Last weekend I had the opportunity to attend the “Speak Life Tour” in Charlotte, North Carolina. Speak Life is a performing/visual arts tour consisting of youth and young adults. In order to be selected for the tour participants must undergo an audition process. The tour was founded in 2013 by Catherine Trotter, who is also the founder of the non-profit organizations “House of New Beginnings” and “New Beginnings Youth Academy”. Both programs are geared towards the professional development of young people.
Catherine came up with the idea for the tour while working with youth under her organization House of New Beginnings; the umbrella organization for the Speak Life Tour. After youth in the program complained about not having an open mic platform for teens Catherine started having open mic mixers for youth in the Baltimore area which eventually led to the creation of the tour. The tour originated in Baltimore and gradually expanded to other states such as DC, Maryland, New York, Philadelphia, and Atlanta. It will soon include Florida, Dallas, Texas, and Virginia Beach.
Founder: Catherine Trotter
Attending the Speak Life Tour was an amazing experience. Some of the performers included dancers, singers, poets, visual artists and rappers. In addition to youth being involved on the tour there were also local members of the Charlotte community who were included. Joan Randall who is the founder of Victorious You, (an organization created to help female victims of domestic abuse) gave a presentation to attendees. Also author and motivational speaker Eddie Love gave advice about overcoming adversity and pursuing your dreams.
Speak Life Tour is an amazing organization, and I think it is a very creative and positive platform for youth to express themselves. With all the turmoil taking place in society today young people need an outlet to shield them from the negativity. If you would like to support the Speak Life Tour you can make a donation here.
Check out my interview with Catherine and see footage of the show below.
What do you get when you combine a room full of men and women with music, delicious desserts, alcohol, and engaging conversations about relationships, sex and dating? You get the event Dessert and Discussion curated by Alex Merritt. Dessert and Discussion is a relationship discussion tour that has been hitting different cities over the past several months. The purpose of the tour is to get men and women talking about relationships so they can learn different perspectives from the opposite sex.
I was invited to be a featured blogger for the tour stop in Charlotte and I definitely enjoyed myself! The event was held at Red@28th Hookah Lounge. The guests were seated in a small, private area in the back of the lounge which made the setting more intimate. Before the discussion began guests were entertained by DJ Strategy and were treated to plenty of tasty desserts and drinks. The crowd was grown and sexy; I would estimate that most of the people in attendance were in their late 20s to early 40s which was a good age range to get various perspectives from both sexes.
Me checking in!Some of the desserts
The conversation began with everyone going around the room and introducing themselves. Alex requested that everyone create a hashtag that described their dating life which made the mood more relaxed and fun. My hashtag was #DatingAndHavingFun. The variation in hashtag names pretty much led into the relationship discussion because of course you would want to know why people selected certain names. Some of the hashtags varied from #SingleForLife to #AllTheGoodOnesAreGone. It was too funny.
Some of the topics that were discussed included: how do you know when a person wants to get exclusive, sex on the first date, and having multiple dating partners. Men and women passed the microphone back and forth giving their input on each topic. I get shy in big groups of people so I pretty much just observed and listened to the conversations. It was very interesting to hear how men and women perspectives differed on certain topics. The conversation went on for about an hour ½ and afterwards the DJ took over so that everyone could mingle.
Me with fellow blogger Brittany with The Buzz With B.
After the event was over I caught up with Alex for a brief interview to get more details about how she came up with the idea for the tour.
Me with the lovely host and event creator Alex Merritt.
Amy Nicole: So you’ve been doing Dessert and Discussion for about 7 years now. How did you come up with the idea for it?
Alex: Literally I wanted to get people over my house to discuss a DVD and I didn’t want to cook! I wanted to get men and women’s opinion about this DVD that I had watched and I wanted to know if men saw women the way that this video portrayed us.
Amy Nicole: What was the DVD about?
Alex: The DVD was called “Diary Of A Tired Black Man” which was about a black man’s struggle in the dating game. I had just moved to California and I expected it to be like a one hour thing but it ended up lasting to 1:00 in the morning. After it was over I would run into people in the street and they would ask me when the next one was.
Amy Nicole: How many cities have you toured so far?
Alex: We have been in Chicago, St. Louis, Minneapolis, we’re here in Charlotte now, and then we’re back to Sacramento where it all started. This has been going on for the past six months and in the fall when it’s time to relaunch again we plan to do another six months. Everybody needs this because most of us haven’t been taught how to do relationships. Most of our family examples weren’t even good models. This is a way to learn and get feedback.
Amy Nicole: Well I definitely learned a lot from the men tonight! How has the response been in other cities?
Alex: It has been great. Everyone is looking for a place to get their questions asked about love, sex and relationships.
Amy Nicole: So how can people get in contact with you for booking?
Alex: Dessertanddisccusion.com and alex@dessertanddiscussion.com
It was great meeting Alex; she was such a fun and vibrant host! I really enjoyed myself at Dessert and Discussion and I would definitely encourage anyone looking for relationship advice and a good time to check out the tour if it comes through your city!
