Mary's Blog

Sally

What then transpired was, that she did not know about Manchester Concord, or that we met every wednesday here in the Rembrandt. She promised to come along the following week and here she is, now member no. 302. So welcome Maggie and I hope we see lot more of you in future.
Millie, on the right, has not been coming to the club very much recently as she has not been feeling well enough to socialise, but now she is feeling a lot better and hopes to be able to come along more often. I hope so too, it is good to see you Millie and I am jealous of you having all your own hair.
Alex, below on the left, came along for the first time tonight, having found us on the internet. She made good use of the changing room having tried out more than one outfit before coming in to the club. I spent some time telling her about the club and

Millie

when I told her that it was possible to stay overnight using one of the beds in the changing room as no one was using them, she jumped at the chance to stay. I had introduced her to Rachel, from Kent, and they agreed to meet up in the New Union after we finished in the Rem. I suggested that she moved her car onto a meter space before going to the Pub and feeding the meter to give her two hours in the morning. Ie she didn't then have to return to her car till 10am which allows for a more relaxed evening. We did this and I then went with her to the Union and left her with Rachel. I wonder when she got to bed?
The three girls on the right are long standing members of the club and had been out together for a meal before coming in here at aroud 9:30 so here they are well fed and watered.

Diane, Kate & Kay Denise

Next week, thanks to Karen, we have two ladies Tara & Hayley from Bib-e-lo coming to sell some jewellery and accessories from their shop in Stockport, so do come along to meet them and see what is available.

Some evenings start very slowly and others fill up very quickly early on. Tonight was a quick evening, with nearly 20 people in before 7:15. It is great to see people ready for an early start. The group on the left were all here ready to enjoy themselves almost before the bar had opened. Lisa and Sally on the ends are now very regular members. The three in the middle, Emily, Julia and Georgina come a long way but support us when they can. Finally Samantha used to be here almost every week but has not been for some time so it is good to see her back.
Amanda has been shopping in M & S and was pleased with this new dress. She is a regular and is always cheerful.

Amanda

Jenni was another early arriver and I got talking with her for a bit before introducing her to Jennifer who is also a student. They are both studying different aspects of social science and I found them still talking together two hours later. It seems to work well when people find they have something in common. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of Jennifer so I am sorry but she is not shown.
Isobel, on the right, is brand new to us this evening. She found us on the internet and decided to make this her first trip out, ever. She is confident and easy to talk to and quickly made some friends who then persuaded her to go out with them round the village. This whole, coming out process, is so much easier for people who are on their own if they come and join us here. I later came across her in Napoleons still enjoying her evening out.

Isobel

It was great to see Mischa and Dee in this evening, shown on the left with three of their growing number of customers. They are doing so well that they hardly have any time for themselves these days. They enjoy what they do so much and this rubs off on all the people who visit them at their shop in Bolton. See their website at this link for more details. Danielle joined MC this evening becoming member 301.
I found Lisa and Sooz sitting opposite each other on a table all by themselves having a deep conversation so I had to interrupt them to take this photo. They make a lovely couple.

Lisa and Sooz

Debbie and Tanya came in later in the evening having just had a meal in Queer which is further up Canal Street. They had a plate of Ribs and chicken between them for under £10 that was so much they struggled to eat it all. They recommended it as very good value and very nice.
Cheryl and Susan on the right were here for the first time for ages without Jessica. They are both missing her already and send their love.

Katie, shown here with Cindy, came in with the sad news that she has just changed her job and this will be the last time we see her unless she can find some excuse to visit manchester all the way from Kent where she lives. She visited Leeds two weeks ago on the thursday before the Leeds event that Cindy runs with her friend Mandy Makeup. She managed to make contact with Mandy who then spent the evening with her, so she really enjoyed that evening as well.

We will miss you Katie, I hope you do manage to make it sometime not too distant. Best wishes from us all.

