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

For those who are new to the organisation, Coalition Midlands LGBT is an organisation set up to combine the efforts and resources of LGBT and Q student groups from the Midlands and beyond. Whether it be for organising club nights or campaigns, performances or sports tournaments, with Coalition we can achieve more, together.

This group welcomes all LGBTQ students and friends from both the Midlands and from further afield, so thank you for joining our group and please invite anyone else who think would be interested in getting involved.

NEWS

Coalition Midlands LGBT won the NUS LGBT Award for Event of the Year for our programme of events for LGBT History Month. Congratulations and thank you to everyone who was involved in organising that. We showed what is possible when LGBT students unite and work together.

UPDATES

• Committee structure:
  As Coalition is now bigger than ever with participation from up to 11 universities and more universities and colleges getting involved on the horizon, this year’s organisers have been discussing creating a formal elected committee structure. We will be discussing proposals for how this might work at our meeting on Wednesday so please come along and give your input.

• Facebook admins and officers:
  Some of you who were on the list of officers and admins may have noticed that you are no longer on it. Please do not feel offended or that we are trying to exclude anyone. Coalition is temporarily (until Wednesday) being run by some of the group of activists who were the organisers this year. After we have democratically decided on Wednesday how the organisation will be run in the future, those elected representatives will become the admins and officers on the group.

• EMERGENCY PLANNING MEETING:
  Coalition are holding an Emergency Planning Meeting for what we are planning to at Birmingham Pride this year. We are lucky enough to have our very own marquee this year which is very exciting. Come along to the meeting to help us plan what we will get up to over Pride weekend. The meeting is open to all LGBTQ students, both HE and FE and anyone else who wants to be involved from the Midlands and beyond. Please bring any ideas that you have to discuss, it’s your Pride and your Coalition so come along and get involved.

• Mailing List:
  To join the Coalition Midlands LGBT mailing list and be kept up to date with meetings and events then simply email coalitionlgbt@googlemail.com with ‘mailing list’ as the subject.

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

Today is World AIDs Day, observed around the world to raise awareness of the Acquired Immuno-deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), the Human Immuno-deficiency Virus (HIV) as well as the dangers posed by other sexually transmitted diseases.

Since 1987, AIDS has killed over 25 million people. As of 2007, over 33 million live people live with it worldwide, making it one of the most destructive pandemics in recorded history. For this reason, countless organisations take part in the observance of World AIDS Day to place the highest emphasis on sexual health to prevent the spread of the virus, and raise funds for research into treatments.

The Guild and LGBTQ Association will be marking the day with the Mermaid Fountain draped in a red sash, and suspiciously spewing forth dyed red water. There will also be the red double-decker bus on which Guild and LGBTQ volunteers will be handing out information, collecting for AIDs and sexual health charities.

• 12-2: Guild Car Park
• 2-4: Campus (library)
• 4-7: Halls of Residence

The LGBTQ have been kindly sponsored by Crusaid and the Terence Higgins Trust; two very prominent organisations in the field of sexual health and HIV. They’ve kindly provided posters

Also, the LGBTQ’s film night was moved from Sunday 29th to tonight at 6PM to coincide with World AIDs Day. We will be showing Philidelphia, a film that illustrates the controversy that many with AIDS have faced:

“When a man with AIDS is fired by a conservative law firm because of his condition, he hires a homophobic small time lawyer as the only willing advocate for a wrongful dismissal suit.”

The Westboro Baptist Church is a particularly bad example of a conservative, homophobic organisation that gives faith and organised religion a very bad name (indoctrinating children into their hateful regime, no less).

However, while this is the experience of many LGBTQ people – a huge contributing factor to the number of athiests in the community – it’s certainly not the experience of all. More importantly, there is a huge difference between faith and organised religion; faith in a particular ideal is obviously more liberal than adherence to a value system established by the latter. Many LGBTQ people follow a particular faith – be it through their own interpretation of faith, or through the more enlightened organised religious groups within christianity/mormonism/etc who do not exclude on the basis of sexuality. These enlightened groups have been given a bad name by their conservative, homophobic counterparts in other religious organisations and they should not be treated as one and the same.

That being said, even in a welcoming and enlightened religious organisation it’s still very difficult for people to come out to others in such a community because of this stigma. It’s something we should work to avoid given the opportunity.

As I mentioned in my recent catch-up post, the Chaplaincy here at the University is very progressive, very friendly and myself and the LGBTQ have established a good working relationship with the Methodist Chaplain, Kara Cooper, in particular. Kara and the Chaplaincy staff acknowledge that LGBTQ people have suffered in the name of religious doctrine and are dedicated to changing this. Kara has also recently become a regular at many of our events (even providing a projector that actually works for GC chambers) and through our various discussions we’ve put together an event for this week.

The LGBTQ Association and the Chaplaincy will be running a faith and sexuality event tomorrow, Monday 30th November, at 6PM in the Chaplaincy’s Oasis lounge. It’s an opportunity for a group discussion with the chaplains, myself, a few committee members and other LGBTQ to discuss their experiences and perspectives. If anyone wants to come along please do; a free meal will be provided. Afterwards we’ll all mooch over to the pub for a quick drink. All in all definitely worth coming along to.

This Friday is the 11th annual Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDoR), an event which is held on the November 20th each year and is observed in places throughout the world. TDoR was set up in November 1998 following the death of Rita Hester, which also led to the Remembering our Dead project; a project which lists the names of trans people killed as a consequence of discrimination.

The guiding principles of the Day of Remembrance:
• “Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.” (Santayana)

• All who die due to anti-transgender violence are to be remembered.

• It is up to us to remember these people, as their killers, law enforcement, and the media often seek to erase their existence.

