From jweins@u.washington.edu Fri May 31 14:14:44 1996 Received: from homer28.u.washington.edu by lists.u.washington.edu (5.65+UW96.04/UW-NDC Revision: 2.33 ) id AA24874; Fri, 31 May 96 14:14:43 -0700 Received: from localhost by homer28.u.washington.edu (5.65+UW96.04/UW-NDC Revision: 2.33 ) id AA47742; Fri, 31 May 96 14:14:42 -0700 Date: Fri, 31 May 1996 14:14:42 -0700 (PDT) From: Jacqueline Weinstock To: uwtpride@u.washington.edu Subject: minutes of last meeting of the year Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII [My apologies for the omitted apostrophes, etc.--removed when copied from Word] Minutes of the Pride Coalition Meeting--May 28, 1996 Since this was the last meeting of Spring Quarter and our first year of existence we decided to take the opportunity to discuss how the group has been feeling to everyone, what weve liked and want to keep, and what we'd like to see changed. Before having that conversation, we took care of a few business items: 1. The group presented a Certificate of Appreciation to Patty Honan for all her hard work and personal courage on behalf of the Pride Coalition. 2. We decided not to march in the Parade in Seattle, but to plan ahead of time to do so for next year. 3. Confirmed that the books we wanted were selected and ordered for the Pride Coalition Office. DISCUSSION: 1. Patty expressed a willingness to continue to serve as President of the organization. 2. Overall, we expressed a great sense of pride in our success as an organization in this our first year! But we all know theres a ways to go on the issues were concerned about as well as in developing our organization. 3. Issues of work load and use of meeting times were addressed and suggestions made. The following is a report of the suggestions: a. The President shouldnt have to do everything. She/he has an important role, but we are an organization of students, staff and faculty, and need to be able to call on each other for help in doing the work, as well as to share the responsibilities of developing and fostering this organization. b. Facilitation of meetings should be shared; the facilitator should be the one to post notices about upcoming meetings (and I would add, to gather and present an agenda to the group, ahead of time if possible). c. Its important to keep working to get more student involvement. Sharing the facilitator role might help; so too might advertising and organizing meetings around specific issues. (Editorial Comment: The controversy in the Independent and the response to our Pizza Party have already helped us here.) d. Meetings: Perhaps have business meetings once a month or quarterly, and focus additional meetings on specific issues/topics for discussion, bringing in speakers, discussing books or articles of interest and relevance to us, etc. Other ways to help take care of business might be to present some of the details of issues to discuss on email, and then to be more prepared to discuss them in person; or to use the first 15 minutes of meetings as business, before moving onto discussions. e. We all expressed a desire to educate both ourselves and the community. 4. PURPOSES OF/FOR GROUP MEETINGS a. There are several purposes of/for our group meetings, including support within the group, of each other; an open political and educational emphasis for all interested persons; and business meetings. Participants were interested in figuring out how to separate these purposes from each other, through scheduling and other organizational strategies. b. As for support, there was interest in asking UWT to develop a support group on campus for students dealing with issues of sexual minority identity and heterosexism. There was also a desire expressed that the group itself is here to educate and challenge homophobia, so rather than needing/wanting a support group, we need to use the group to help us get stronger in dealing with heterosexism and its consequences. We agreed that both ways of supporting each other were important, and that we could (and have been!) turn to each other for support both in and out of meetings. c. We all agreed that the group itself and our meetings of the group provides an important place where we can talk, vent, help ourselves and each other feel empowered. Heterosexism hurts, but its how we are able to respond to it and support each other that is most important! We all need to feel as if were coming from a base of strength so as to deal with the hatred that is out there and often directed towards us. d. We also need to keep educating ourselves so that we can know what the issues are, where the resources are, etc. 5. Suggestions for Next Year/The Future: General Activities --A reading group --A reading group across LGBT groups in Tacoma --Connecting with other LGBT groups in Tacoma --Better advertising of our regular meetings --Find ways to convey to students the relevance of the issues we struggle with in our group to other forms of oppression --Bring in PFLAG as a way of meeting the needs (and increasing the interest) of students on this campus 6. Specific Activities: --Start planning for a Staying Proud activity in October: self-care in the midst of negative politics (the national elections as well as local) --Open up Karen Landenburger's nursing class when she has guests come in to talk about being lesbian/gay/bisexual. --Plan a legal Issues panel/discussion with Beth Craig and Laurie Jinkins early in the fall --Marilyn (first time to our meetings--a neighbor of UWT and supporter of the organization) volunteered to come in; she has several topics she could focus on. --Be at Orientation and advertise --Do the Student Activities Fair again --INCREASE VISIBILITY OF OUR ADVERTISEMENTS OF MEETING 7. Suggestions for Next Year/The Future: Group Process/Procedures --Karen Landenburger will be the Faculty Advisor next year --Emily Hull will manage the Listserv --We as a group need to be willing to express/share the depth of our experience of discrimination so as to help each other understand what were going through. This is especially important so that we can communicate and connect across diffferences in sexual orientation as well as other differences among us. --We also all need to let each other know if and when we need more from each other than we are getting. --We need especially to be mindful that we are not all at the same place at the same time, and work hard to help everyone to understand each other and to ensure that each person feels like they can make a contribution with what they have to offer --We need to keep talking about the differences among us with respect to strategies for dealing with controversy and hatred from the outside world: some of us want to ignore the hate and focus in on ourselves as well as others who are interested in conversing and learning more, while others want to confront the hate. --We need to keep talking about the dynamics in our group--keep the lines of communication open so that everyone feels safe and able to participate as well as benefit from this group --Keep an eye on the email list to determine whether we may need a moderator in the future. Respectfully submitted, and with deep gratitude for all of you who've worked so hard to make the Pride Coalition exist and thrive, and who made a place for me to be here through all you've done (visibly and invisibly) before and during this year, Jackie Weinstock .