Katie and Cindy

Finally can I say a big thank you to Millie, who loyally stayed looking after the door all evening with the help of Tina at the start and then Frances but Millie stuck it out. This club has run for a long time with individual people doing the door all the time, like Jan and Gemma and Alison, for which I am very grateful, but, as we are now running as a members club, I think it is only fair that different members take a share of looking after the door. We have devised a Shift sheet which is on the table and would ask members to offer their services by putting their names on the sheet when they come in. It is divided into half hour time slots so that is all the time we need you to offer if you feel able. Thank you, Mary

You may also be interested to know that Gary who did last years Christmas Buffet so successfully is now serving Sunday lunches in the upstairs bar from 12 noon till 5 pm.

For more details see the Rembrandt link on our links page.

Estelle

For all those who have been asking after Estelle, I was delighted to see her come in the door early this evening. She has been having Chemo therapy and has therefore, not surprisingly, not been feeling very communicative lately. She now tells me that the doctors have told her they can operate in a few weeks time and she is hopeful of a good outcome. I am sure we all wish her all the best for the future.
This evening was advertised as a partner's evening and I was very pleased to welcome a lovely couple, Tracey and Kay, all the way from Cheltenham. They had come up specially and were staying overnight before going back home on thursday. Kay is shown here on the right and is now member number 300 of Manchester Concord. So welcome Kay. Her partner Tracey is planning to have a new clothes stall at Sparkle as well.

Kay

Vida had put in a lot of effort to set up this wine tasting event and at this point she was wondering how it would go.
She needn't have worried, all the reports afterwards were that everyone had enjoyed it and that they had all learnt something from it as well.
Vida had produced some notes to help people understand the process

Vida ready for the fray

and as you can see they were well read before the tasting started. The committee had agreed an amount that vida could spend on the wines and this allowed her to get the range of different kinds that she wanted people to be able to compare. It just shows what a subjective game this is as one of the participants told me afterwards that she actually preferred the cheapest wine that they tasted.
We had arranged the tasting to be for twelve people but, although we had around 40 people in the club during the evening, only around 12 of them wished to take part, so somehow we got the numbers right.

View from the bar

Even with all this wine tasting activity, there were still plenty of others with us during the evening and here are a few of them

Brydie

Stella and Tulip

Emma

Kelly

Kirsten and Beth

Paula

On Wednesday the 20th of Jan I showed a picture of Jessica with some of her friends on her last night out in Manchester before she had to return south as her contract had finally finished. A couple of weeks ago I received a letter from her thanking us for the welcome and help we gave her to enable her to be herself and telling the story of her journey coming out as a girl. That story is now available to you all on this website as Jessicas story on the items from members page. so have a look when you can.

Also, many of you will remember Abby Saunders, who is one of our members, but has now returned home to Houston Texas. She is a professional actress directing and starring in many stage plays here and in the USA.
Abby's friend, World Famous writer Eric Chappell has given her the USA PREMIER & DEBUT of his new comedy "MIXED FEELINGS" which will run in April and May 2010 in Houston. The show is already attracting much attention there and Abby is to make a radio and tv advertisement promoting the show at the begining of March.
Abby is the Producer, Director and playing the lead as "Vernon" in the show. For those wishing to read the PLOT, it is outlined on the "Items from members" page as number 10 message from Abby.

It is great to hear from our members when they leave us as it shows we must have meant something to them. Jessica has promised to return very soon to Manchester and Abby is planning to be here for Sparkle.

This evening, Rachel, one of our long standing members, came along to show off her Vie at Home skin care and make up products. She has promised to come back every two or three months, plus if anyone is interested I can put them in touch. She is also starting to provide a Nail service at reasonable prices. I am sorry that I never got around to taking a photo of Rachel with the products but here is the photo she sent me so that you know who she is.
On the right I have shown Katie who visits us from the south when she can and always manages to look elegant.

Katie

On the left is Fiona who is a local girl who used to come quite often but then had to give us a miss for many months due to pressure of work. She has now visited us twice in the last few weeks so I hope the work situation has now settled down and she can relax with us again more often.
On the right is Caroline who been coming here for perhaps two years now and had grown in self confidence over that time. It is good to see her so much happier with herself even though she recently lost her job. She has now started selling health products as a small business and really enjoys doing this. I hope the business thrives.

