Roosevelt famously said when giving a speech, one should be sincere, be brief and be seated.

Unfortunately, I don't much care for rules, so I can only do one out of the three, I'm afraid.

Sincerity.

I sincerely thank you from the very bottom of my heart for joining me today and for all of your support this year, and especially for the Leopard Army veterans of you, for your wavering support or rather indulgence of my ramblings these last 3 1/2 years.

This party is not hosted by ADHDF Plus charity, nor is it a podcast, emporium or Patreon community party.

It is my party.

If I don't, that's a train.

It is my party in celebration of all of the above, and I'm using it to raise some funds for the Chazzer.

So I'm going to share a little bit about each.

Like one of those round Robin letters people used to send to update you on annual or ongoings only even more annoying because you actually have to listen to me talk.

And it won't be brief because it never is with me.

I'm full of words always.

But I know you're all well versed in my too muchness and in hearing my rambles, and this one is a reflection on the most terrible and most brilliant year of my entire life.

But before that, I want to take you way back to 2019.

I was invited to a Pat Butcher themed afternoon tea at Little Nan's.

It was a family friend's birthday and we were told to wear leopard print.

Most just wore one item but obviously all or nothing so I was head to toe seeing us all together here in Deptford.

It was so funny and genuinely iconic as we trundled the streets of London like a little leopard print army.

That summer Big and I got married and joined and for our joint stag and hendu we went to Latitude Festival.

You might or might not have seen pictures of me as a groom and Big as the bride.

As is only right.

I was so enamoured by the head to toe look.

I'd warn here that I instructed our crew to wear leopard print on the Sunday of the festival and leopard print Sundays were born.

Little did I know.

Did we know that just nine months later the world would pretty much stop spinning and we'd be forced to stay indoors for two years?

We certainly didn't think that would be the case when Big accepted a job offer in Aberdeen in October of 2020 and we spent 156 days alone, just the two of us, with nobody anywhere near us.

OK, the new so we could bubble up with, but we'll skip the horrible part.

In January 2022, I was diagnosed with severe combined type ADHD.

I started medication in the March and we recorded the first episode of ADHDAF with my neighbor just six weeks later.

I was astounded to be asked by an old Hathl customer to trade at Secret Garden Party in June of 2022 because I genuinely thought that not just my festival trading days were over, but that festivals were never going to come back.

I really believe that.

After the pandemic, I grabbed my lifelong friend and all the Disco's designers, Steph.

Yeah.

And Ash.

Yeah, and her wife, Sam.

The bells are the ball.

And we created what was the very beginning of what would become ADHDAF Emporium.

And of course, I insisted on Leopard Print Sunday.

So anyway, there's so so much more to the story, but you all know the rest.

I just wanted to share that little nan's here in Deptford alongside the fact that Deptcore literally looks like the inside of my brain.

It has meaning in our story, and actually everything I do has some sentimental or symbolic meaning.

And it also always has to be a little bit ridiculous.

And though I've figured out that those are my motivators, things could always use a bit of better planning.

Like today could have been a little bit better planned.

You see, I booked this venue in May, but even though there were multiple cross wires, I've gone ahead with this party, just as I have done with all things ADHDAF.

It's imperfect action, taking what we have right now and making the best of it, however chaotic that might be.

It has meaning, it has purpose, and it is a little bit fucking ridiculous.

So I will try.

I do have more to say.

Any of that fucking easy.

I won't try not to offer on too much longer, but I have some really important things to share.

So let's start with the podcast because that's where it all began.

Now unfortunately I swapped hosting platforms in October.

Why not?

Hey?

Which has messed up a lot of the stats.

Again, no logic, only feeling.

But I do have a couple of really special ones.

So right now, today, ADHDAF is the only UKADHD podcast with a 4.9 rating on both Apple and Spotify.

Spotify Rap states since moving into video podcasting just two months ago, ADHDAF is in the top 10% of all watch content on Spotify.

Thank you very much.

I have somehow managed somehow to release 23 episodes this year, all of which recorded, edited and occasionally promoted by myself.

So one of which was of course the episode dedicated to my mum on the 20th of February.

I felt it was really important.

Sorry I have to lower the tone.

It will get happier, I promise.

Go with, go with.

It was really important to do that episode having shared so much of my life over the last 3.5 years.

As ever, I wanted to validate feelings that are undoubtedly shared by like minded listeners as well as honouring her.

But the very next episode released just six days later and less than a month after my mum actually passed with the episode ADHDAF plus charity begins.

Now let me tell you, my mother didn't let me bunk off school unless I had a temperature that would warrant calling an ambulance.

So whilst I'm worried I was trying to distract myself from grief with work, in actual fact cracking on with what at that point had already been a 13 month battle to get the charity up and running felt like the most fitting tribute I could make to a woman who dedicated her life to helping people with ADHD, whether she knew it or they knew it or not.

Keeping excluded kids in education.

Let's be honest, they all fucking had it right.

So I didn't bunk off, I hunkered down hard.

