The conversations continued without me

One of my favourite things about Saturday's Melbourne catch-up was hearing that a few people stayed on chatting after I'd left.

Over the past fortnight I've had coffee with TTV members in both cities. Some have been around since the beginning, a few are former members, and all of them are people I'd happily give up a weekend morning for.

Sydney: Surry Hills

It was a glorious sunny day on Sunday 25 October, fried chicken on the table and great coffee at Paramount Coffee Project.

Tim from Spinstart is building products with AI and refuses to stop experimenting, which meant most of the morning turned into a swap of tools we're each obsessed with.

Annie (Anne-Marie Elias, social futurist and co-founder of PrimeLife Partners) is deep in a PhD on people at risk in retirement. She's spent 30 years pushing governments and NGOs to work on the stuff that matters, so the questions she's asking about retirement are the kind nobody in the industry wants to say out loud.

Melbourne: Fitzroy North

A rainy Saturday 7 November, 10:30am at Tin Pot, three members around one table.

Philippe has just launched a new company, Golden Bison, and we ended up talking about family life as much as the business.

Claudia has opened a new office and is booked out until January, which is a very good problem to have. And Chris, a corporate performer and MC facilitator, arrived with a batch of new ideas and that energy you want in a room.

Somewhere around the second coffee I floated the idea of quarterly business check-ups for members, a proper look at what's working and what needs attention. The response was encouraging, and it did more for my thinking than any survey would have.

Why we still meet for coffee

The TTV Collective lives on LinkedIn and in a DM group, which makes it easy to connect across cities and time zones. But the conversations in person are different. People say the quiet part out loud: the client that's gone cold, the offer they're not sure about, the AI tool they can't stop talking about.

That's where trust gets built. Not in the feed. Over a table, heart to heart.

Beyond the catch-up

What I love most is watching these relationships outlast the membership itself. People stay in touch as their businesses change shape.

So when I heard the Melbourne table kept going after I'd left, I was happy. A little proud, too. The catch-up had ended for me, but the conversations hadn't.

If you're a TTV member, you'll get the next invite. If you're not yet, the Collective is the door: thetrustedvoice.co/collective, or apply here.