Caroline

Later in the evening we were visited by three new girls from Leeds. First to come in were Mila and Sam shown on the left, but they told me that their friend Chyarna was still getting changed upstairs and would be down later. Here on the right are all three of them dressed to kill.
I sat down and talked with them for a period and told them about Manchester Concord. They were very complimentary about the club and indicated that they would be happy to join the next time they came. They were staying in the Rembrandt so were able to go out and enjoy themselves later in the evening without having to worry about driving back to Leeds.
We had two new people join the club this evening.

Mila, Chyarna and Sam

The first was a girl called Aman from Ireland who was over here for a short stay but had to return home on thursday. She said that she was not comfortable going out dressed back home and was glad to have somewhere like us to enable her to meet other T girls and relax.
The second was a girl called Sarah who Elaine was surprised to meet as she had corresponded with her some time ago on the internet and has not expected to meet her in person. She became member no 299 so the next person to join will be no. 300. That is quite a mile stone for us considering that we started in April 2008 which is only 22 months ago.
Dont forget that next week we are having a Partners night with a Wine Tasting session being run by our treasurer Vida. This wine tasting will be for around twelve people, with everything supplied, so if you wish to take part please be here before 8:30 in the evening. We hope several partners will take part.

Tonight was our Blue Dress evening so it was great to see one of our first visitors was SarahJane shown here on the right. I was then further impressed when I saw a bit later on that she has carried the theme into all her clothes including those underneath. This is what I call dedication.
A couple of weeks ago I received a letter from a lady called Gill who is a make up artist and she was wondering if she could come along to the club one evening with a TV friend, to use as a model, so that she could advertise her services to our community. I suggested that she might, first of all, like to come along one evening just to introduce herself and see what the club is like. She wrote back and said she would come along this week and bring her friend Chantelle with her.

SarahJane

So here they are, Gill shown with me on the left and Chantelle with Alex on the right. It turns out that this is the very first time Chantelle has visited anywhere dressed so she was very nervous, but also very excited. Gill has now arranged to come back on wednesday the 10th of March to show her wares and give any advice that people may wish for.
I received a very nice letter on thursday thanking us for a very enjoyable evening and Chantelle will join the club the next time she comes.
Below I will now include as many of the Blue outfits as I have photos for.

Alex and Chantelle

Amanda and Millie

Tina

Ashley and Pauline

Frances

Jay

Petra

Sarah and Zoe

Elaine

Not everyone has an outfit that fits the themed evening, so please dont let that stop you coming along. Here are a few of the other outfits that caught my eye. Elaine was having an evening off to go to a birthday party meal so she understandably wanted to wear something that suited her evening. She had just popped in to give me her membership list book so that we could record those members who were hopefully going to pay this evening. We did collect a goodly number of membership renewals but there are still a good many to go. We would appreciate all renewals before the AGM in March. Dont forget that you can pay using paypal. If you look at the "how it runs" page it provides a button to make this possible.

It was good to welcome Jessica and Sarah, shown on the left, who were up from London for a few days on business. At least, Jessica was on business and Sarah had come with her to keep her company. I hope they enjoyed their few days in Manchester and we continue to see them at intervals when business allows..
Sylvia, on the right, joined us in mid December and this is her first time back since then.
Giselle, shown below left is living very successfully full time as a woman and really enjoying life. It is very pleasing to see her when she drops in to see old friends.
Cate, shown on the right below is one of our most regular attenders and keeps us on our toes with her wry sense of humour.
June, shown below with Diane, was over on a visit from Ireland and is always good company.

