MELBOURNE. My Hometown. My People!

March 30, 2016

Of course I’ve been dreaming of doing a Melbourne VWVB since all this began.

Everyone back home has been super supportive of the project. People wanted to get involved from the get-go. Some friends and family even added their own “remote VWVBs” for NYC and London via Facebook, which I loved. So it was definitely time.

But being home is always a race against the clock because there’s so many people to catch up with and new babies to swoon over.

So with that in mind I downsized so I could set up on the fly. And instead of doing one big day I did a few shorter stints over different days.

And little by little friends, family and the odd passersby generously stopped and wrote their Very Worst & Very Best of wondrous Melbourne for me.

In the other cities I’ve mainly spoken to strangers. So it was humbling to learn new things about people I’ve known all of my life. Like a story from my cousin about her experience when our granny passed away. Or the story of a friend who stood up and announced his engagement to his wife on a packed tram on NYE 1999. I never knew!

And despite this ever increasing digital age, penmanship definitely improved with a little extra encouragement from me. Ha.

So, thanks Melbourne. That was awesome. Let’s make sure we do it again soon!

Cheers London, that was Pretty Awesome.

July 17, 2015

Who could ask for more than grey skies and a little drizzle? Not me, I was happy as a clam as we set up for the second installment of VW/VB
in London.

The set up was at Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park – a place representing free speech and new ideas for hundreds of years. Although instead of getting up on the traditional soapbox, I was asking people to do the speaking instead.

After initially getting moved by a couple of very nice and apologetic policemen, who then seemed to supervise the whole operation for some reason, we started chatting to the steady stream of people arriving at the park.

There was lots of intrigue again at my little set up, which turned into tentative conversation, which turned into chatting, which turned into people everywhere with white and black pens scribbling down colorful memories. So cool to see it all take shape again!

Responses were a little briefer than in NYC, probably because a lot of people were in a hurry to get somewhere – and it was drizzling, so
quite understandable.

The Tube and the weather came up a lot in people’s worsts. Although one guy met his wife on the Tube, which proved it can also bring some of the best bests. I especially loved hearing the local-isms, like “going for a stagger”, “spiffing” and “Muggles” peppered in.

Super fun and interesting day. And one of only a few I was there, so I loved having the excuse to get to know a few people a little better through VW/VB. So thanks again to everyone who stopped by.

Big shout out to part of my generous family who gave up a couple of hours of their holiday to come down and chat to strangers in the rain with me!

Oh, and where you see two different names on one VW/VB it was two friends who shared one. So cute.

I'll post about the next location once I've figured out where that might be.

In the meantime though, thanks for following, world.

The Very Best Launch

May 31, 2015

Well, I kicked things off in Washington Square Park yesterday!

The sun was shining so the park was bustling and there was a steady stream of people arriving all afternoon. We were set up next to a lady making giant bubbles that wafted past people as they pondered and wrote down their Very Worst & Very Best moment in NYC.

There was a lot of intrigue about what we were up to. People responded really well to the idea and genuinely wanted to add their moments to the WORST and BEST jars, which was a great feeling after months of planning and imagining how it might go.

There was a lot of story telling and sharing between people sitting around filling in their moments. Everyone had their two stories and it was so nice to be able to give them the opportunity to tell them. After he added his, one little boy, of about 8, said thoughtfully "I've never thought about that before". That made me smile.

So thank you thank you thank you to everyone who stopped by and contributed! Without you there would be no VWs or VBs.

I was also blessed with the help and talent of some great people. Thanks so much to Brian for the branding, to my cousin Jess for her hands-on help all day (particularly that crazy start when we decided to wheel the cart to the park from my place - a true New York moment but one we decided to skip on the way home, thanks Uber), Luke for taking some great video that I'll be uploading soon, Donna for taking the awesome shots below and all my friends who popped past and others who hung out all day. It was rad. You guys rock!

Looking forward to doing it again in London!

I'll be posting all the VWs & VBs very soon!