This is a fantastic NEW product, which any of us in groups or societies have needed and until now haven't had. Cambridgeshire Association for Local History (CALH) has produced - in booklet style - a list of speakers for Cambridgeshire. Here's the blurb ;) 


"..this list of speakers has been compiled at the request of and with the help of numerous society and club secretaries.  Just like CALH, they find it increasingly difficult to provide a wide variety of talks for their members and it is hoped that this list will help.

This is the first time that the CALH has produced such a list in print and it does so as part of its Diamond Jubilee celebrations.  It has been trialled on our website over the last 18 months.  It is hoped it will become a living document with society and club programme secretaries helping to keep it up to date and helping it to grow.  It will be printed periodically, but the latest version will be always be found online here at www.calh.org.uk/preview.htm

We hope you find it useful, and we will welcome your comments.  Good luck for another highly successful lecture season."

The family history day held at the Family History Centre on Cherry Hinton Road went really well. There were lots of people who came along to look at the stands and find out more about the centre itself. I put up our lovely big stand all about Cambridgeshire Community Archives Network (CCAN) and we had a lot of interest and will be introducing some new groups to this brilliant project for Cambridgeshire very soon :) ! People from as far a field as Yorkshire turned up for the family history day and it was great to see some familiar faces and stalls from groups such as the Cambridgeshire Family History Society.
ccan.co.uk  is not only a great place for you to share your old pictures and memories but it is also an amazing tool for family historians - our search facility on the website allows you to search both village by village, group by group but also the site as a whole. It's well worth a go!

You will now see a new option in the menu bar on the left and that is for you to visit MY SHOP!!! I have just opened up the shelves for you to be able to come and browse in my shop, you’ll be able to choose from 3 different shelves and visit what suits you. Once inside you’ll be able to find some great items to treat yourself to, from fantastic traditional toys and games, makeover & pampering vouchers to antiquarian books! We are just getting going at the moment but lots of stock is sitting waiting to be uploaded to the shelves! Keep an eye out for special offers and get those Christmas gifts now! Plus I am offering FREE delivery/p&p !!! Tell your friends!

Thanks

Michelle x

I have just been to our lovely committee meeting for Cherry Hinton Local History Society. We always have a lot to go through but do it with great humour and nice cups of tea and coffee. I am lucky to be on so many committees that are a pleasure to attend. Cherry Hinton Local History Society has nearly been going for 30 years! We found some notes about the start of the group and had a look through them today. We found out that the society actually started on March 21st 1982, so we’ll have to have some celebrations for our 30th year which is 2011. We’ll get all the details we have about the history of the group up onto our Cherry Hinton Archives Group (CHCAN) website.

If you would like more details about Cherry Hinton Local History Society and the talks, excursions and events we run please do take a look at our Facebook page!

