives.
IN THIS PHOTO Sheila Tremblay of AWAC (left) and her colleague Connie Abe (right) help support disadvantaged women get back on their feet with affordable housing and other personal development options. Hell Yeah Prince George put the call out to furnish their new homes, and the public came through. Photo by Frank Peebles
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HELPING WOMEN IN NEED CONT’d AWAC and BC Housing collaborated to make those dreams happen, and Hell Yeah helped furnish those dreams. “Our activity room was plugged full,” said AWAC’s supportive housing co-ordinator Sheila Tremblay. “We put the word out on Hell Yeah that we needed to supply these apartments, that the residents were women who were getting back on their feet, and it just poured in.” “If it wasn’t for the community coming together like that, these ladies would walk into basically empty apartments. They have been set up well, thanks to people responding to their needs,” said AWAC executive director Connie Abe. Karen’s apartment is well appointed. The woman has a long history of living homelessly, frequently in jail, addicted and disconnected from positive life cycles. Today, she has a desk in the corner of her livingroom with some novels and textbooks on it. She has a couple of tables and chairs that were once in a local coffeeshop. She has a hutch with some photos, candles and flowers. There is art on the walls and clothes in the closets. When her adult-aged daughter gets out of jail in the near future, she too will move in here, and there is already a comfortable bed and clothes ready for her. “It’s not easy. I’ve been to jail many times and released to nothing,” said Karen. “So, you go do a crime to go back. Thank god these places came up. Day one was exciting, especially bringing in the
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furniture. Everything in here came from donations. When you don’t have to worry about this or that, it’s a big head start.” Karen admitted that the first night alone in her own, safe, secure, warm apartment brought up strange and uncomfortable emotions. She slept on the donated couch in the living room instead of the spacious bed in the master bedroom. She needed the narrow, humble spot to mimic the Spartan conditions she was used to. It took awhile before she could close her eyes in her own bed and not sleep fitfully. Now she is gleeful, like a child at Christmas, thinking about her daughter moving in too, and getting the same treatment: respect and privacy and secure living conditions to get well again. Karen said, “If I need anything, the staff here is available. I talk to them basically every day about something or other. They have really helped me. Now I’m thinking about going to school. I want to use my experiences to help other people.” “That is the most important piece - having a home they can call their own, where there are rules to keep them all safe, and so they all know we are there for them. They can live independently but we are not leaving them on their own with no one to turn to,” said Abe. Can these women be transformed from victims and perpetrators into productive and positive members of society, because they got a helping hand into a safe home? Hell Yeah, they all said.
Background photo courtesy of Mike Hochachka
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Why or Why not? HYPG Admin Dave Mothus answers your burning questions
The Hell Yeah Prince George Facebook page administrators have never had a platform to explain why they do the things they do. “Our dilemma in running this page is that we have never been able to tell our own membership why we do what we do because those posts would get attacked and they’re negative, which is against our own mandate - we don’t post anything negative,” said David Mothus, one of nine HYPG administrators. Mothus said he’d like to take this opportunity to explain a few things about running the Hell Yeah Prince George Facebook page.
Q A Background photo courtesy of Kris Foot
Why are people who are collecting for charities not allowed on the Hell Yeah Prince George Facebook page any more unless it’s an event-based fundraiser? It only took three times before the administrators said no more to people who were posting false stories to get money from the HYPG membership. The admin had no choice but to stop them because they couldn’t let the page be used like that and let the word get out that scams were happening. The problem was we couldn’t cherry pick and only allow those charities that we knew to do post because then we’d be called tyrants. If someone puts on an event, the page administrators will allow people to post that on HYPG.
Q A
Why are missing people not allowed to be posted on the Hell Yeah Prince George Facebook page without an RCMP file number? We found out that some people were posting people as missing to find them to recover debts, so we couldn’t pick and choose. What if it’s a husband who was looking for his ex-wife who had a restraining order against him? So we had no choice but to say that it had to go to the RCMP first.
Q A
Why do positive posts on the Hell Yeah Prince George Facebook page sometimes disappear? If it’s a subject that some people don’t agree with - like, for example, hunting - most northern BCers like hunting but there are others that for their own reasons are opposed to it and that results in negative comments being posted - which is against the HYPG page mandate.
