As many of you know, I’m heavily involved with the first annual Knoxville Twestival on September 10, 2009. So far, we’ve gotten a lot of great charity submissions, but we’re still taking more (until Friday, August 7 at 11:59pm)…so please get yours in if you’re interested in being the beneficiary charity of this big event!

What’s Twestival? Well…Knoxville Twestival is part of a charitable event taking place in communities all around the world. Twestival uses the power of the local Twitterverse to encourage community members to come out in person to a fun event to be held in Knoxville on September 10, 2009, and to donate money to a designated local charity.

Knoxville-area, non-profit organizations interested in benefiting from the event should tell us why your charity should be chosen as the designated charity for this year’s Knoxville Twestival. The first 100 entries received by Friday, August 7 (at 11:59pm) will be published on the Knoxville Twestival blog on Saturday, August 8, where readers will be able to vote for their favorite charity. On August 11, Twestival organizers will choose one winner among the top three vote-getters.

As soon as the winning charity is announced, our Twitter-powered fundraising will begin on that organization’s behalf, culminating in the September 10 Knoxville Twestival event.

We haven’t announced the event details yet, but I can promise it’ll be an awesome event you won’t want to miss!

For more information, check out the Knoxville Twestival homepage!

Did I mention we’re also looking for sponsors and volunteers? For information on how you or your company can be involved, visit http://knoxville.twestival.com/get-involved!

As a co-founder of SMC Knoxville, here’s some shameless self-promotion for our Official Launch Party:

The Knoxville Chapter of the Social Media Club’s official launch party will take place on Tuesday, July 21 from 6-8pm in The Green Room at Oodles Uncorked in Market Square.

The event will feature speaker Trey Pennington, the founder of SMC Greenville and an influential social media practitioner.

Pennington will discuss the importance of using social media for meaningful engagement and how to take advantage of technology to redefine what it means to be members of a society, community or culture.

SMC Knoxville’s Launch Party is free to attend and open to anyone currently involved in social media or those seeking to learn. Appetizers will be provided and happy hour drink specials will be available.

The event is sponsored by Pyxl, a marketing services firm headquartered in Knoxville, and Mashable, a popular social media news blog.

For more information and to RSVP for the event, click here.

Hope to see you all there!