Wednesday the 28th of October 2015

Genevieve, Ami, Tina, Linda, Mica, Judith, lynn & Irene

Halloween called for a different style of dress this week and as you can see some people entered into the “Spirit” of the evening.

Judith

Mica

I think Mica, on the left, gets top marks for originality as does the lady on the right, whoever she is.

Who?

Genevieve

Irene

Tina

Ami

Sadly most of the halloween outfits are very dark so it was good to see a bit of colour from the ladies shown below.

Nikki & New Girl

Linda

Julia

Joanna

Next week will be a normal club week but I believe we will have a visit from Louie Stafford, the LGBT Foundation’s new Trans co-ordinator, so come along and meet him. The menu for our Christmas meal at Villaggio’s is now up on the coming events page so please get your order in as soon as possible.




Wednesday the 12th of April 2017

This wednesday was our final evening at Villaggio’s. The members presented Mary, who has looked after us at Villaggio’s for the last four years, with a large bunch of flowers as a thank you present, plus two large boxes of chocolates for her to distribute to the staff. She is shown here with all the girls who happened to be in the club at that time, except for Joanna who was there taking the picture for us. Next week I hope we will see many more people come along to see our new home in Polari, below VIA. See directions on our home page, PS We are sorry to have to leave Villaggio’s as it has been an ideal venue for us, but the building has been sold and Villaggio’s is now closed.




Wednesday the 15 of October 2014

Dee, Linda, Carole, Lynn, Millie, Tina, Paula, Genevieve & Mary

This evening we had a Blue dress theme night and this just shows up how many different shades of blue there are. Michaela appeared later in the evening so was not included but she has managed to create a really fun outfit. Little Bo-peep springs to mind. Below are some individual photos that show off the colours better.

Michaela

Carole

Lynn

Mary

Genevieve

Millie

Linda

Tina

Joanne

Vaness & Sam

Dee

On the left we have Dee who visited us for the first time, coming all the way from Yorkshire and staying overnight to make the most of the day. She enjoyed her time with us and is hoping to be able to return again soon. We had a total of four new people with us this evening so it is difficult to keep track. Helen on the right was new and so was Prue who was visiting Manchester all the way from Germany on business. She knew we met in the village but had not realised we met here on Wednesday evenings, so was pleasantly surprised to find us here this evening. Welcome to you both and I hope you are able to return at some point. We told Prue about Sparkle and she may be able to return for that event.

Helen and Prue

Steff

Steff shown here all in blue to fit in with our theme, only managed to get here soon after 10pm but we introduced her to the girl on the right, whose name escapes me, and when we closed we went on to “The Goose” where they managed to have a long chat. Next week the 22nd of October we will hold a Quiz night and the week after that is our Haloween evening so I hope to see more of you all there.

Gillian




Wednesday the 29th of October 2014

This week we celebrated Halloween and quite a few people made the most of the opportunity. We should thank Millie, who always takes part in these events, who this week brought along her pet cat to keep us all in order. I dont know what she feeds it on but it is obviously doing well on it. We also had the pleasure of Rosie with her stall selling her jewellery a large amount of it she made herself. She is always open to suggestions and will make stuff to order if there is something you would like for yourself.

Rosie

Display 1

Display 2

Rosie and Kate

Michaela

Michaela and Kate

Sonia

Nikki

Sarah Louise

Lynn

Judith

Alicia

Frances and Michaela

Millie’s Tights

Suki, Pauline and Sonia

Millie, Julia and Millie

Roli

Sam, Heather and Vanessa

Lisa

Paula

Genevieve

Erica

Kim and Julia

Heather and Helen

This was an enjoyable evening with many people turning up dressed for Haloween, so thank you to all those that made the effort. I was especially impressed with Michaela’s dress which she bought, via the internet, from China for the princely sum of £30.00 which seems like a bargain. She ordered it some weeks ago and kept on hoping that it would arrive in time, so was very glad when it came late last week.