Q A
How does Hell Yeah Prince George Facebook page pick the companies it runs promotions with? “A lot of people suspect that it’s companies that we know or are friends with but the truth is we’ve become friends with the companies who post prolifically - we’ve met most of them on the page,” said Mothus, who points to Menchie’s as a perfect example of this. Menchie’s donated to every charity that posted on the page so some of the administrators stopped in personally to thank the owner for their continued support. Because they donate to so many charities, we make a point of using them whenever we can. Same with the Westwood Pub, Northland Dodge and PG Motors.
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How it all Started
Background photo courtesy of Kris Foot
It was a Sunday morning. March 9, 2014. It’s hard to think back on a Prince George without at Hell Yeah movement but that recent date is when it was born. It was born out of frustration, but like the page itself, Scott McWalter pivoted the negative energy into something positive. He whipped up HYPG as a response to the preexisting Facebook page WTF Prince George (which today has more than 10,000 members). “I knew that the largest Facebook presence focused on Prince George was dedicated to saying unkind things about our community, and I wanted to turn that around,” he said. The foundational rule was simple: say only good things. Other rules evolved as the page’s use evolved, and was it ever a swift evolution. It started slowly enough - just his friends and family, but when then-mayor Shari Green gave it a “hell yeah” of her own and blasted it out to her extensive network, and this was echoed by the area’s MLAs, then more well-connected residents, then more, then more. By noon the next day, the page had picked up more than 3,500 members and the activity graph was almost vertical. “I can remember seeing it appear and I was thrilled to finally read some validation about the good that is PG,” said Green, looking back on that fateful
first day. “The WTF crowd is not representative of anything I would want the world to see about our community, or any community for that matter. I loved the concept that Scott and his friends created and I shared it with everyone I knew. By Sunday night there were 6,000 members and the rest is history.” The site surpassed 25,000 members in its first year and it is still growing by the thousand. An untold part of that history is the phone calls Green and the staff at City Hall started fielding. A curmudgeonly corner of the population wanted to know how much municipal money and human resources was being invested in maintaining this uppity “good news” website. The answer was not always believed: not one penny, not one minute. In hindsight, it would have been a stroke of municipal brilliance, but the truth was and still is, HYPG has only ever been a private sector volunteer initiative. “For the first 24 hours it was imagery that caught on with people - the pictures of how beautiful this place was,” McWalter said. “The people who think highly of P.G. and most importantly want this to be where the raise their family - they just grabbed it.” Compliments, shout-outs, acknowledgments, and a lot of scenic photos followed. People were not allowed to advertise their own business, but others were free to post about good service and good products. Businesses could name themselves in the doing of charity. Charity became a word carved deeply into HYPG’s stone. “The first year we raised more than $100,000 and partnered with more than 300 different causes and initiatives,” said McWalter. “One of the latest we just launched was one where PG Motors gave us $10,000 to give away to random community members’ favourite charity for the last 100 days of the year: $100 per day.” McWalter added that their is not the only site pushing only the positive elements of the city. He likened that to how Tourism Prince George doesn’t have brochures on the wracks talking about the dark streaks in this community’s complexion. “Love Downtown PG, Live Work PG, Northern Development Initiative Trust, the Chamber of Commerce, these are all organizations with strong online presence that focuses on the positive. They are constructive differencemakers,” he said. “It shows we aren’t the only ones, we are just one bit of the evidence that P.G. is an amazing place to live and do business and raise your family, and it’s just amazingly beautiful here.” “HYPG was the genesis of an inspired group of positive people, who are community makers, and I was proud to see citizens take back the dialogue, drowning out the negativity and haters of anything good this city was trying to build,” said Green. “It has spread to other cities and those who choose the glass half full view of our city now have somewhere to drink that in.” The caution McWalter brings to light is the amount of work involved. For the admin team - already sitting at nine people - it is like a second but unpaid job. McWalter said this was “fundamentally unsustainable” and making a change like turning the organization into an official not-for-profit team might be one way to help them with building human resources. What he stresses, however, is the unwavering aim to celebrate Prince George for it’s own sake. “I feel like the public has already stepped up to help that happen,” he said. “Not one admin member has ever benefitted one dollar for everything that’s been done with HYPG and we want to keep it that way.”
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It’s a compliment to be replicated
There are many replicas of Hell Yeah Prince George around B.C., including Vanderhoof, Burns Lake, Mackenzie, Fort St. James, Penticton, Kelowna, Kamloops, and Fort. St. John.
