Wow, just wow!
Today has been so cool! Just amazing! Not to even mention the amazing thing that was meeting Sarah (@SarahLipson) and Oli yesterday. So many cool amazing things in two days!
Today was the #MHmeet, this was / is my first blogger and mental health event. I was a bit nervous, but more just looking forward to meeting everyone. Some I've spoken to a lot, some a little, some I've yet to have the pleasure.
It was great to have a venue for the meet that allowed us to have our own space, given many of us where attending our first MH and blogger events, I think it really helped to make us feel more comfortable in talking about our experiences and generally feel relaxed. So a big thank you to 57 Thomas St (@mable57Tstreet) and to Rach for organising the hosting / venue.
I enjoyed meeting Sian (@SianTweets) for brunch beforehand, it was really nice to meet one person first and have a chance to just talk one to one and get to know someone more. I've mainly only spoken to Sian in mental health twitter chats, so to just chat was great. I would also like to say that I was very proud and pleased that the Starbucks we were in asked everyone to honour the two minutes silence for Remembrance Sunday. They even turned the air con off so it was quite in the room. So lots of respect to them for doing what they could to honour the remembrance.
The event, it was great to meet Rich (@RichBiscuit) who I have spoken to so much; about mental health, wrestling, Pokémon Go and life in general. To see him in real life was so good! I'm am really pleased I'd pre warned him he was going to get a awkwardly long hug. Because well, yup we did... a couple of times!
Getting to talk to Rhianna (@robowecop) and Kayleigh (@VeryBerryCosmo) who I've watched on YouTube was a great thing too. A couple of times I found myself just looking at them, hahaha. Then there was talking to Rachel (@NoSpaceForMilk) and Brandon (@dangerpieters) who said they listen to my podcast and in fact downloaded the two latest episodes to listen to on the way home. So awesome!
Food time did lead to me running outside and grabbing a quick Burger King, I was hungry! But I did feel like I'm missing out on 15 minutes of MHmeet time. Like I don't want to miss a minute of this, everyone is here, this is why I'm here, so why leave. But...food!
I didn't move around the table as much as I'd planned to. So I do feel like I didn't get to talk to everyone, and I definitely spoke to some (Rich) more than others (everyone else). So I hope to see everyone at another event soon. I did do a rather cheeky wave to Rhianna to encourage her to come down to my end of the table. So rude haha. Fortunately she didn't tell me where to go, she came down the table and chatted. Which was really nice as it seemed to prompt a few people to move around. Next time speed dating style anyone?
After a while a few people started to have to leave. Kind of made me really happy that I was staying in Manchester overnight as I could stay as long as I wanted and didn't have to worry about getting a train or driving home. It was so nice to see everyone, I really hope everyone enjoyed it as much as me.
Playing cards against humanity with Rach (@RachelEllis), Rich, Kayleigh, Faisal (@falidude), Rebecca (@reb_moynihan) was funny, even if we did have a lot of rubbish cards hahaha.
After the event myself, Rich and Kayleigh headed to Turtle Bay where we had some fries and Rich did a Tinder take over on my phone. Some funny stuff right there! We rounded off our evening with a bit of train station chat before they caught their respective trains.
I did take a few photos, no real videos or recordings. I did think towards the end of the evening I should have recorded something for the podcast. But I was so in awe of being with everyone that I didn't really think about it till everyone had gone. So next time!
I also know there were a few people that really wanted to come but couldn't. So to those of you that couldn't; I hope we get a chance to meet soon. There's more of you I need to hug!
Additionally...I have been doing a little bit of filming this weekend so I should be posting something on YouTube next weekend that shows a bit more of my Manchester adventure.
See you all soon!
YNA