Sylvia

Cate

Alex and Lucy---------plus--------Lucy to show the dress

Kirsten

Cheryl, Susan and Jessica

Dont forget that next wednesday is our BLUE DRESS evening

At least the weather was a bit better this week so more people were able to get out, giving us a larger crowd. For some reason I failed to take many pictures but I did get two so here they are.
As it is the beginning of the year and therefore membership renewal time I thought I would show Elaine, our membership secretary, who is expecting to be kept busy for the next few weeks collecting all your subs. This year we would appreciate them all in before the AGM at the end of March please. So far four people have renewed using the Paypal link on the "How it Runs" page on the website, so it does work.
For some reason I thought Paula was looking taller this week when she came in through the main door. I guess it must be caused by the shoes she is wearing.

Paula

We welcomed three new members tonight, Eleanor, Chrissy and Jenny. Eleanor came to Concord some years ago now, so I have known her for some time and am glad that she has decided to come back to us. She would like the opportunity to make some new friends so hopefully she has come to the right place.
I was pleased to also see Roberta Jane who only comes in very occasionally but is pleased to continue to support us even though she is now living and working very successfully in her feminine role.

Dont forget on Wednesday the 27th we are having our first Theme night of the year with a "BLUE DRESS" evening. I would like to be able to take some pictures as good as the Purple dress evening we had last year where many of you turned out.

Just to set the scene for the evening, here are a few views out of my windows during the previous weekend. With this in mind we weren't expecting too many people to turn out. The main roads were clear but all the pavement were covered in slippery Mush and most side roads were almost unpassable.

Nevertheless, Elaine, Vanessa and myself were there early for our meal in Eden and then, when we got back to the Rem at 7 pm, who should be the first person to come through the door but Paula keeping up her tradition , set two years ago, when we first came back to the Rem from the old Hollywood, of being the first person to come along. I hope she can keep this up for a long time to come.
Soon after she came in we were joined by three ladies from Scotland, who had come for a few days visit to Manchester. Gladys and Michelle are shown on the right, but Helen didn't want a photo included here. Helen runs a TG group in Edinburgh and Gladys and Michelle run one in Stirling. Links to their websites are as follows:-

Michelle and Gladys

www.edinburghtranswomen.org.uk and www.stirlingtggroup.org.uk where you can find details of what is on offer if you are ever in that part of Scotland. I have put these on our links page as well so they are easier to find. They were three lovely people and I think they had a very enjoyable evening with us. In all about twenty people came during the evening so congratulations to them all for making the effort and the fewer numbers does sometimes make it easier to make time to talk to more people, which is fun.
Not long after the three ladies from Scotland came in we were joined by Zoe who had come along for the very first time, having seen the notice I had put on our website saying that we would be here despite the snow. She had come prepared to change so I showed here the room upstairs and she joined us shortly afterwards looking very different from when she came in. By the end of the evening she was confident

enough to allow me to include her picture here on the left. Sonia on the right was also quite happy to have her picture included so here she is. By the end of the evening Zoe was happy to join Manchester Concord and she is now member number 291, since we started 20 months ago. It is great to have had so much support.
I was glad to see Lottie and Rachel come in later in the evening as Rachel has been having a hard time with her depression but now seems to be very much better and is planning to return to work shortly. I hope she manages to do this as it will greatly help them both.
Now, just a reminder that the membership runs from January to December so we would appreciate your renewals please, which can be done online if you wish on the HowItRuns page, but either Elaine or myself are happy to take your money any wednesday evening.

Sonia

This evening Elaine, Vanessa and myself went down to Eden to eat, where we found Cate already there. Soon after we sat down Petra came in with a new girl Sophie who she had made contact with on the internet. This was Sophie's first time out so it was also the first time she and Petra had met. They therefore had a lot to talk about, so after our meal, we left them together to have a long chat before they came up to the club.
Christina also shown on the left with Sophie came into the club later in the evening where she joined a large group sitting round a table for most of the evening enjoying themselves.
Gina on the right shown again with Steffie has been a few times now and is slowly getting more confident. It is great to see people starting to blossom as they come along more often.

