Archive for the ‘Life’ Category

At the end of November we headed up to the Lutherin church in Headingley for Finnish Christmas carols. We went last year as well, which was arguably better as they had an organist, but it was enjoyable none-the-less and the performance pieces were good too. As ever, the best bit was the food afterward.

I also love how organised they are – at that event they gave out the date for the 2014 event!

When we were looking for venues for the Sunday Assembly I visited Temple Works. It is located just down at the bottom of town and was once the biggest room in the world. It really is massive. When I was shown it it was like a moment out of Star Trek when you see a huge space station for the first time – it just went on and on! A mega-cool venue that I hope we can work with some day.

For more details, see their website.

We held off until the Friday to hold out Halloween party, being proper adults with jobs and all. It was of course fancy dress.

Before we disappeared down to London, I went for food and drink at Chaophraya to celebrate my birthday. Myself and Elina ordered one of the banquet menus, of which we ate about half and took the rest home in a carrier bag full of food.

Having taken on the role of Table Topics Master at last Thursday’s meeting of Leeds City Toastmasters, I got the chance to use my new TableTopics box. This is a cube full of conversation starter cards – take a look here. Most of them turned out to be really good topics and made for a very lively session.

A few weeks ago we headed up to Skipton for Yarndale – a festival of yarn. It was huge. They had rented out a sheep auction warehouse and most of it was full of people selling wool and wool related products.

As part of Leeds Business Week, the Leeds Toastmasters clubs came together to put on an event “Pitch Perfect”. It turned out to be a huge success with positive feedback from many of our participants and lots of interests in the clubs. Congratulations to Pierre and everyone else involved in bringing it together.

Yet another xkcd comes to life in the real world.

Remember It’s a Knockout? I don’t, because even at 26 I’m too young. But basically, Total Wipeout is a total rip off of it, so think that. Except that it started in the 60s, so there was no PC filter of the very offensive comments that the host makes.

Turns out though that you an hire them to turn up and do a corporate events days.

In honour of Yorkshire Day, I made some puddings. It was the first time I’ve tried it, but obviously being from Yorkshire, I’m born with a genetically inherited ability to make them.