Calderdale LGBT Network

Quarterly Meeting: Monday 9^th February 2009

The Victoria Theatre - Green Room Bar Halifax

1500 – 1730 Main meeting

1800 – 2100 Community celebration

Present: Please refer to separate attachment

1.             Welcome and introductions

Tim opened the meeting, welcomed and thanked everyone for attending.  He informed everyone that the theme for this quarterly meeting was “Issues for older LGBT people”.  Tim advised attendees about the format of the event – formal meeting in the afternoon, followed by a break and an informal meeting with food from 6.00pm.

Tim advised people present that the profile for Calderdale reflects a high and rising number of older people as well as a significant lesbian population. Stonewall has done a lot of work around lesbian health and lesbian needs recently.

This work & the theme of the network meeting were both significant as in Calderdale both Hebden Bridge and Todmorden host the largest lesbian population in the UK.

Tim personally thanked the two main speakers: Stella Duffy, actor and author and Rachel Naeuwalarts from the Equity Partnership in Bradford.

2.             Apologies

Apologies were received from Sail Suleman, Liz Broadley, Kate Hinks, Ruth Ware, Pam Rhodes and Angela Bradshaw as well as the representative from the NHS.

3.             Minutes and matters arising from the quarterly meeting on the 4^th November 2008

                The minutes were read and approved.  There were no matters arising.

4.             Working Group Update

Please find attached the slides as a separate document from Bryan Sharpe’s update on the work carried out by the working group since November 2008. To round up the presentation Bryan made a plea for people to become involved with the web site, help to run, update and organise content.

                From Bryan’s presentation, the following questions arose:

Q: Do you have any contact with people who run similar kind of schemes (safe space & drop in centre).

                A: Research was carried throughout and research carried out with neighbouring authorities.

                     Rachel from Equity Partnership in response to the drop-in sessions not being successful offered her   

                     experience of “dropping  in”.  At first the experience proved to be a very negative one. Now they have

                     found that the three hour drop-in is not an actual ‘drop-in’ but more a three hour session when people visit

                     and just stop!

                Q: How long did it take the Bradford project to take off?

                    Rachel from the Equity Partnership answered saying that her project worked in conjunction with three other

                    organisations with the benefit of the Partnership having their own premises. Sometimes even now there are

                    no people dropping in.  Other times only 2-3 but it’s important that the facility is there.

5.             Hate Crime

                Leanne Clay, West Yorkshire Police’s Hate Crime Co-ordinator for Calderdale informed the meeting of the figures for hate crime against LGBT people – statistics are available as an attachment to these minutes.

                She informed the meeting that people do not have to identify with LGBT people in order to report as you can report for perceived homophobia or on behalf of someone else.  Leanne continued by explaining to attendees that people need not necessarily report the incident to the police, but can report this to third party reporting centres.  She continued by informing people that the representatives on the homophobic police scrutiny panel were working with her to promote the service within schools at sixth form and council level.

                Question that arose from Leanne’s contribution:

                Q: Is there a feeling that the police are working with the LGBT community.

                A: Leanne explained that the Homophobic Scrutiny Panel members work with the police and the community and

                     that the police try and attend not only gay venues but also the various Pride events that happen.

                Q: Does GALYIC work with the police as they have an awful lot of hate incidents?

                A:  I am due to meet with GALYIC.

6.             Equity Partnership Presentation

                Please find the slides of Rachel’s presentation as a separate attachment in attached to these minutes.

7.             Stella Duffy

                Stella’s presentation talked about visibility of the LGBT community and on the intergenerational impact of this visibility .  The essence of her speech was around LGBT people not being as visible or as vocal in the community as they could be.  She absolutely acknowledged the difficulty for people to be ‘out’ but she stressed that friends from a BME background or with visible disabilities together with friends in the trans community that may appear to be visibly transitioning do not have the privilege of hiding who they are. 

                Stella took questions which prompted a short and energetic debate.

8.             Pride Event

                After thanking both speakers for their eloquent, challenging and very motivating talks Tim said that it seemed appropriate to talk about a visible Pride event in Calderdale.  The dates for consideration were the 20^th/21^st June and 27^th/28^th June.  Tim asked for preferences for either a Saturday or Sunday.  Twelve people voted in favour of a Saturday event; two for Sunday and three voted ‘not bothered’. 

Since the meeting it has been confirmed that as an event is running on the 27^th, the date for Pride event in the Piece Hall in Halifax is on Saturday 20^th June.  The first meeting will be held on the 23^rd February, details to follow.

People would be approached to help with the Pride event from the offers to volunteer received on the ‘signing in’ sheet on today’s signing in sheet.

9.             Any other business

Tim informed the meeting that there was a sheet of resources for people to pick up when they left the meeting.  He asked if anyone had any more ideas to add to the resource sheet, he would not only keep this updated but would add the information to the web site.

10.           Close

                Tim informed all attendees that there would be half an hour break, before food was served, all were welcome to stop for the evening event.