I had to go to the doctors today to get my hearing checked as I have noticed some changes. It is very hard because when I was about 20 years old I just suddenly went deaf in my left ear – no warning – it just went. I remember the sensation was very strange and it was quite frightening. I went straight to the doctors who then rushed me straight to hospital. I had to stay in hospital for about 3 days while they gave me lots of different treatments and special drugs that could sometimes get the hearing back if given quick enough. Unfortunately my hearing didn’t come back at all – I had lots of tests, had to have brain scans and spent a lot of time shut in those sound proof rooms with all kinds of gadgets which monitored my hearing loss and tested my hearing. The doctors couldn’t give me an explanation as to why it had happened, other than it wasn’t a brain tumour or anything like that. They said it can sometimes happen to people and it could have been caused by a number of things. They said that there was no camera invented that was small enough to look inside my ear properly and see what had happened. The hearing had just completely and suddenly gone and no kind of hearing aid would help as there was nothing left working to amplify sound. The doctors gave several suggestions and ideas to what might have happened, they said it could be some kind of auto-immune disease where my body had attacked itself (that sounded reassuring!) or perhaps it was from being hit as I had just come out of a very violent marriage or even that when I had been screaming during the violence, that could have done it, they also said it could have been caused because of stress (which is very vague really). So I have never really understood what had caused my hearing loss. For the two years following that I had terrible tinnitus (ringing and sounds) in my other ear which I know many people suffer with. I spent about 2 years training my brain to filter out the ringing and rushing wind sounds, which was no easy task I can tell you! It was very frightening and I would often get panic attacks and if I ever got a cold or something that affected the hearing in my right ear I would be scared stiff I was going to go completely deaf. I was told by the doctors that I had as much chance of going deaf in my right ear as well as anybody else did and that I shouldn’t worry. I had an open appointment at the hospital for years after that to be able to go in case my other ear went at all funny. And I did go up there quite a few times panicking when any new or strange noise were heard in my other ear but after a few years I got used to the new sensation of not having any hearing on one side. One of the things I had to get used to was sounds coming from other directions. I would quite often think a noise had come from one direction to find it had come from somewhere else. I have got on with it all for over 10years now but always with the fear of loosing the hearing in my other ear one day. It is surprising how much I have come to rely on lip reading and putting sentences together from the bits I have heard. On the whole I don’t think most people would realise I have this problem but I really struggle when there is any background noise, pubs and clubs are a nightmare, crowded places and background noises sound very strange to me and it can be difficult to filter it all out. Another thing I have found is that you can feel really thick! Especially when having a conversation and you have to ask the person to repeat themselves more than once. It can make you feel quite self-conscious. A lot of my history and archaeology work is often with people over a certain age, many of whom have hearing problems so we all understand each other well and it is more comfortable in some ways. When I saw the doctor today she said that once you get to 40 your hearing starts to deteriorate (cheek coz I’m not there yet!) so I know I’ll have to contend with that when it starts happening anyway but for the last year I have been noticing that the hearing in my right ear is playing up – I don’t know if I have just not wanted to admit it or pretend that it is just fine but I have had to ask to be referred back to the hospital to have the proper checks. I have had probably one of the most stressful years ever this last year for many reasons but the thought of going completely deaf scares me because I love music and the sound of my kids voices and talking to people so much. I know there are ways to deal with it if it does happen but I hope it isn’t going to. I’ll report back how the hospital appointment goes once I’ve been.

The company has set me a challenge and asked me to practise my new pamper parties. I need to do 8 classes in the next  2 weeks and have had asked some of my brilliant friends to help out and host parties for me, so hopefully I'll get this part of the challenge done :) but I still need to carry on having the parties for the next 2 months as I am hoping to become a Team Leader with the company, so please do have a look at the info below and Contact Me! if you can help out and get some free pampering!

It would be great if you could host a party for me. You wouldn’t need to do anything apart from invite 3 other people along, I bring everything with me and come to you.

Have a look at the details below as I have 2 fab parties for you to choose from,
Just let me know which one you’d like – A Mineral Makeup Party or a Skin Care Party.

Then just let me know if a daytime or evening would be best for you and if there's anyone else you know of that might like to host a party for me

Thanks so much

Michelle
x


Mineral Makeup Party
This is a really good fun makeup party where you and your guests get to play around with makeup and colours and find what suits you. We will be using the very latest colours and all Mineral Makeup.
What Happens:
I give each of you your own place mat with various makeup looks on to choose from, you each get a little tray and mirror and your own filled makeup compact to use for the party which will be filled with eyeshadows, eyeliner, lip liner, mascara, blusher, lipgloss and all the other bits and pieces of makeup you need. I will also match your Mineral Powder foundation for you. Every one sits down with their products and I then teach you all different ways to apply the makeup with tips and techniques. You all put on your makeup step by step and finish off looking gorgeous.
You’ll have you own little form for you to keep where you can jot down any notes and colours you liked so that when you next go and buy some makeup you’ll know what suits you best.

Skin Care Party
This is a real pampering party where you and your guests get to learn about how to look after you skin and give yourselves a full facial, using amazing products.
What Happens:
I give each of you your own place mat and a little tray and mirror filled with all the products you’ll need to make your skin feel amazing. I’ll then match your foundation correctly and put that in your tray, along with your cleanser, moisturiser, supplements etc. I will take you through your skin care step by step and teach you tips and techniques so that by the end of the party you’ll have given yourself a full facial and will feel a million dollars You’ll have you own little form for you to keep where you can jot down any notes and skincare you liked so that when you next go and buy some moisturiser or foundation you’ll know what suits you best.
You will all also get a fantastic hand treatment and lip treatment!


For Both Classes:
I’ll finish off by giving every one a goody bag which will have some fab samples in and a Mary Kay catalogue so that anyone who has fallen in love with the products can treat themselves if they’d like. As the hostess you will also get a free gift.

