GULGBT Committee Meeting Minutes

30th January 7pm Committee Room 4

Meeting Started: 19:12 Meeting Adjourned: 20:21 In Attendance: Jessica McGrellis, Lauren McDougall, Kirsty Smith, Steen Weidemann, Jo Arnott, Chris Young, James Harrison, Simon Tsolakidis, Kit Moreland (19:13). Apologies: Mark Scott, Erin MacKenzie, Thomas Lambourn. Committee Business 1. Events: a. Flag Raising The flag raising for LGBT History Month will be on Tuesday the of 7th February at 1pm at the rear flagpole. Everyone is welcome and there will be a drinks reception afterwards. b. Upcoming Wednesday Events Cocktail Class is organised! Lauren to organise a flipchart for the Police Workshop. Event will be in committee room 1 from 8pm. Need to organise Jim s Bar for the debate (29th February). Lauren to make sure that the GUU is completely organised for farewell dinner. Tickets have been designed and can be printed as soon as we have finalised a price. Louise Welsh has confirmed that she will be attending the dinner. c. M/W/T*/P-M Events The Bi Event will be the week beginning the 20th of February. Jo is still planning this event at the moment and details will be finalised shortly.

2. QMUnicate Article A basic structure was organised but the article is still to be finalised so another session can be organised/emails can be sent to interested parties who missed the original meeting. Kit needs to double check specifications including word limit and deadline.

3. John Mac Association Boards Complaint A complaint was received regarding our notice board in the John Mac building wanting to highlight a problem they had with the message that was put across by

our posters there. There is a poster of two men kissing with a poster beside it promoting awareness of HIV/AIDs. It was decided that we do have limited space in that board and as we believe both of these posters are important they should both be there. However we will balance the concern by placing other posters and flyers to fill up the empty space and make it more informative. 4. SRC Elections The exec received an email from a student who is hoping to run for SRC President and would like to attend one of our events to explain their campaign and find out what our members would like to see actioned by the next SRC President. It was decided that as we have two committee members running for SRC sabbatical positions we will allow any candidates who contacts us and wishes to speak to come to the Keith Sharpe event on the 22nd of February and speak for a few minutes at the start of the event. The issue of whether we can publicly back a candidate was also raised. It was discussed and decided that we will alert our members (via weekly email) that current committee members will be running for sabbatical positions, however we will not endorse any specific candidates as a committee/association.

5. RAG Week If we raise money for Broken Rainbow during QueerFest and they are chosen as a charity during RAG Week then the money raised by us can be counted towards the total. Amy Johnson has also asked if the exec will do a charity challenge during Rag Week.

6. Queer Fest We still need more events for the Saturday day-time schedule. Kirsty and Chris will look into contacting artists who have exhibited at the Virginia Gallery. Jess will contact Salsa for Water. Kit has been in contact with the people producing the upcoming Vagina Monologues performance. They are happy to do a short, unpolished taster of the piece which would involve a few individual monologues. There will also be a trans* workshop/talk. We could also do a fundraiser for Broken Rainbow if we can come up with a good enough idea! There was an idea that we could have a drag act(s) towards the end of the day events and James suggested Nancy Clench, although Nathan may be better doing a talk/workshop. Mark is looking into bus costs for the Black, Gay and Here to Stay speakers so that may still be an option. Lauren will contact comedians to try and see if anyone will be available to do a show/workshop. Need to chase up other universities this week as there has been low response rates from the emails sent in the last few weeks. The QMU Events Convenor has said that they may not be able to organise Queer Cheesy in time. It was decided by the committee that we would rather they did it on a smaller scale, but in time for QueerFest rather than go all out and have it two weeks later as it defeats the purpose of Queer Cheesy being part of QueerFest.

Steen and Simon to head up the decorating team for Queer Carnival. It was decided that QueerFest is primarily for students and student ID will be required, however non-students who are associate members are welcome and we will have a member list at the beginning of the weekend to enforce this. Flyers will be handed out from Friday this week (at Cheesy!). Chris to contact Iain (SRC VP) asap to arrange posters. The Flying Duck is still a strong possibility for the cinema day, however we need to clarify if there will be enough seating space for around 50 people. Kirsty to chase this up. We will have welfare provisions at the Queer Carnival, either on a GULGBT table or the SRC table. Decided to do speed mating for the ice-breaker activity, but may do it less formally this time, e.g. standing rather than sitting at tables. Steen to organise conversation starters. Suggested that we should have something to make the committee visible throughout the weekend, e.g. with lanyards and cards with our names on them.

7. Next Meeting Monday 6th February at 7pm in committee room 4.

Other Business Action Points/To Do Everyone to re-contact universities, preferably by phone if you can! Chris to draft an email with full details of QueerFest (Facebook links, Euro hostel info, a meeting place and start time, events listings, also say that we will send out an itinerary but they will also be available on arrival). Flyers to be printed by Thursday. Sort out posters ASAP (contact Iain). James to contact Nathan/ Nancy Clench to ask for a performance or talk/workshop for the Saturday afternoon. Lauren to chase up the GUU re. the farewell dinner and to contact comedians for the Saturday of QueerFest. Also John Mac noticeboard. Kirsty to contact the Flying Duck re. seating for cinema day and to finalise the stall list for Queer Carnival (contact LGBT Health and Wellbeing Centre: Edinburgh and Sappho) with Erin. Steen and Simon DECORATIONS!!