Wednesday the 8th of June 2016

This evening we were visited by two Ladies and a chap who are looking for people to take part in the Channel 4 program advertised on the left. I am sorry but I didn’t take a note of their names. They emphasised that they were trying to find as diverse a mix of people as they could so they were very interested in finding some from the trans community if at all possible. If any of you are interested then please get in touch with them using one of the methods at the bottom of the leaflet. They would prefer phone calls as their time scale is short and they plan to start filming fairly soon. They think that many problems in the world are caused by people not talking enough in an honest way, so what they really want isn’t understood properly. This is a television program so do make sure you are prepared for any publicity you will get before volunteering to take part.

Paula & Lynn

Carole, Nikki & Nicola

Linda

Megan, Milli & Pauline

This week started off very quietly but picked up as the evening went on. We had nothing special arranged but our visitors mentioned above made an impact and got people talking so that was good. Next week we will have Gill Springay The Makeover Girl with us. This is specially useful for newcomers as plenty of free good advice will be given so do make the effort to get here if you can.

Sarah and Faye




Wednesday the 19th of November 2014

This was a normal club meeting, but things are starting to move already, for Sparkle next year and Karen has organised another Fund raising “Fire Walk” event to be held in Sackville Gardens on Sunday the 21st of December starting at 5pm. So, as part of the organisation for this event, the Manchester Council insist that all the residents who live round the park must be sent letters giving them the details. Karen organised the printing of the letters but I volunteered Manchester Concord members to take on the job of folding, filling, stamping and addressing all 196 letters that need to go out to fulfil this obligation. We have done this job a few times now to help Sparkle and the group of people shown here, that I asked to help out, managed to get the job done in around half an hour. I would here like to thank them all , on behalf of the Sparkle trustees, for doing the job so willingly.

Chloe

Ami and Fiona

Julia

We haven’t seen Chloe at the club since before Sparkle in July so it was lovely to see her back with us again after such a long gap. She is such a busy lady these days that she now get little opportunity to come into Manchester on a wednesday. I hope it will not be as long before she makes it again.

Lisa

Danni and Julia

Millie

It was interesting to talk with Danni this evening as she told me that she has recently been asked by her employers if she would become one of their Diversity representatives and help them with educating their staff in this regard. I suggested that she speaks to Jenny-Anne of Transforum as I know that she is already supplying training for several organisations.

Erica

Erica, on the left, has recently started coming to the club again , after a gap of many years, has offered to donate a number of clothes to the club and will be organising a clothes sale next week, the 26th of November. We will also have Gill Springay, The Makeover Girl, with us so it should be an interesting evening. Finally, on Sunday the 23rd of November, I attended the Transgender Day of Rememberence ceremony in Sackville Park along with very many other people including many of our members. It is a very moving occasion well organised by the TDOR group who organised the installation and maintenance of the Memorial shown below. We are exceeding lucky in this country at the level of tolerance that now exists to Transgender people, thanks to very much hard work by many people that have gone before us. But we still need to realise that this is not happening everywhere, as the statistic of 268 transgender people who have been KILLED THIS YEAR 2014, around the world shows. There is still much to be done.




Wednesday the 29th of June 2016

Nikki, Sarah, Minima, Lisa & Heather

The weather was most unlike June so I think this resulted in a very slow start to the evening, but it picked up later on. I talked to several people for longer than usual and this resulted in me forgetting to take many pictures. Stepani, on the right, has to come a long way to get here so she doesn’t make it very often. We dont get a chance to talk much. I enjoyed my chat with her so thank you Stepani it was good to see you two weeks in a row. Minima, in the middle on the left, came in to ask me to sign her name change deed poll form, which I did as I have known her for about 4 years.

Stepani

Roli

Roli is now back with us again after her trip to Africa, but she can only make it here on the last wednesday of the month, as she is so busy with other things. She has asked me to try to have our colour theme nights on the last wednesday so she can take part. We will try to remember that in future. Paula is our most regular attender so I do try to include her here most weeks. It is always a pleasure. DONT FORGET, next week we will be holding our Music and Karaoke evening as one of the first FRINGE events of SPARKLE 2016 which will take place in Sackville Gardens this coming weekend the 9th & 10th of July I hope to see you all there.

Paula