And on the 5th of March, which incidentally was five weeks to the day that she passed, the first ADHDF Plus charity peer support group began in the very city where the podcast began.

Meaningful and fucking ridiculous.

Here we all are nine months later, and we've hosted monthly ADHD support groups in nine cities in England and Scotland, and we've got another five lined up for the new year, including our first group in Wales.

So how do we organize all of that when I can barely organize just one party in seven months?

Because I have an absolutely incredible team.

A team born from the Patreon peer support community which unbelievably will be celebrating three whole years.

A daily morning body doubling next month alongside the absolute legends who have stepped up and dedicated their time to starting local peer support groups this year.

Kirsty in Aberdeen, Nicole in Edinburgh, Jill in Manchester with Co facilitator Tony, Beth in air, Ruth in London, Kate in Bristol, yes and Lizzie in Birmingham, Kirsty and Claire in Oxford and Donnie in Cambridge.

The board, Mandy, the chair, also my MIL.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah.

Mel.

Kim, the treasurer.

Mel.

Mel.

Sorry.

Sorry, ma'am.

Sorry, ma'am.

Kim, the treasurer over there.

So hey, that, the secretary and Ashley and Sam.

Ashley, the trustees.

We've also got Kate as coordinator, group coordinator, and Ruth as tech support.

Teamwork really does make the motherfucking dream work, and I couldn't be more grateful to these 19 people that have made a grieving girl's dream come true this year.

I cannot thank you all enough.

Ever.

Our charity's aim is to connect and empower ADHD adults with marginalized genders, and we have done that.

The 240 group attendees in the last nine months, the feedback has been nothing short of phenomenal.

And I might add that the total number of sign ups for e-mail reminders is actually 346.

So I hope we can entice those that want to come along in the new year.

I have to say an enormous thank you to our Darren.

I'm claustrophobic.

Darren.

His big ADHD fundraiser this year raised so much money for our brand new Chazzer.

Yourself and Claire and all of the team, including Katie here work so bloody hard and we are all so grateful to you and well to all of you for helping get us up and running.

I'm so extremely, extremely, extremely.

I am also extremely sorry, extremely grateful that you have very kindly decided to fundraise for us again next year.

Thank you so, so much.

I hope some of you amongst us can be enticed to cycle at next year's event, or that I can at least entice you to the after party.

I've also got to thank, although they couldn't be here today, thank you to David Kirkman, an incredible artist who is kindly donating 20% of earnings from the big ADHD fundraiser next year, with all funds split between ADHD Plus and ADHD Adult UKI promise, I'm nearly done.

I'm wrapping it up, folks.

So Speaking of next year, I have even more exciting news to share.

And genuinely, I'm still in disbelief about both, particularly the latter.

As I only found out two days ago, I am absolutely overjoyed to tell you that the National Trust have offered ADHD AF Plus free use of their premises.

There's some very special events that are in the pipeline.

I'm so excited about sharing the details of these as soon as I can.

But seriously, some very, very special events to not just connect and empower, but also arm us with tools in some very special settings.

Coming right up.

The second exciting bit of news is that you might have seen on socials.

I was invited to a very fancy pants book lunch the other night of ADHD 360.

The invite came out the blue and I was confused as to why, but on Friday Tasha got in touch to say that ADHD 360 will be donating 35% of the book profits to ADHD.

And all because Tasha is a long term listener.

The podcast helped her when she discovered back in 2022 that she also had ADHD.

What makes all of this so incredibly special is that these things have literally fallen into our laps.

And this is where my husband big points out it's not luck.

It's been bloody hard graft, but it's finally getting recognised.

But all the same, it feels like magic to me.

I think it's particularly ironic that all these years that I have spent chasing, hounding and begging the fucking press for attention, the one year that I decide that I'm not up to press and I just want to focus on what's going on behind the scenes, the Independent and the BBC get in touch in the same.

So alongside all that is to come, this year that I've crawled through has seen me host a panel and go on tour with Paul Whitehouse might have hurt my foot with that fucking name dropping.

So that last one feels like a massive Bose.

Before I trickle out the door in an RSD puzzle puzzle puzzle, I want to tell you this alongside the symbolism of why the party is here, The reason why this party is happening was to get me through the very worst time of my life.

A dangling carrot, a finish line to crawl towards that I saw at the time of booking as the worst year of my life.

But what it has turned out to be is actually a celebration of what unbelievably, has turned out to be one of the very best years of my entire life.

And all of this light in the very darkest of times.

I know is all because of you.

All because of the hard work of stuff with the Emporium, Lou and Newlands scooping us up in a leopard brim bus, Darren and Claire for backing us when we had nothing and were no one.

And to all of you for listening to all of these ridiculous ramblings and believing in my vision despite all of the ridiculousness.

And to my mum for never letting me have a bloody day off school.

Where's my drink?

I'm going to do what is now the infamous toast because I've done a few of these.

Here's to the lessons of 2025.

Here's to the legends that love us, the losers that lost us, and the lucky bastards who are yet to meet us.

Here's to 2026 and to the leopard print army.