Madchester 2017...

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Paul Victory
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Re: Madchester 2017...

Post by Paul Victory »

Just about to head to the airport. No gym gear in my bag, so I will be in the cheerleaders section.

See you all soon.

Paul V
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Re: Madchester 2017...

Post by plummy »

Peter and Ann are safely installed in the Normanhurst as they needed a nap (having "survived" a USA airline flight). The gazebo is up (no sides fitted as the weather is very nice) but another roof strut has snapped so there's only cable ties holding it together! I think its days are numbered!
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Re: Madchester 2017...

Post by Jill »

plummy wrote:Peter and Ann are safely installed in the Normanhurst as they needed a nap (having "survived" a USA airline flight).
That's good to hear. :) I assume that it wasn't a United Airlines flight?

Hope that everyone else had problem free flights?

About twenty minutes ago, Richard and I persuaded Darth Vader to let himself be dismantled and put in the back of the car. DV wasn't too keen, had to bribe him with alcohol, which he insisted we leave in his care or else ... :evil: As yet, we haven't felt any tightening sensations around our necks, so I think he must be happy. :roll: :lol:

Okay. I know. I'll get my coat. :lol: :wink:

See you all tomorrow. :)
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Re: Madchester 2017...

Post by Draggon »

Enjoying the repartee remotely... have fun, ya'll...
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Re: Madchester 2017...

Post by Peter_S »

Jill wrote: I assume that it wasn't a United Airlines flight?
Actually, it was. #-o We can tell you about our United Club experience in about an hour from now.
Draggon wrote:have fun, ya'll...
Ron, you must be from southern Indiana. :lol:

We had a wonderful day yesterday at the Great Event, and a delightful breakfast with Paul V. this morning. Ready to walk to Plummy's now.
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Re: Madchester 2017...

Post by CamiCrew »

Enjoy all! Hope it's a wonderful day! =D> For those exerting yourselves, may the force be with you. :twisted:

Best wishes to Janet as the erg talk ramps up :?: :shock: :lol:

Jill & Sheena, save up a few stories for me :fsbgrin: :fsbgrin:
-barbara

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Re: Madchester 2017...

Post by Stan »

Many apologies for not being able to make it this year. Embarrassingly just not fit enough. Hope you all have a great day.
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Re: Madchester 2017...

Post by plummy »

Thanks Stan - some one will raise a glass to your return to fitness I'm sure (I suspect it might be Paul V) ;-)
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Re: Madchester 2017...

Post by Paul Victory »

I don't understand how this erroneous impression has got around that I like to drink. :lol:

But I'm happy to raise a glass to Stan's future return to fitness. Hic!
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Re: Madchester 2017...

Post by JonT »

Paul Victory wrote:I don't understand how this erroneous impression has got around that I like to drink. :lol:

But I'm happy to raise a glass to Stan's future return to fitness. Hic!
It's not an erroneous impression Paul, it's recognition of your commitment to Team Free Spirits =D> :lol:

Now enough of this small talk, where are the photos and write up?? According to the piccies on FaceFaff nobody actually did any rowing :fsbgrin: :shock:
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Re: Madchester 2017...

Post by jhaveman »

Jon, the afternoon's rowing programme is something that I'd rather forget about. I rowed my slowest 5k ever (checked on the concept2 logs), and am still feeling the after effects now - mostly when I sit down :shock:
There were some strong rowing performances from the others though =D>
Peter S captured some of the events on his GoPro device - it may appear later.
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Re: Madchester 2017...

Post by plummy »

About 5Gb of piccies and video going up on the Free Spirits FB site (assuming I can upload that much). Some of the shots are kind of stop motion (GoPro feature) so may look like the same picture repeated). If it tanks half way through I'l do a selection only (to prove it wasn't just beer and BBQ) :-)

For me, I'm happy enough with my 5k time of 19:18.4 and followed by the impromptu tandem (Peter W and me) against the man mountain that is Tako over 10k where he went sub 38 mins. Peter and I did 2500m splits in relay whilst Erik and Richard valiantly held our feet down (and somewhat proving how much my technique has deteriorated by saying I was difficult to strap - whilst Peter was very easy.

