As you know, Saturday was the London meeting, and it was a smashing success! About 15 people showed up in total. Samantha Reeve was the first on the scene, closely followed by me and my husband Moe. Next came Debbie Pharoah (a Capital FM employee), and a few of her friends (I only remember one of their names because it was Julie), along with Beverley Lawrence. Then came Nathalie Gendron and her delightful husband Ken who flew in from Germany to be with us. Sonja from Belgium and Aaliyah, our NEWSFLASH manager, came too! Late-comers were Michelle, the UK chapter manager, Indy (poster-extraordinaire), and Bianca, our Dutch correspondent and MULTICULTURAL G NOTES manager, from the Netherlands - they met up with us at the restaurant. We had lunch at the Fashion Cafe, and although the food left much to be desired, we made up for it with good company & conversation. I passed out photocopies of the letter from George thanking me for the G NOTES website (received last summer) and everyone seemed happy to get to see George's handwriting. I also handed out G NOTES business cards to several of the members so that they could distribute them in their respective areas. Insert cute anecdote here: Nathalie almost knocked me down to ground in one fail swoop, grabbing on to my jacket, yelling "AND YOU MET GEORGE!!!!"... she then proceeded to touch my right hand (which I used to shake George's hand)... and later I made a joke ... asking if she wanted to kiss my feet because I was wearing the same boots I wore when I met him. hahahaha Nathalie, being a good sport, didn't punch my lights out! :o) Several hours later they finally asked us to leave the premises (as we were no longer eating.. just talking)... so a large group of us set out to hit the big record stores to approach managers and put the G NOTES business cards on their counters. HMV proved to be a major disappointment, siting a need to get corporate approval, but Tower & Virgin were much more accommodating and we were able to leave 100-200 cards between the two large locations. So, we all dispersed around 7pm and joined up again at 9pm. To our surprise, Has Khalid made a surprise appearance even though he had told me he couldn't make it - so the evening group was: Sonja, Bianca, Indy, Jewel, Moe, Nathalie and Ken, and Aaliyah & Has (who both had to leave early). We went out to dinner, and then went 'clubbing'. Our first choice, The Wag, was members only, so we continued on to another club called Vogue. Although I didn't care much for the techno-music, I had a great time. Nathalie is a power-house of enthusiasm and just delightful to talk to... it was a great pleasure to finally meet my fellow Canuck (hey!... who says French & English Canadians don't get along!?) We partied the night away until around 2am and then amid many hugs & kisses, went our separate ways into the streets of London. It's really nice to put faces with many of these members that I've known as friends and/or G NOTES assistants for some time now. I'd like to thank everyone who came along and made this group meeting a smashing success. When can we do it again??? Jewel 
BEV AND INDY KISS AND MAKE UP!!!!!!!! :o) Hi all! Just wanted to say what a great time was had by one and all at the London Fashion Cafe, venue of the Third George Michael Fans' Lunch!! And yes, you heard it here first -- who needs a United Nations special envoy? -- Bev and Indy officially kissed and made up ;o) and raised their glasses and toasted the man who brought them together -- Mr George Michael!!
There you have it,
folks -- living proof that the world is a beautiful place when we GM fans
work together, instead of squabbling! It was good to see so many familiar faces, and some new ones too!! We were joined on this exciting occasion by Jewel, looking splendid in her Gnotes t-shirt; but sadly I had to leave before Bianca arrived :o( I sincerely hope you enjoyed meeting all of us here in London, Jewel!! I might be a tiny bit biased, but I think that we do George proud with our enthusiasm for his music here in his home city!!!
So last Saturday saw the third London fan get-together. What a BLAST. Due to circumstances beyond my control I was around an hour and a quarter late, so when I arrived the party was in full swing.
There were 15 of us.
Unfortunately the music at the Fashion Cafe was played incredibly loud so that we found ourselves shouting to one another to be heard ... guess the majority of their clientele are deaf. The only time none of us seemed to mind how loud the music was (probably because some of us were louder than the music) was when Sonja persuaded the DJ to play some GM .... Star People and Fastlove. Good for you Sonja. Eventually the waiters and waitresses must have got fed up with us because at around 5:30 they kicked us out (politely of course). Unfortunately I had to leave because of prior plans so I was not able to support Jewel and the others in their quest on the record stores, nor was I able to join in the party later in the evening ... so not only did I miss out on what sounds like a terrific evening, I also missed out on meeting Has :o( Lets hope that the next meeting ... which will not be until summer/late summer ... will be even more successful and bring in more interested fans (and Jewel of course). :o)
Thank you everyone who made Saturday possible and enjoyable.
