London Link was kindly invited by Teenage General Meeting to come to their Manchester event, 10 (and 1 joining on Saturday) Young people and 3 adults from London Link crossed the road from Friends House to Euston station where we promptly got on the train – Which then stood in the station for another 40 minutes while we waited for a “train manager” to arrive, Virgin trains having turned down all of our offers to be train managers, finally got going.

We arrived at Manchester Picadilly station where we were met by some of the TGM group who showed us the way to Manchester meeting house with the rest of their group making 34 young people in total. We joined them for some traditional northern cuisine (tacos) and introduced ourselves with a game and allocated our “secret friends” for the weekend.  After that we went to epilogue run by the TGM group and a story telling then bed.

After breakfast we headed out to the local tram stop with our packed lunches and were whisked across Manchester to Salford Quays/Media city where we visited the Imperial War Museum North. Through the exhibitions and the immersive film screening we learnt from stories captured by local people about the impacts of war on people’s lives.

We ate lunch and headed over the Quays to the Lowry centre where we were able to look at the art work on display by L. S. Lowry. He holds the record for the most honours declined, one “honour” he didn’t get a chance to decline was having a shopping centre named after him, and this is where some of us also went.

We took a tram back to the meeting house and had some free time while dinner was being prepared. After dinner TGM and London Link took turns in running some fun games; pulling out the stops on the much loved classics like Sardines and Watch the finger.

The home groups that had been set up for the week then met to do a creative listening activity, after this London Link then lead epilogue and story telling. We had some hot chocolate and then bed.

Sunday morning we had breakfast and started some cosy glows. After Meeting we had an exciting treasure hunt around Manchester city centre where we had to find captions from plaques and signs around the historic parts of the city centre.

We had some lunch and did an evaluation of the weekend, tidy up then home.

London Link would like to thank TGM for inviting us to their event and for all the organising and time they gave to help make the event run so well. We’d also like to thank Manchester Quakers for allowing us to take over their Meeting House, the London Link volunteers and finally all the young people for creating such a great community.

– Michael

Next event – Interval Sept 27-28th 2014