I do not do pushy sales! The aim of both these parties is for you all to have some fun and learn something new and to give me a chance to complete my challenge! If nobody wants to buy anything that’s totally fine, no one is obliged to buy anything but if anyone would love something I will take cash, credit card or cheque and will either have stock with me or will deliver it within a week. If your guests do but something, you will earn hostess credit and will get to choose lovely free products :)

When you have booked you party with me I will send you out a hostess pack, giving you all the information you will need, along with a Mary Kay catalogue giving you chance to look at the products. I’ll also send with that, some invitations for you to give to your guests so they know just what they are coming to!

And it is all FREE - I do not charge anything for these great parties

I would allow about 2 hours for each party and I come to you, I bring everything needed with me so you don’t have to worry about anything, you can just get pampered and have some fun :)

PS I need a minimum of 4 people at a party and a maxium or 8 - that included you - so you only need to find at least 3 extra people who could do with some pampering ;) x

I have been gearing up for our CCAN groups mass upload of pictures to History Pin and the big task of adding the hundreds more items- from, photos, scrapbooks, podcasts, memories etc. - to both CCAN and History Pin. Whilst doing this I thought I might as well sort out my own archives and my own thousands of photos - and it is a real task I can tell you! But it is proving good fun too, as I'm getting to see some great old archives and re-discovering some of my old pictures too. I have been using Google's Picasa to store my own family pics but have decided that as I have so many and many are from archaeology sites, history trips etc. I might as well share them online too. So to save my already packed website from getting too overloaded with family holiday pics ;) I have created a public web album on Picasa which I have generally listed by placename. You are more than welcome to check out my pics on there and add your comments - just bare in mind I have only just started and there are thousands more to come!!!
I now have a great deposit scheme for all our groups and Cambs Archives with the lovely Mr Chris Jakes at the Cambridgeshire Collection, where we now make monthly deposits of all our collected material :) If you have any memories of pictures etc. that you would like to be added to our CCAN groups or for me to help you with then please feel free to get in touch. Contact Me!
To Visit my Picasa web albums just follow this link:
http://picasaweb.google.com/michbullivant

We had a lovely time attending the launch for Open Cambridge on Thursday. We met some lovely people, drank champagne and had some yummy canepes. The event was held in the Brasserie on the forth floor of John Lewis in Cambridge. we were greeted by a string orchestra and went through to hear more about Open Cambridge and those involved in organising it, sponsors and some of the events planned for the weekend.
Check out the Open Cambridge website to find out more and see what's happening this weekend!
Also worth looking at is the Robert Sayle (John Lewis) group of Cambridgeshire Community Archives (CCAN). All you have to do is visit www.ccan.co.uk and click on the 'places' tab then go to the Robert Sayles Memories group. There you will find loads of fantastic pictures and memories from the Cambridge Robert Sayles. The group actually has a room in the present John Lewis store, so if you want to add some of your own pictures or memories please do get in touch. You can use the 'Contact Me' page on this website if that's easier :)

Just thought I'd better give you an update on the family news, granny has come out of hospital and is doing ok. She is getting on but needs constant care and watching over, she is very strong but I think all this trouble with her heart and hospital stays has really worried her, she is a lot more anxious and is not eating much. She did manage a trip round here today which was nice and she stayed for about an hour, so I'm glad she got out for a bit. Also my little sister Georgie is getting on well, her arm is still in a sling and is going to take some time to heal properly but she is not in so much pain now :) I now have all my children living back at home, which is going really well - as is all the food! - and today it's my eldest daughter, Sophie's 18th birthday - now I feel old! She off out tonight, we all had a lovely birthday breakfast and a little lunch time party with the family popping in and out. I can't believe my little girl is has now grown up :)

I've been busy doing a lot of wedding makeup lately, I did 2 weddings in different Cambridge Colleges and yesterday did a lovely wedding near Kettering, Northants. I always a rewarding job to do and lovely to be part of peoples special day :) I've just added a few more pics to my makeover gallery...I must remember to take my camera more often! Coming soon, I'll be adding other makeup pictures such as drag, theatre, glam etc. Most of the pictures in my makeover gallery are for natural looks or weddings and to be honest most of the time people do not want to be caked in makeup, they just want to enhance their features and have a flawless, natural look, particularly for weddings. That said I wouldn't want you glamourous queens and playful loveies out there to think I've left you out, so watch this space! mmmwwwahhh xxx