Date: Wednesday, 12 May 2010

Time: 15:00 – 17:00

Location: Underground, University of Birmingham Guild of Students

This Wednesday at the LGBTQ Society of the University of Birmingham will be hosting a emergency planning meeting for Birmingham pride 2010.

We are holding the meeting in the Underground (Club) of Birmingham University’s Guild of Students. The best way to get there is by train, you can get the train to Birmingham New Street and then from there get a train to ‘University’ Station. There will be members of the University of Birmingham LGBTQ sociaty to meet you from University Station between 2.30 and 3.00pm. Any problems, please feel free to call or text Emma Coopers (Officer-Elect) on: +447502404009

If you can’t make the meeting but would like to be involved in the future, please join our mailing list by simply emailing coalitionlgbt@googlemail.com with ‘mailing list’ as the subject.

Event Facebook Link

click here

The Guild of Students Officer elections are all over and done with and Emma Cooper has been elected as LGBTQ Officer for the 2010/11 academic. 1,214 students have made an excellent choice and I would like to congratulate her on her election. As for the 289 students who somehow felt that RON was a better choice, well…jog on, basically.

As with all of the new officers, Emma takes office on 1st August 2010 after my term as Officer ends. However, in the first few days following the announcement of results, Emma stood in for me while I was locked away completing my final year project and has done an amazing job, on top of her good work on the LGBTQ Committee over the past year no less. This bodeswell for the year to come

I’d also like to congratulate all of the newly elected officers – particularly Johnny Davis for making Guild history as the first re-elected Officer!

Elections of 2010/11 LGBTQ Committee

Myself and Kitten also held the Annual General Meeting of the LGBTQ Association last Thursday, 17th March. Knowing that I would be more-or-less gone next year, and that the Association has become somewhat dependent on my technical abilities to maintain our online media, I pushed through a motion to create an Information, Communication and Publicity Officer position on the LGBTQ committee.

My relatively crappy report on campaigns and projects was easily dwarfed by Kitten’s well-prepared PowerPoint presentation – our way of satisfying constitutional requirements of committee reports. In both cases, we had an opportunity to report on the successes and failures of this year to our members and committee candidates.

After listening to nomination speeches, distributing ballets and counting votes, we announced the election winners who are the new LGBTQ Committee:

Dan Guzman Chair	Andy Roche Secretary	Rob Unwin Treasurer	John Chivers ICP
Christian White Open Place	Katherine Johnson Open Place	Sarah Green Open Place	Caitlin Horne Open Place
	Sarah Perry Guild Councillor	Dan Doherty Guild Councillor

A lot of these were elected unanimously; congrats to all in any case

I will retain my co-chair position on the committee with Emma shadowing until the 1st August at which point Emma will take over.

Lee Pitchford, manager of Missing bar in the Birmingham Gay Village is pleased to present the Midlands BIGay Night Out on Saturday, 27th March. This event is a charity fundraiser and all proceeds will goto ABPlus and Cancer Research UK – two very worthwhile charities – so please come along and show your support.

Coaches are picking up from the city centres of Stoke on Trent, Wolverhampton, Derby, Coventry, Nottingham, Walsall, Telford, Sheffield, Shrewsbury, Kidderminster Northampton, Leicester, Burton, Cannock, Manchester and Gloucester. Coach tickets are only £10, cover the outbound and return trips and are available to buy online – click here!

Coach ticket holders get:

• Cheap return travel to Birmingham!
• Fun and games on the coach!
• Barcrawl to 5 venues; fun, games and drink offers!
• £4 off entry to DV8
• £2 off entry to the Gale
• £2 off entry to Chic

I’m advertising this event to LGBTQ students at the University of Birmingham as well as our Coalition partners and the Midlands LGBT* student population at large. It’s for a good cause so please come along!<

That’s this Friday coming; as the poster says, http://scifinight.lgbtq.co.uk/ has all the information.

Again, as the poster says, works of science fiction have contributed to the struggle for LGBTQ equality by drawing attention to the issues faced by LGBTQ people through analogy, or – as is the case with Doctor Who and Torchwood – illustrating a non-heteronormative world and smashing any natural audience expectations of heterosexual main characters.

I am helping with the running of this event; so whether or not you have a nerdy side, come along. It should be educational as well as entertaining.

Homophobia is Gay 4 will be run this term. The date is as yet indeterminate but I am hoping for a Thursday evening in week 5/6.

Unlike previous years, the fourth incarnation of this highly successful event will be run chiefly by the Lib Dem Society, who have appointed a sub-committee to handle HIG.

While the commitee and volunteers will help with stewarding, I – as Officer – have been put in charge of liasing with the Lib Dems and fulfilling our part of the effort. However it’s not really a one-man band kind of thing…so I’m looking for 3/4 LGBTQ volunteers – weather or not you’re commitee/association members – to join my own little sub-committee and help out with the following:

• Working/meeting regularly with Lib Dem Soc
• Logistics of transport/stewarding
• Offers, promos and other financial shizzle.
• etc. etc. etc.

It’s a good way to get involved in the LGBTQ and it’s something you can put down on a manifesto should you want to run for committee or a Guild position in the future. And it’s good to volunteer; Emod said so. xD

If you’re interested, then feel free to contact me (m.ward@guild.bham.ac.uk or via the various media accessible via my blog) as soon as you can.

Muchos thanks!
Matt