“When people ask to replicate our page, we share our rules that are posted in our ‘about’ section,” said David Mothus, one of nine administrators for HYPG. “The truth is replication is really hard. We were spending about 40 hours a week each - we were on there all day and all night until 2 or 3 a.m. and there were relationships that became very, very strained - including my own.” The administrators knew they had something special and they couldn’t let it fail, Mothus added. “We couldn’t log off because then people would attack it. Eventually we managed to get rid of most of the negative people who couldn’t follow the rules.” Out of the 27,000 people on the page about 300 had to be banned who were
Canadians from Prince George, Mothus added. There were another 300 from China who were spammers selling sunglasses. “So with 27,000 all we had to do to keep it positive was to get rid of 300 and it’s now a positive page,” said Mothus. “That’s a fascinating stat that goes to show when people ask how many negative people are out there ruining social media, making the Internet a negative place - we’re the ultimate scientific exam - out of 27,000 only 300 are negative making it about one per cent, I believe.” So for people to make a Hell Yeah page work it’s sheer man hours invested to make sure it stays the course, Mothus explained. “If you don’t do that then the trolls take over - that one per cent are on there and they are dedicated - they love it - they live for it,” said Mothus. “It’s their energy, their high so they ruin it so you have to be super strict and then people get mad.” HYPG administrators hope the page does get replicated and are willing to offer advice for those starting their own page. “It is a challenge,” said Mothus. “Even as the page is now I still put in 10 to 20 hours a week on it.” And the administrators don’t get paid. They are all volunteers.
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Citizen Photos by Brent Braaten
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Ranjit singh Rarru makes it his mission
Feeding The Neighbourhood One community member can make a change and showcasing that is what the Hell Yeah Prince George Facebook page is all about. Ranjit Singh Rarru, who owns a duplex at 2225 Victoria Street, gives away pizza, juice for the children, pop, and bananas from noon to 1:30 every Tuesday and Thursday. Rarru said he was just going to do it for the summer but he saw the need was so great he has continued the effort that feeds between 200 and 250 people two times a week. “I first started on April 14,” said Rarru, who noted that was Vaisakhi, a Sikh holy day as well as a celebration of the New Year in the Nanakshahi calendar. “We put up a tent in front of the house and we handed out food to everybody and we had a big turn out.”
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Feeding the neighbourhood CONT’d It got him thinking about the situation in his old neighbourhood where he grew up. Many of the school-aged children in the area would rely on the school’s lunch program for a meal but when school is out for the summer, it’s a different matter, said Rarru. “So we decided through God, to be honest with you, who brought this light up on me and said go and serve and do whatever you have to,” said Rarru. “So we have the house there anyway and we had it emptied out and the lady who lived there before was selling alcohol out of there and my heart kind of broke - we should make it better instead of worse, right?” Rarru brings his three-and-a-half-year-old twins with him to help serve to teach them that we are all human beings and everyone should be treated equally and fairly, he said. “No child should go hungry,” said Rarru. “Children are innocent and they are God’s children and because they can’t feed themselves and they can’t work it should strike cord in everyone’s heart. Our religion from 500 years ago teaches us to feed anybody - children are not able to feed themselves.” When people heard Rarru was going to shut down after the summer holidays the demand was so high he agreed to keep going. “We considered doing it on Saturdays too but we can’t afford it - it’s just me and my family doing it,” said Rarru. He has no sponsorship and takes the money from his own pocket to pay for the food given to his neighbours. “It’s God’s work and I never think about the money, to be honest,” said Rarru, who finally admitted each day costs about $450, that’s about $13,000 he’s spent so far. “I think it’s God himself who is doing it. I haven’t gone bankrupt and I haven’t missed any payments on anything yet to this day so I believe in Him and He believes in me and we’re going hand in hand.” If anyone would like to donate to the cause, Rarru is at 2225 Victoria Street Tuesdays and Thursdays from noon to 1:30 p.m. Rarru invites people to come down and share in his joy of feeding the neighbourhood. “It’s a wonderful experience and you learn so much,” he said.
