Introduction to Mary's Blog

This section of the website is created by Mary who has been organising and acting as Hostess for the wednesday evening get togethers for Northern Concord for many years. These pages are intended to show that we are just a group of people who enjoy what we do and hopefully to encourage any potential newcomers to come along on any wednesday evening and make some friends

The group that meets on wednesday evenings has now decided to run themselves as an independent members club called Manchester Concord.

If anyone wishes to make any comments about these pages or has any questions about the wednesday evenings that they wish to ask then please email mary@manchesterconcord.org.uk .

Mary

I had been emailed earlier in the week by Danni who had been to the club once before so was still unsure of her bearings, but she said she would like to join us in Eden for the evening meal. She phoned me early in the evening to get directions to a car park nearby as she was staying in EasySleep but did not want to park in the street overnight.
She joined us for the meal a bit later on and came into the club afterwards with the rest of us. So this theme night made a good introduction for her and here she is as one of the group that were available for the photo at about 8:45 before Tina has to leave. I have made this group photo larger than normal as they show up better this size.
Below are a the few individual white dress photos I took..

Karen,Tina,Cate,Brydie,Danni,Mary,Millie and Lisa

Danni

Millie

Haley, shown on the left, comes quite regularly now, with her partner Alison but didn't have a white dress so we let her off, but still took her photo anyway. Alison was telling me that she had just come back from a holiday with her ex husband who she gets on with better, now they are not married, than they did when they were. They have lots of interests in common so enjoy holidaying together. It's a funny world.
Karen, our Avon Lady is now coming quite regularly to the club so if you want anything from their catalogue you know where to come.

Karen

Paula is back in her usual place by the corner of the bar but had forgotten to take her white dress to work, where she changes before coming to the club so we let her off.
And these other two probably had no excuse but they still look good so I cant resist including their photos as well.
It was a fairly quiet week but even so we managed to sign on four new members. This brings our total to 340 people in the last two years.

Cindi and Katie

The Rembrandt is changing hands next week and I am hoping to meet the new owners on wednesday so it would be good if lots of you came along then to encourage them to keep us going.

Two friends of Sally, Pete and Sue, came along to show their very smart Handbags, makeup and some hosiery that they have for sale. They did have a website selling these products but have now given it up and are selling off their stock when they can. They obviously enjoyed the evening as they have already asked if they can come along twice more in the run up to Christmas. These dates will appear on the coming events page shortly.
We changed the layout of the room slightly to accomodate the stall so here are Paula and Lisa looking after the door from the other side to make room.

Paula and lisa on duty

It was a quiet evening, following the intense activity of the Sparkle weekend, but at least this gives some of the regular attenders at the club, time to relax with each other like the girls shown here.
I am sure most of you know that Cate, here on the left with Melanie and Vanessa, has MS and she tells me that sadly it is getting worse quite quickly and she is finding stairs much harder to deal with now. Before long she may not be able to manage them at all, but she is still very happy that she has managed to become Cate before it was too late. If there is any help we can give you Cate, please just ask.

Tina, Tanya and Sophie

Tina, our legal committee member now always does a stint on the door whenever she comes to the club, which is every week except when she goes on one of her holidays. She always leaves by about 9 pm and this evening I asked to take her photo just as she was about to leave. After I took the photo on the left she told me that the dress was completely reversable so here she is on the other side with the dress on inside out. What a useful idea for holiday dressing as you only need half the clothes. Incidentally, as she goes at 9 pm, Tina wont know that she won the wine raffle this evening, so it will be waiting for her when she comes next week. I think she deserves it.

Tina

Later in the evening a new girl came in called Linda and here she is shown with Lisa standing at the bar. If my memory serves me correctly she had chanced upon us, as she was staying in the Rembrandt hotel but had not realised the club met here on wednesdays until she arrived. She was visiting from Northumberland so does not expect to be in Manchester very often, but at least she now knows where to meet some girls at the start of an evening out.
Brydie, on the right, now lives full time as Brydie but still loves to dress up and have her photo taken whenever she can and I am happy to oblige.

Brydie

Rachel Hammond,on the left, has been a member of Concord for many years now so it is good to see her again when she can find the time to pop in. She works as an image consultant so I have put some info and her email address etc on our links page if any of you would like to get in touch with her.

Next wednesday we are having a White Dress theme evening so I hope to see a sea of white during the evening. If we get a good number we will go out into the park for a group photo.

The Sparkle 2010

Sparkle 2010 took place this weekend and it proved to be another very successful weekend with several hundred trans people and their friends visiting Manchester for a relaxing and enjoyable time together. We all owe a great debt to Bella Jay and the committee of the Sparkle Charity for all the effort they voluntarily put in to make this weekend a success.
This year, for the first time, Manchester Concord took responsibility for setting up and organising the talks in the Mechanics Institute, instead of the University building, with the lead in this activity being taken by Astrid. So thank you Astrid for all the hard work and stress you have had to endure to make these talks a success. On the day she was supported by Frances, who helped supervise the meetings and Vanessa who made sure that all the technical bits and pieces actually worked. We should also thank the staff of the Mechanics Institute for all the help and encouragement they gave and Vida for creating and getting made the Concord advertising collages which we used in the park and the Institute.
We should also thank the PRIDE 2009 committee for so generously donating £500 to help us pay for this facility.
I dont have any photos from the talks so if anyone can give me some I will include them here.
Also in the other rooms of the institute we had another club member Lee creating a picture of Audrey Hepburn, with the help of many of the visitors and this picture was subsequently auctioned at the ball to raise money for the Sparkle charity.
During the day there were also other talks and demos arranged by Jenny-Anne and TREC which all added to the variety of activities that were available to our visitors to Manchester.