Thanks to all who attended. With more actually flying in from abroad than travelling from the UK it was truly an international event.
For reference, Tako (last to leave this afternoon) did an excellent in polishing off the food left over :-) and for those who were there when the gazebo snapped (again), despite waking up with a raging sore throat and getting no sleep (again!) I finally recovered enough to effect a decent repair so it is now usable again.
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Re: Madchester 2017...

Post by Paul Victory »

Thanks again to plummy and Janet for their wonderful hospitality. And thanks to everyone else who attended for being such good company and making the whole weekend so enjoyable.

I heard some great stories about cruises that various Free Spirits have been on. While very tempted, I've always resisted the urge on the basis that I would find an all day buffet too hard to resist and would have to be lifted off the ship by crane at the end of the cruise. I think this weekend proved the point, with oodles of food (and wine) available throughout the weekend, not to mention the big breakfasts at the Normanhurst. The results of my transgressions are covered in the weight gain thread.

From what plummy's saying, I might have a partner in crime in Tako. Just as well I went to the airport early with Erik and Peter!

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Re: Madchester 2017...

Post by Liefcat »

Difficult to find suiting words to describe the Madchester this year, but nonetheless will still try use a few of them! :fswink:

Truly an immense job by the organizer, Plummy, and also huge thanks to Mrs P for the hospitality, and great food and drinking during the day and evening! ^O^ ^O^

Always a big honour and pleasure to meet FSs from the US, and Ann and Peter made no exception to that "rule" whatsoever! And Peter also took care of the Barbecue in a most convincing way. =D> =D>

Also a big pleasure to meet Tako for the first time. Personally I was impressed by his fluent Danish - it turned out to be very useful when coaching him in his race against Dave and Peter G! :lol:

Ergingwise I did nothing - though held the strap(-s) for Dave and Peter G in their race against Tako... A whole new experience and very impressive about just how smooth Peter Gs rowing stroke was.

And as almost expected everyone was being so very nice! Thanks to everyone for a lovely day and to some the next morning also! :D :D :D
Last edited by Liefcat on Mon May 08, 2017 7:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Madchester 2017...

Post by Grobi »

First of all a big thank you from my side to Janet and David for providing a perfect venue for the 2017 Madchester =D> =D>

It was great meeting old (I should rather say "long term" :lol: ) friends like Ann and Peter Seidman (it has been seven years since the last time) or the lovely Underwood couple.

Good to welcome back Jan and Sheena to the "normal" world after their travels around the globe. Good to see you didn't lose your appetite for rowing!

I liked that Eric made all the long way from Denmark to meet up with us although unfortunately he could't row. Very strong commitment to Free Spirits Eric, thank you :fswink:

And finally it was great to meet Tako in person after having met virtually beforehand. He chased me like a steam train during the 5k which helped my time a lot. Thanks, and I think you enjoyed it too :D

A big thank you also to Eric and Richard for the "strap job" during the relay race against Tako. I really felt sorry for you guys, that surely wasn't fun for you. Very interesting approach towards judging rowing technique via the footstrap :!: Thank god I have that in video :lol:

Being one of the few that actually rowed :D I was quite happy with my 5k in 19:11.6. That's 8 seconds slower than last year but better than I would have expected. Dave and I detected the possibility to connect the PMs and thus have a little race set up. I thought it was fun as you could see the actual distance to the people in front of you and behind you (also Tako didn't stay behind me for very long :lol: ). We might try that layout again in the future I think.
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Madchester 2017...

Post by Tako »

What a great weekend!!!
My colleagues were teasing me on Friday when they heard where I was travelling and why; meeting up with people I had never met before. And to be honest I wasn't sure what to expect, but this was really a great experience and I am sure to meet up next time again.

