The momondays moStory!

Michel Neray, founder of momondays

momondays was started in 2012 by Michel Neray, a professional speaker who got involved in stand-up comedy, along with other things like improv and acting. For him, it was like 'cross-training' – a way to improve his platform skills and keynote speaking. At one of the open mics he went to, another speaker leaned over to him and said, ‘hey, it would be great if we could do this kind of thing, but for speakers.’

And that's how the idea for momondays was born.

The first momondays was held in February 2012 on the second floor of a little tea house with no stage, no audio, no music and just tea and 18 people in the room – half of whom were either the speakers or the servers. Within a few months Michel started encouraging the speakers who took the stage to tell authentic stories that were more personally significant and meaningful. He then started to invite non-speakers to share their stories too.

And that’s really when it started to spread. Stephanie in Winnipeg was the first person to call Michel up and say, ‘hey, I’d like to start a momondays here.’ And pretty much every location was added because someone went to a momondays or heard about it and said, ‘we need to do this in this city!’ momondays has since spread to 13 cities (at last count) in Canada and the U.S. with some locations attracting over 100 people each month. We are also in talks with people outside of North Americas who are interested in bringing momondays to their part of the world.

The world needs momondays.