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PAGE 22 Sunjai Sharma reaches for the stars
Selling chocolate to raise funds for BC Children’s Hospital
Mayor Lynn Hall and City Councillors
Hell Yeah Prince George Facebook page always wants to showcase the best of the city. Sunjai Sharma, just six years old, has been selling chocolate bars to raise funds for BC Children’s Hospital since he was four years old. He’s raised more than $20,000 and is still going strong. “I want to raise money for the hospital to make it bigger,” said Sunjai, so more kids can be helped like he was. It took 57 stitches to put Sunjai’s head back together after surgery at BC Children’s Hospital when it was discovered he was born with a congenital anomaly called sagittal synostosis, a condition that results when one or more sutures of the skull fuse too early. This condition does not allow for the skull to expand to accommodate the growing brain so the child faces increasing pressure to the brain and the risk of an abnormally shaped skull. Sunjai’s dad, Rajinder, said the ultimate goal is to raise a minimum of $57,000. “I don’t know how much we’ll end up raising when we stop - if we ever stop but until we get to $57,000 we’re not going to even try to slow down because that’s how many stitches he had - 57,” explained Rajinder. “And if anyone ever said we have to stop I will say OK but we have to make it to $57,000. I don’t think we’ve paid them back until we reach $57,000.” Rajinder has taught Sunjai to reach for the stars when it comes to fundraising. When Dougie of the Dougie Dog food truck who serves gourmet hot dogs visited Prince George during the Canada Winter Games in February, he served the ultimate $100 hot dog. “I work at Save On Foods (in Parkwood Mall) and I kept seeing Dougie come in every morning to buy fresh ingredients for his hot dogs,” said Rajinder. “And I saw on Hell Yeah that he was already supporting all kinds of community stuff already so I said to myself if I ask him to buy a chocolate bar for $100 because he charges $100 for a hot dog what’s the worst that will happen? He might say no and that would be between me and him and that would be the end of it.” So Rajinder asked Dougie and of course he said yes and that started the $100 chocolate bar challenge with 125 sold and counting. Rajinder gets the chocolate bars through Save On Foods and he just passes the money for the chocolate bars sold by Sunjai back to the store so they can put it in their coffers for their ongoing BC Children’s Hospital fundraiser. The local branch of the store has a separate tab to keep track of how much money Sunjai has raised. Sunjai and Rajinder don’t only sell chocolate bars, they collect bottles and sell Hell Yeah key chains for $5 each. It’s amazing what one little boy can do and Rajinder said he’s very proud of Sunjai.
Wayne Gretzky’s son buys Chocolate bar #99
John Duncan Law Corp. buys 2!
Sunjai’s School, Southridge Elementary
Greg Pocock from the Prince George Cougars
HYPG’s very own, Scott McWalter
Dougie Luv from Dougie Dog, where the $100 idea first formed
Background photo courtesy of Kris Foot October 2015
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Photo courtesy of Mike Hochachka
HYPG Grows Support for local businesses
Hell Yeah cash mobs started by HYPG and Chamber The first time this city made a cash mob happen was thanks to Hell Yeah Prince George, working in partnership with the Chamber of Commerce. This is how it worked. The public was given a few days of advance notice, as was the local business that had been selected. People were instructed to get some money in their jeans and show up at a predetermined time - 10 a.m. - to go shopping at that store. It mimicked the “flash mob” fad, but with a financially supportive twist for the local economy. “People are encouraged to show up right at 10 a.m. so that the crowd can ‘storm
the doors’ together,” said Hell Yeah Prince George’s Scott McWalter. “Part of the thrill of participating in the cash mob is that sense of being involved in something that is bigger, allowing you to feel connected to your community. This is a tangible way people can demonstrate their support for our local economy.” People are encouraged to spend at least $20 during each cash mob, and to take pictures and talk about it later on social media. Doing so fosters more awareness of the local businesses people in the city can support with local dollars. The idea was to give that store a financial shot in the arm, provide some advertising, and promote the idea of shopping locally. HYPG was the launchpad for the social media advertising that the cash mob was taking place, and part of the live-action advertising as people posted photos and status updates about being there. The first one was at Books & Company on May 2, and the second one hit the Two Rivers Gallery Gift Shop a month later. “This is yet another way the PG Chamber, and the community, can demonstrate support for the local business community and for the shop local movement,” said Chamber CEO Christie Ray. “It’s an innovative concept that has been done all