Thanks a lot to our great hosts for their hospitality!
I hardly had opened my suitcase after checking in and started wondering how to contact Dave, when the reception told me that he was already waiting for me in the lobby! Later I found out that it was connected to the fact that all waited for me to have dinner ;-)

After a great Friday evening, meeting so many nice people, I started wondering whether to row at all and if yes what. My shoulder, arm and knee have been teasing me for a few weeks. After walking an hour through the impressive TraffortCenter on Saturday morning I decided to give it a try. Thanks to competitive instinct, Dave's and Peter's challenge, and all the other lovely people motivating me I decided to join Dave and Peter in the 5k race. We agreed to have 15sec between the starts. Dave first then Peter. As Peter said the race feature was great as you can have the RowPro like experience on the PM. Not sure why but I decided to give them an additional 15sec. Thanks to great secret coaching in Danish by Erik ;-) ;-) I managed to win the race in the last strokes :-)
Then instead of calling it a day I was challenged by Dave and Peter in a relay (4x2,5k) against me alone on 10k. My goal was sub 38 and not sure how but Dave calculated that to mean a 2,5min head start for him and Peter.
Unfortunately the PM on the rower that I was to race on timed out of the race while I was warming up on the 3rd rower. Hence it was difficult to target the others. But I do not want to sound like a bad looser as the two rowed great! Although I managed to get 1:20 closer I was never close enough to beat them as they rowed faster than planned..... (no comment!)
Thanks to all people coaching during that row, especially Ann. At the end I wished them all away so I could HD but they did not let me, which resulted in my 2nd best 10k ever :-) :-)
The rest of the weekend was used to relax and to get to know all these nice people a bit more. Thanks to Peter for the great videos as they helped to receive advice from the experience present in this great team.
Really looking forward to see you all again!! Once more thanks a lot!
\:D/ 🏴‍☠️🇳🇱🇩🇪🇩🇰🇳🇴🇪🇺
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Re: Madchester 2017...

Post by Draggon »

Tako wrote:Thanks to all people coaching during that row, especially Ann. At the end I wished them all away so I could HD but they did not let me
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Thanks for the write-ups, folks. Makes it sound like something I should try to be at some day... :) Do you have paramedics on standby? :wink:
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Re: Madchester 2017...

Post by Jill »

Another excellent and enjoyable Madchester - the Underwoods are beginning to feel quite the veterans these days. :)

Thank you David and Janet for your hospitality and for being such genial hosts, as once again, the ‘ mob ‘ took over your house. =D> :fsbgrin:

A great pleasure of course to meet up again with Paul, Peter, Erik and Jan and Sheena, together with the added bonus of being able to say hello, for the first time, to Ann and Peter and Tako. :D

Ann and I were scheduled to compete in the 1000m and Peter W had very kindly provided me with a written game plan that would have improved my current PB. The least said about my effort the better - I was not a worthy opponent for Ann, a gracious and fun lady and most certainly not a promising ‘ apprentice ‘ for Peter. Lessons learnt for me: don’t row with a DF ( too high ) that doesn’t match your abilities and don’t expect good results if you haven’t put in the practise. :oops: [-X

Barbara, the Dotties were in trouble. One or two … or perhaps it was three of us, ( I think Peter W may have sneaked off ) were guilty of daring our newest member, Mr Victory, to rebel … ( not that he needed much encouragement ) and sing. Our audacious little band of law breakers, almost succeeded; Paul was entertaining us with his interpretation of Bat Out Of Hell and emboldened by his recklessness, we had joined in … when, Mr Plumb appeared in the doorway of the Dotty Room … #-o 8-[ 8-[ 8-[

Barbara, this was ‘ rabbits caught in headlights ‘ time, as the Dotties quailed under a look, that earlier, Mr Plumb had described as his ‘ Paddington Bear Hard Stare ‘ . :shock: 8-[ :lol: :wink:

Silence. :-# Well, that is, until the coast was clear, and then :-$ Ssshhh … After three everyone … One … Two … Three …