Paula, shown on the left with her friend Jackie, is our famous roving Food Reporter, having now put quite a number of reports about various culinary establishments around Manchester onto the Forum. If you want to know the good places a girl can go to eat well and be properly looked after then have a look at her reports on the Forum. Josie (I hope I have got her name right) sometimes accompanies Paula on these excursions.
Vanessa and Millie shown on the right make a very colourful picture together. They were two of the people who helped to look after the door this evening after Tina had left. Vanessa is creating a new layout for this website which we will start to publish some time early in 2010. It will be more interactive enabling members to input some information to it themselves.

Vanessa and Millie

Jaye, shown here, came along for the first time last week and this week she popped in at the end of the evening and paid up to become a member of the club, so welcome jaye it is good to have you with us.
This is the last Blog entry for 2009 so I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very Happy and Prosperous new year and hope that we can all continue to enjoy our activities together in this very pleasant environment at the Rembrandt and at the other outings and events arranged by the members.
I would also like to thank all the staff at the Rembrandt for the fantastic way they go out of their way to help us.
Mary

The weather today was foul, with a lot of snow still lying on the side roads and more threatening to fall. We therefore were expecting a quiet night which it was, but still a very good evening sitting in the warm, watching the snow falling outside. Around 25 people turned up which was as many as we could reasonably expect but this still included three new people.
Beth came first, as Elaine and I met her in the upstairs corridor of the Rem. She had booked her own room so was planning to come to the meeting at 7pm. We invited her to come with us for a meal at 6pm so she managed to get changed to look as presentable as shown by the photograph here in 45 minutes. Soon after we started at 7pm Kyrsten came in with a message and apologies from Lisa and Tara at Transfixed saying that they would not be able to make it this evening with their wig sale.

Mary

They said that they still had clients to attend to and they were nervous about getting home because of the weather. Hopefully we will manage to get them along here on another evening, so the wig sale is still to come.
Elaine, on the right was unable to make our party last week because her Mother had just died after a very long illness. We offer our condolences to you Elaine, but I am glad the stress you have been living through is finally over and hope you can now slowly recover you life. We are glad to see you here with us.
We also had another new girl come in early in the evening, shown here on the left with Tina, but I am sorry I cannot remember your name, She comes from Bolton and goes out to the local pubs there on her own, but would now like to meet more people like ourselves, so decided to give this club a try.

Elaine

Debbie and Tanya

Milli

Gabriella

Our final new girl who came in this evening was Gabriella, shown above, who has been going to Goth events for some time but thought she would invetisgate us this evening as she had the time available. I hope she manages to come along more often, now she has met us.
Hazel, shown above left was able to come this week and last week as the dancing classes she now attends, as Hazel, had broken up for Christmas.
It was good to see Michaela both this week and last week as her life is so busy she often finds it difficult to get here. I couldn't resist showing off her handbag which she bought in a sale for a fiver..

We have a normal evening on the 30th but Ryan, Dave and Catherine from TREC will be here at some time during the evening to demonstrate how to submit Hate Crime Reports.

Christmas Party Night

This evening we had our christmas party laid on, with a fantastic buffet provided by the Rembrandt and live music entertainment from Vida and Marieanne. It is always great to see so many members and friends come along to this event, especially people like Jan who did the door for us for many years and Sue who has now moved away to live by the sea.

Tina, Joanne, Emma and Debbie

Sue is shown on the right with a friend whose name I am sorry but I have forgotten. The food shown on the left just before it was ready to serve but it also included at the far end, Hot Chilli-con-Carne and a vegetarian curry which were delicious. There were sweets as well including a chocolate fountain

Rebecca, Petra and Ruth

Sue and Friend

Here are a few general views of the room to give an idea of the atmosphere. These were all taken by Pauline.

Marieanne

Debbie & Petra

Jenny and Vida

Kathryn & Susie

Miranda

Alison & Susie

Milli

Amanda and Alex

Steffie

Tanya, Estelle and Daniella

Amber and Cate

Sarah Louise

Amanda and Millie

Michaela

Susie and Milli

Estelle

Well, that's another Christmas party over. Many thanks to all of you who came, to the Staff of the Rembrandt for looking after us so well and to Marieanne and Vida for providing the entertainment.

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