What do Mamma Mia, yoga and bauble pottery painting all have in common? Well, they’ve all featured in events run by Manchester’s exciting new, all-women events company.
Third Place is a company which aims to help women make friends with each other.
The founder, Bethany Lee, said that she set the group up after realising how difficult it is for adult women to make meaningful friendships.
“It’s so hard to make friends as an adult,” she said. “It can be embarrassing to talk about – but actually, it’s a situation that so many of us find ourselves in.
“When you’re in education, you sort of all grow together. When you come out of that system it can be harder than you think.”
Bethany experienced a big relationship breakup in 2020 – and it was her friendships with other women that enabled her to get out of a bad situation and start a new chapter in her life.
This made her realise the importance of female friendships, and she realised she didn’t want anyone else to feel as “low and lonely” as she did.
Hence Third Place. It’s named after the idea that home is your first place and work your second – third places are where community happens.
Helping Bethany host the events are her two best friends, Caitlin Rawlings and Abbie Hawley.
Abbie said: “Me and Beth have always wanted to work together on something, and as soon as she voiced the idea to me I knew I needed to get involved.
“Having a close female friendship group has always been important to me and I really cherish my close friendships, so I wanted to find a way to give that to others. I also really love meeting new people!”
Caitlin said: “I chose to join the Third Place team because I moved to Manchester and really struggled to meet new female friends.
“I wanted to create a community for other women who felt the same and struggled to make new friends post-university.
“I’ve always worked in the creative industries and Third Place was a new creative challenge with a social purpose that I really believed in.”
The events always have a new and creative theme: there was a visit to Backyard Cinema to watch ‘Mamma Mia’, bauble pottery painting and yoga coffee mornings.
Recently, they ran their biggest events to date with their winter social, which Caitlin said was probably her favourite.
She said: “Having 50+ women in a room together making new friends felt like our vision had been brought to life.
“It showed how far we’d come as a team from sitting in a coffee shop in Manchester city centre with a logo and a concept to having so many incredible women all in a room together.
“The event was also an opportunity for women to get glam on their own terms in a safe space full of other women with the same shared aim of meeting new friends.”
The events are always ticketed and do require small fees which are as little as five pounds, depending on the activities. The three girls that run it are doing so as well as balancing their own jobs.
Balancing Third Place with work seems to have been easy for the girls as they are simply so passionate about it.
Bethany said: “We were all already really good friends and so we know each other’s strengths and weaknesses.”
Caitlin works on the script team for BBC’s Waterloo Road and says that while her job sometimes means working long hours, she said: “Whether that is editing TikToks on the bus to set or making new reels in my lunch breaks.
“Third Place is very much a passion project and it allows me to pursue my other creative ambitions outside the realms of TV.”
Abbie’s role in the team is as graphic designer, which is her day job as well.
She said: “I think because there are three of us, we share the workload well and when someone has a busy work week, we balance the load.
“We want all of our events to be well organised and make sure not to overload ourselves, which is why we stick to two events a month with a bonus event every so often. It works really well for us.”
Anyone in Manchester who identifies as a woman is able to attend Third Place events, as long as they have purchased a ticket, and the girls all said they really want people to feel comfortable in attending the events.
Abbie said: “To anyone considering coming to a Third Place event but are maybe feeling too anxious to take the leap and come, please drop us a message and we can find out how we can support you and make attending easier.
“We are a friendly bunch and a lot of girls come on their own, but we also understand that it can be really nerve-wracking.
“We want this to feel like a safe space for anyone and are constantly trying to improve our events so people feel confident attending!”
Third Place has proved a resounding success in Manchester, selling out most of the events they have done.
Bethany, Abbie and Caitlin all said they have loved to see their dream and vision come to life at the events and they have high hopes for Third Place.
They’re not done yet, they want to achieve even more- Bethany said: “The goal is to just keep reaching more and more women across Manchester.”