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some products and services can’t be over the United States and other parts transacted in a rush. The goal of the of Canada, and we wanted to bring Part of the thrill of participating in the Chamber is to heat up the attention on that kind of excitement to shopping cash mob is that sense of being involved local businesses in general, get people in Prince George. The Prince George in something that is bigger, allowing you participating together in their business Chamber and Hell Yeah Prince George to feel connected to your community. community, and give everyone involved a work together frequently to promote little retail thrill. positive engagement for the betterment “In a four hour period we will mob a local business to demonstrate widespread of the community. This is great example of how we can all help local businesses and cohesive support of the Prince George business community and the Shop succeed.” “We are super excited, and really thrilled that this event is taking place on Authors Local movement,” Ray said. “You are encouraged to spend a minimum of $20 at the store. Show your support for local business and join the mob.” for Indies Day,” said bookstore spokesperson Kim Matheson. The store was Owen Lubbers, owner of Books & Company, confirmed it was a boost for his warned that the cash mob was coming, thanks to a voting process the Chamber business. undertook. “We can’t thank you enough for voting for Books & Company, sup“We had 20-25 per cent higher sales than we normally would on a Saturday,” porting your local indie businesses, and your local indie authors. You make us so said Lubbers. “That’s good news for any business. It was humbling to have been proud to be a part of this community, Prince George. Thank you.” chosen by the community, and we really appreciate the support. From our end, it Ray said this kind of targeted shopping couldn’t possibly be the differencewas a great success.” maker on any one store’s bottom line, nor would it work for every store because
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Hell Yeah Social Media Marketing Model When the authorities in social media marketing are staring with puzzled grins, you know you’re onto something fresh. Hell Yeah PG has caused a lot of scrutiny from those who specialize in using Facebook to move public messages. In the way that a certain Old Spice Guy campaign rewrote the rules for men’s grooming ads, Hell Yeah PG had no business being as successful as it was, if you measured it by old standards. The metrics are still being analyzed. Hell Yeah Prince George opened its doors to be a clearing house for good news, good photos and good attitudes all focused on the com-
Photo courtesy of Mike Hochachka munity of Prince George. Bad attitudes were not welcome. It struck some kind of online chord with the public. There was a thirst for celebrating Prince George and Pregonians like nobody had ever expected. It was not the first Facebook page devoted to the good side of the community. The most notable before HYPG was the Believe In PG site on Facebook which was started for much the same reason. The founder, Ron Johnston, felt alienated from the shrill voices of negativity and the dull voices of apathy about a city he chose to move to and set up his life. He did not recognize the Prince George as described by crime stories in national news magazines or radio stations in the Lower Mainland taking potshots at the underestimated northern capital. And it got his dander up. “I noticed pretty much immediately that a lot of PGers seem to have a tendency to focus on the perceived flaws of this wonderful place, while so much positive stuff seems to slip by unnoticed, or under-communicated,” said Johnston. He founded Believe In PG in January of 2013, and it got some key notice. The membership uptake was modest, but some of them included Tourism Prince George who freely shared their material with the BIPG page. Today it sits at 578 members. It just goes to show what a few “likes” and “shares” one way or another will do for your Facebook reach, because HYPG launched with almost exactly the same philosophy and perhaps because the public had been primed by positive pages like BIPG or the negative counterpart WTF Prince George that HYPG exploded and was getting thousands of new members every week. Other rule-based, highly connected Facebook sites include Buy Sell Prince George (18,000+ members), Mommies and Toddlers (1,000+), Job Board Prince George (3,700+) and many more. The reasons for liking and sharing a Facebook page may be subjective, but the methods of the HYPG online earthquake are not. It was a study in social media marketing, and that is what Shauna Harper does every day, professionally. She was a member of BIPG and she was a member of HYPG. She supported both, and she certainly saw a lot of social media marketing going on during her daily job at her company Live Work PG. “HYPG is a phenomenon that I really haven’t seen before,” she said. “It started off with friends adding friends’ names into the group. At first I was concerned about how people didn’t voluntarily ‘opt’ in by signing up, however, the admin quickly posted to explain how to change their notifications and how to opt out if they didn’t want to be a part of the group. But with most things on social media, if the community doesn’t want it, the program, platform or idea will self select and people will abandon it.” It was the opposite effect. In a major Western Canadian urban centre, a little site just patting their community on the back somehow set a wildfire. “I have been amazed watching the numbers continue to grow,” said Harper. “I think it spread widely because our community is so interlinked and the ‘one degree of separation’ is not just a phrase but actually true here.