Here is my account of my Georgous GM meeting in London last Saturday. I got up at 5:10 (The things we do in the name of George.) to catch the Eurostar train to London. (That train goes under the North Sea.) I arrived at 8.30 'GM'T and crashed at the hotel. Before going to Capital Radio (Show me the money !) I went to HMV to buy JTAC for Mae and her crying babys. (God, now I don't think I want to have kids. ;o)) We waited for the G-gang to gather and then went of to the Fashion Café. We had a great time exchanging George trivia and cultural experiences. That account of the Capital Radio interview where George let the DJ shout 'Show me the money!' really cracked me up. I wished a had heard it. And Jewel, I'm moving to Canada. No cost for local phone calls ! I'm living in the wrong country. :o) I just adore all those London accents. :o) Wow. I wish George would sometimes use his London accent like at the beginning of 'I'm Your Man'. Yes Ken, you have an accent. That's what makes languages so much fun. This time the Fashion Café had a G CD. I asked him and he played two versions of 'Star People'. :o) Since I know G NOTES I no longer apologise for my George addiction. Pretty soon they'll have to open a local support group for family and friends of George addicts. Next stop: the music stores. I was prepared to be laughed at in stores when we asked to put out the Grassroots cards, but, no, most store managers were very friendly and had no problems with leaving our G NOTES Grassroots cards. I'll try in my home town in Belgium. Hopefully they are as kind as in England. After all that hard work (He Ćgean, do we get a discount on the MOL CD ?) We decided it was time to hit the night scene ! 'You have got to get up to get down.' To bad they didn't let us in at The Wag. I like that place. So we went to Vogue. Not bad, but the techno music was not really my cup of tea. I asked again if they would play a George song. The DJ said yes, but after an hour or two we still hadn't heard The Man. Oh, well, we had lots of fun amongst ourselves.
I really recommend going to GM meetings. They are SO much FUN. He George
and Ćgean staff, come on down to our meetings, then you'll see we are not
nutters but just wonderful, normal people who you can hang out with. o:)
For whoever is interested... here's my story of the London meeting. :o) First of all a very big thank you to Michelle for finding me a hotel room at such short notice. Due to the fact that I seem to make a habit of postponing my booking to the last minute, the only available plane flight was at 2.30 pm. Oh well.. better late than not being there at all, so when I arrived at Heathrow I went straight to the hotel, left my luggage there and rushed over to the Fashion Cafe.. oops, sorry Tracy, in my rush I forgot my camera :( On my way to the Fashion cafe I ran into Deb and her friends, which made me a bit more confident, at least I was heading into the right direction without getting lost in the streets of London. :) It was great to walk into the Fashion Cafe, ask for the G Notes fanclub, and meet up with old friends like Michelle, Samantha, Sonja and Nathalie and meet new ones like Jewel, her husband, Nat's husband, Aaliyah and Indy. Bev... I missed meeting with you too! :o( I brought lots of pictures of my kids this time but since you weren't there anymore, I had to torture all the others by showing them anyway. *lol* After leaving the Fashion Cafe we went on our "operation Grassroots" mission. Most companies were quite cooperative but HMV turned out to be dissapointing. *Grin*, which reminds me, I have to tell you guys a very strange thing about HMV. On sunday when I was waiting for my flight back home, walking around at Heathrow I noticed a HMV shop. Of course I had to walk in and see what they had in store of George Michael, and to my surprise I noticed that Older & Upper was cheaper than the original Older! I can't remember the exact prices, but it was something like 14.02 for Older and 13.something for Older & Upper.. I'm sure it was cheaper coz I triple-checked! :o) Very strange store... Anyway.. back to our evening! Sonja *show me the money* Verheyen and me were the first ones to turn up at the Hippodrome.. the others arrived shortly after us. Jewel wanted to go looking for a place for dinner and I had a hard time convincing her that Has was going to show up and we had to wait for him... luckily you decided to show your face at the right time has! :o) Now finding a place that wanted to have us all was a bit of a problem *lol*, but when we finally sat down we had a great time. I think it's fair to say we all got along really well and we enjoyed our talks and laughs very much.. our main discussion topics were George Michael, Aegean and G Notes of course. :) And to make the day perfect we went "clubbing" in London. I really had a great time there too, the only sad thing was that we didn't get them to play a George Michael song. Oh sure.. Nathalie went up to the dj a couple of times and requested one.. but we never got to hear one. :( Oh and Indy, my dear.. *lol*, I'm sure.. you must think I have a hearing problem after saturday night.. but I swear it was nothing personal. Guess english not being my first language is a disadvantage in a venue with loud music.. next time we'll have to find a more quiet place for conversation. :o)
The goodbyes were the hard part coz I hated leaving everybody! :(
Hope we can do it again soon guys.. maybe next time in Amsterdam, right
Jewel?? :o))
As far as the London Meeting, well, everyone who were there KNOWS how much
fun I had! I never thought the first meeting could get "topped", but let
me tell you this one was AWESOME. I had a blast from 1:00 PM until 3:00
AM!! So many new and old faces: Jewel, Mo, Aaliyah, Indy, Has, and of
course my dear friends Michelle, Bianca, and Sonja. Unfortunately, I
didn't have a chance to talk to the others present, except for a quick and
sweet exchange with Debbie. Meeting Jewel was definitely the highlight.
As you so cleaverly mentioned it, Jewel, French and English Canadians can
get along... They only need a good Party!
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