The sirens are screaming, and the fires are howling
Way down in the valley tonight
:lol: :wink:

At one point during the evening, Peter S, resplendent in a pinny and taking a break from BBQ duties, also appeared in the doorway of the Dottie Room. With a glass of wine in his hand and a sweet smile on his face, Peter said, rather wistfully I thought, that he didn’t have any stories … Peter, that doesn’t matter, we would be delighted to have you as a member of the Dottie Club. Now, about the Initiation Ceremony … :shock: :fsbgrin:
CamiCrew wrote:Jill & Sheena, save up a few stories for me
On the Tuesday before Madchester, I was at the hairdressers, where Debbie, an experienced stylist, was applying the usual monthly application of highlights ( for the uninitiated, various tinted stripes ) to my hair. One of the tints that I’d chosen was a new colour called mocha, except that when Debbie blow dried my hair, the mocha materialised as pink. :shock: I had bright pink stripes in my hair. :shock: :lol: I won’t bore you with the whys and wherefores but before Debbie worked her magic, she said, “ Jill, I take it that you don’t want pink hair? “ I shook my head and said, “ Debbie, it’s a long story, but I’m meeting some friends on Saturday and trust me, they would think that I had elevated the art of silliness to unacceptable levels. “ :lol: :wink: If you think I might have made up this story, I asked Debbie to leave a few hidden strands of the pink, which I could then show Richard. He can testify that he has seen them. :)

Normally, we tend to communicate with each other through the forum, so I think of our get togethers as special, an opportunity to meet the Free Spirits behind the avatars. A chance to give everyone a big hug and a big kiss XXXX before you all disappear again into virtual land.

Best wishes to you all and extra special thoughts for those of you who have had to cope with illness and ongoing injuries.

Take care everyone.

Jill and Richard :)
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Re: Madchester 2017...

Post by CamiCrew »

Love the write ups!

Tako, like you, I got a few odd looks last year when I said we were heading to England for an erging vacation :lol:

Jill WHAT there was singing? [-X You know the rules, young lady :fsbgrin:

Thanks all for the descriptions. And Jill, for the pink hair story. You'll have to pick an opportune time to fill me in on the purse and scrambled eggs.

Three cheers for the brave who rowed, and to Dave/Janet for hosting, and to all for making it a great time. =D>
-barbara

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Re: Madchester 2017...

Post by Wolfmiester »

Couldn't think of a better place to post best wishes to all our friends in and around the Manchester area today.
Hope all are safe and sound following the mindless tragedy last night [-o<
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Re: Madchester 2017...

Post by Paul Victory »

Wolfmiester wrote:Couldn't think of a better place to post best wishes to all our friends in and around the Manchester area today.
Hope all are safe and sound following the mindless tragedy last night [-o<
Just hearing about it now. I hope none of our community was directly impacted by last night's terrible events.
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Re: Madchester 2017...

Post by plummy »

I read on FB that Dave Stansfield (local rower near me in Denton but not a Free Spirit) was directly affected as his daughter was injured (shrapnel and a suspected broken leg). I can't independently verify this but heard that he'd posted this info on FB himself.

EDIT - just read his FB page and his daughter (Jaden) WAS caught by the blast. She's "ok" (relative term of course) and has had surgery. I hope he's OK with me posting this...

Wishing her a speedy recovery (physically and mentally)...
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Re: Madchester 2017...

Post by CamiCrew »

We thought immediately of you and family, Dave. Good to know you're OK. Recalled you had been talking about a different concert event there, and knew it wasn't that one.

Very sorry to hear about the local rower, as well as others even more severely impacted. :(
-barbara

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Re: Madchester 2017...

Post by Thomas W-P »

Yes. My thoughts are with you all in Manchester.

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Re: Madchester 2017...

Post by Liefcat »

Also my thoughts are with you in Manchester :!:

And thought of Janet - must be a hard task to explain it to "her children" :!:
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