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Hell Yeah Social Media Model CONT’d
Photo courtesy of Kris Foot
Harper spotted that the Hell Yeah organizers actually made a couple of attempts and quickly learned which one to focus on. There is an affiliated HYPG page that has to be “liked” instead of “joined” which seems simple but the latter has a lot of networking advantages, it spreads more easily, and that is the one that has gone bananas. The HYPG site has only about 100 who have pushed the “like” button compared to more than 27,000 who have hit the main page’s “join” button. (A site called “HYPG 2.0 Hell Yeah Prince George Version 2” and one called “hell yeah prince george 2” that also exist. These are unaffiliated. One has about 900 members and the other about 275.) “I have seen many businesses or organizations try to create groups like HYPG but not be successful,” said Harper. “Their clients/member opt out, or worse are silent. On the HYPG group page not only have people not opted out, they have continued to grow the numbers and the members are highly engaged, meaning they are ‘liking, sharing, commenting.’” It takes a lot of work to maintain the flow of dialogue, especially when you have rules for your site that have to be policed, and civil law that must be adhered to so people are not being victimized by libel. The site administrators could scarcely predict many of the ways the HYPG page was used and abused in its early days. The setting of boundaries and rigidly protecting those boundaries has angered some, but established a credibility valued by the others. It also curbed the onslaught of notifications that started to pour into members’ notification stream. They even set up one sister page - Question & Answers of P.G. - to channel all those who were trying to use HYPG as a sort of all-local search engine (“My tire is flat. Which tire shop should I go to?”). It has gathered up about 4,800 members just for those sorts of conversations. The barrage of notifications subsided, but Harper warned that if HYPG has any obstacle to overcome, it is public fatigue. On the other hand, she added, they have done a good job so far of staying relative, moving from important issue to important cause, and that has been a successful recipe for media outlets around the world for centuries. Yes, she said, Hell Yeah PG is now justifiably called its own media outlet just like a TV station, a radio station, or this newspaper.
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100 Days of Giving There’s a corporate side to the Hell Yeah Prince George Facebook page now. “We went out and messaged 10 major corporations in Prince George recently and it took 15 minutes to get a $10,000 donation,” said David Mothus, an administrator of the Hell Yeah Prince George Facebook page. “It took 15 minutes to get PG Motors to give us $10,000. So we are now giving away $100 per day to a different charity.” Every day from Sept. 23 to Dec. 31, 2015 the administrators take a sign up to a person in Prince George and ask them where they would like to donate $100 during the PG Motors 100 Days of HYPG Giving, take their photo and post it to the Hell Yeah PG page.
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HELL YEAH TO HYPG PARTNERS!
HYPG has partnered with over 300 Local businesses, organizations and not-for-profits including:
City of Prince George Prince George Cougars Initiatives Prince George YXS Airport Authority British Columbia Indoor Soccer League Prince George Citizen Newspaper 94.3 The Goat PG Triathlon Northland Dodge Treasure Cove Casino
Coast Inn of the North YMCA Prince George UNBC Continuing Studies Prince George Farmers’ Market SunLife Financial Prince George Chamber of Commerce University of Northern British Columbia Tourism Prince George Jim Pattison Group Pine Centre Mall
Northern Sport Centre Integris Credit Union Prince George Spruce Kings North District SPCA Wood Wheaton Prince George Iceman UNBC Timberwolves 97.3 Country FM BC Kids Sport Prince George Terry Fox Run Photo with light painting courtesy of Kris Foot
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The future of HYPG When the Hell Yeah Prince George Facebook page was first started it took the nine administrators almost round-the-clock attention. Most of them were logging 40 hours a week on the site. Now it’s definitely less but it still takes a lot of time to manage the page. What does the future of the Hell Yeah Prince George Facebook page look like? “We are facing a challenge - where the page is getting a bit easier to run, we’re looking at this and asking can we do this for another year?” said David Mothus, an administrator of the HYPG page, who still puts in 10 to 20 hours a week. “And contrary to popular belief, while we’ve had a dinner out at the Westwood Pub once, we don’t receive remuneration although we get recognition in the community and some people will do business with the few of us who are in business. The rest of the admins get nothing - absolutely nothing back in remuneration because they are not business owners.” So after the year goes by there could be a change.
Photo courtesy of Kris Foot “We’re considering turning HYPG into a non-profit organization,” said Mothus. “Then taking those contests and potentially finding a way to get those companies to put $100 towards the HYPG non-profit organization and hiring an administrator. That is one solution that we’ve looked at. Can we use the page to create a small budget, keep it non-profit so that we’re not turning it ‘corporate’ but do the contests, charge for them and use the proceeds to potentially hire administrators so that we can let it go and it will survive? Because eventually we have to stop and then what do we do?” The other option is to form a board of directors and recruit volunteers so then the original administrators can leave at any given time, added Mothus.
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We’re considering turning HYPG into a non-profit organization,then taking those contests and potentially finding a way to get those companies to put $100 towards the HYPG non-profit organization and hiring an administrator
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October 2015