In the park we again had our tent to advertise our club and I am very grateful to all those club members who so willingly helped to look after it during the day. I am sorry but I dont have photos of all those who took part as these are the only ones I took, towards the end of the afternoon.

There were far more stalls in the park this year which helped to give it a much more alive atmosphere with plenty of things to buy, including all the bring and buy clothes, etc that were on offer

Danielle, Sarah-Louise and Pauline.

in Linda's tent which this year had moved from Taurus Bar to the park, in order to try to get more visitors to it. I am told by Elaine, who helped to set it all up, that they eventually raised £1000 for the charity they were supporting.
I was glad to see Marieanne's group Stawberry Elephant performing on the stage, but there was so much going on that I was unable to see all the other events that took place on the stage.
I took very few pictures this year but was pleased to see Heather and Jenny-Anne relaxing in the park later on in the afternoon looking very happy.
Then we have Kerry and Fay in Linda's clothes tent with the Beaumont society tent in the background and finally Lisa with Marolyn and the not so often seen, Leanne in the foreground in front of our tent.

Kerry and Fay

Lisa, Marolyn and Leanne

Lee and the picture of Audrey Hepburn

Vanessa

After the park activities were finished the next big event of the evening was the Manchester Concord Ball in the Hall of the "Place Apartments". There were so many people at this event that it was difficult to take individual pictures so here are some of the small number that I took. For those that dont know her, Abby, in the top left, came over from Houston and she and I shared a flat at the place for the weekend. She was also here on business and travelled back to the US on the following Saturday, but thank you Abby, I enjoyed your company.
Above I show Lee with her picture that she managed to complete in time for the start of the ball at 9 pm this evening. It looks stunning.

Beverley

Bella Jay was a bit put out at the start of the Ball because the DJ she had booked failed to turn up, but, resilient as ever, she stood in for him and did a stirling job keeping the music going during the times when the band and other entertainment was not happening. Shown here are Kimberley who was the hostess for the evening and Marieanne fronting the Strawberry Elephant band during their set.
I would also like to thank all the people from Pink Punters who did a sterling job looking after the door for the ball.
On the Sunday, Abby and I both attended the two meals that had been organised. One at lunchtime in Villaggios which was very well attended and later in the evening at the Indian restaurant organised by Jenny-Anne. This had fewer people there but was an excellent indian meal and made a very good ending to a very enjoyable weekend.

Marianne and Strawberry Elephant at the Ball

This evening we were getting ready for Sparkle and this meant that I had a load of kit, ready for use in the park, in the boot of my car. So at the start of the evening I asked a group of the girls to come out and help me bring it all in to the club. As we were going along the road outside the Rem we got asked by two lovely girls if we could tell them where there was a good restaurant to eat in, nearby. We recommended that they went to Villaggios so they thanked us and went on their way. Later in the evening Danielle was walking down Canal street and she met them again

Brydie, Mary, Jacqui, Danielle and Lisa

and invited them to come up to the club to see what it was like. She duly brought them up and they spent most of the rest of the evening with us. They were up from London on a business trip and had been here a few days. Today they had left their work colleagues and were out for a night on the town dressed as they wanted to and had been looking for somewhere to go. They were really enjoying themselves with us in the club and were happy to have their photos taken. When I got home that evening I noticed that they had already put a thank you message onto our forum, so thank you Jacqui and Lisa, we really enjoyed your company and hope to meet you again soon either here or down in London.

As part of our preparations for Sparkle the committee had decided that we should produce some up to date collage screens to be used in our tent in the park to advertise the club. Our artistic member, Vida, has duly done the job and here they are set up to show them off before being used over the weekend. They dont show up well in these photos but they really are very impressive, so thank you Vida.
As an extra advertising item Vida and Vanessa had also produced a rolling video that was displayed on the screen in the club throughout the afternoon get together on Friday. This worked really well as it also gave the program of talks we were hosting at the Mechanics Institute and a map of how to get there.

Sorry I have forgotten your name.

Pauline and Frances

Katie

I am sorry that this Blog is rather late this week, but the Sparkle weekend started for me on the thursday, as I met my friend Abby from Texas at the airport on thursday morning and then spent the rest of the weekend with her, staying in the Place Apartment near Piccadilly Station and taking part in many of the Sparkle events. This has left me completely exhausted so have only just got round to doing this blog on wednesday the 14th.
I will include a small extra blog about Sparkle itself by next week but at the moment I dont have time.

Michelle and Lisa

Michaela

Brydie

Finally, next week, starting on Friday, we have the Sparkle weekend, so I hope many of you will be out and about during the day either in the Park or at one or more of the talks being given in the Mechanics Institute opposite Cruz 101. These talks have been organised by our Committee member Astrid and are finacially supported by the PRIDE 2009 Community fund for which we are very grateful.
Then in the evening we have the Manchester Concord Sparkle ball with entertainment from among others the "Strawberry Elephant Experience" which is a group led by our member Marieanne who has entertained us a few times in the past.

Astrid

Link to previous pages

C copyright Manchester Concord 2010