• Transgender lives are affirmed to have value.

•We can make a difference: by being visible and speaking out about anti-transgender violence, we can effect change.

The University of Birmingham LGBTQ association will be marking this event with a candlelit vigil in Mermaid square (outside the Guild of Students) on Friday at 6.30pm. If you wish to assist in the reading of names, or want to contribute to the event with other readings/ poety etc. please don’t hesitate to get in contact. In the event of poor weather the vigil will be moved inside, however, we suggest to all members to bring warm clothing in the event of cold weather.

TDoR website.

Hope you’re looking forward to coming/coming back to the University of Birmingham. We are the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Queer (LGBTQ) association and we aim to represent, support, empower and hopefully entertain self identifying LGBTQ students.

We’ve got a fair amount going on during welcome week! Firstly, we’re going to be holding a Befriending Coffee meeting in the LGBTQ room in the Guild, where you can come and chat to some of the committee in a friendly and relaxed setting.

We’re also going to be running a stall at the Societies fair on Thursday and Friday, which is an excellent place to find out what awesome societies exist at the University of Birmingham, not least the LGBTQ! Come and sign up for our mailing list, steal some freebies off us, or just come for a quick chat!

Another thing you can do at either of the aforementioned events is buy tickets for our awesome FRESHERS BARCRAWL! http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=138352653587#/event.php?eid=156703530361 Thursday nights are by far the best nights for LGBTQ students, as all the major clubs in the Gay Village do drinks offers to suit the student budget. Tickets are going to be £5 and will include entry to Nightingale’s Club and transport into town, and you can’t say fairer than that, really.

Sadly for us committee-folk, it’ll be back to the doldrums the Friday morning after while you’re still enjoying your hangovers. On Thursday and Friday we will be doing a light bit of campaigning on the National Blood Service’s ban on Gay and Bisexual Men giving blood. We’ll send out more concrete details of what we’re doing nearer the time, but we would be very grateful if any politically minded LGBTQ people could lend us a hand if we need it.

On Monday the 28th we’re going to be part of the inter-university “Women’s Night” to Chic’s “Little Miss Mondays”, http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=138352653587#/group.php?gid=39472641310&ref=ts which is shaping up to be a great night whether or not you’re a fresher. We’re also going to be starting up our film nights on the Sunday Night at the end of that week, which are a good opportunity for everybody to get together, watch a film, and talk/discuss/argue/war over it.

If you’ve skipped to the bottom of this long message because I’m rambling, I don’t blame you. All the details of these events should be on the facebook group, http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=138352653587#/group.php?gid=36482000208&ref=ts fan page, http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=138352653587#/pages/University-of-Birmingham-LGBTQ/62445989949?ref=ts or website www.lgbtq.co.uk

We hope to see you at as many of these events as possible,
LGBTQ Committee

The annual LGBTQ Welcome Week Bar Crawl (or fresher’s barcrawl as most people call it) is one of the most notorious nights on our calendar and certainly not to be missed.

Take a break from your Fresher’s Fest events (if it clashes – sell your ticket… guaranteed profit) to come and make friends as your LGBTQ committee manically tries to introduce everyone to everyone else (so don’t worry about coming on your own) before introducing you to Birmingham’s famous gay village.

We’ll head into town from 8pm onwards and whilst we obviously encourage responsible drinking, it’s usually a case of ‘last one standing’… because you’ll obviously be all too exhausted from the dancing to stand anymore…

Birmingham’s gay village has quite a few venues, so we’ll only realistically be able to go to a few on the barcrawl -but don’t worry over the first few weeks of term, we’ll try and introduce you to them all. For this first barcrawl, we’ll be hitting the Angels, Route 2, the Fox and the Nightingale club. Keep your eyes peeled on the calendar for upcoming events where we’ll hit the other venues…

TICKET INFO:
Whilst we like to keep all as many as our events free as possible, we will be selling tickets for this event at a measly £5. Ticket price is to cover entrance into Nightingales who charge an entry fee on Thursdays, and also your travel into town. (Bargain.)

If this doesn’t sound like your thing… not to worry. We put on a wide range of events so there’ll be something for everyone.

Sunday October 5th, 7.30pm, Thompson Training Suite, Guild of Students

Every Sunday night at 7.30pm in the Guild of Student’s ‘Thompson Training Suite’ we host our popular LGBTQ Film Group. Each week we show a different LGBTQ related film projected onto a big screen. The film group is open to everyone who wants to come along, with a regular turn out of around 40 students. Like 99% of our events admission is free. It’s a great event for newcomers to meet some people in a relaxed and friendly environment and it’s also pretty damn good for anyone who loves film. We show a varied selection of movies that you won’t necessarily of heard of, from mainstream Hollywood to foreign arthouse. Past films have included Mulholland Drive, Mysterious Skin, Shortbus, Monster, The Watermelon Woman, Boys Don’t Cry, Y Tu Mama Tambien, La Mala Education and many many others. This year Film night will Start on Sunday 5th October.

After much deliberation and a few trips to A & E we finally decided that the first film to show would be ‘Party Monster’. It was a tough call… we didn’t want the first film to be too controversial, too fabulous, too disturbing, too intellectual etc etc so what better than Macaulay Culkin in a dress?!

Come and meet your LGBTQ Committee and other LGBTQ students

Saturday, September 27th, 3pm-7pm

Beorma Bar, Guild of Students

There’s never anything to do during the day in Fresher’s Week, especially on the first weekend. So, being the opportunists that we are, it seemed like a good idea to have a slightly ‘calmer’ event than the barcrawl. But don’t worry; we’re not expecting you to get up early…