Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Queer Youth Community Development Opportunities

Gay Wellington (Wellington Gay Welfare Group) is seeking applicants for two fixed term, part time positions. These positions are both 15 hours a week for a period of 12 months. The successful applicants will be working to further the development and successful management of Gay Wellington's School's Out initiative, a programme for queer youth in the Wellington Region.

School's Out has been active in the Wellington area for many years. This initiative is successful through the generous support of our many volunteers and committed funders. School's Out is committed to increasing the mental and physical health and wellbeing of queer young people, developing a dynamic and resilient community of self confident young people through the regular social and support groups throughout the region. In addition, School's Out works to create safe and welcoming environments for queer youth by offering gender and sexuality diversity programmes in schools, workplaces and in communities.

It is envisaged that the successful applicants will start work in October 2011.


Program Leader

Gay Wellington is looking for a dynamic, team-playing organisational whiz with a high level of initiative and a belief in the work of our organisation.

The successful applicant to this role will administer the running of the School's Out programme, support the work of the Facilitation Coordinator and volunteers, make funding applications, keep accurate records and write reports, raise the profile of School's Out in the community and develop strong networks, as well as grow the scope of the programme and contribute to its long term focus.

This person will have a broad understanding of issues affecting queer youth, interpersonal and leadership ability, strong communication skills, organisational ability and an aptitude with email and Office applications, and the ability to work well in a team.

For a position description, click here.

Applicants should send their CV and cover letter by email with the subject line with 'Program Leader' and your name to secretary@gaywellington.org

Applications close at 5pm, Friday 16th September.


Facilitation Coordinator

Gay Wellington is seeking an energetic, resourceful person who can facilitate groups of young queer people in the Greater Wellington region. The critical elements of this role are the day-to-day running of School's Out group meetings around the Wellington region, working closely with School's Out volunteers and ensuring volunteers have access to training and resources, and working with schools to create diversity groups and offer gender and sexuality diversity training.

This person will have experience in working with young people and an awareness of ethical standards in youth work, a high level of group facilitation skills, reliability and initiative, and strong interpersonal skills. It is important that the applicant has a nuanced and complex understanding of the issues faced by young queer people of all different identities and backgrounds.

For a position description, click here.

Applicants should send their CV and cover letter by email with the subject line with 'Facilitation Coordinator' and your name to secretary@gaywellington.org

Applications close at 5pm, Friday 16th September.

What's happening at Gay Wellington: George's Update

Our August business meeting was postponed due to SNOW! Pretty weird and exciting stuff for about 2 hours, and then just a nuisance as it stood in the way of people getting to and from meetings. So we'll have lots to deal with at the AGM in September.

However, some things still got done, even though the other co-chair Chris is still away on holiday. Ross was amazing in getting together some important applications for funding from the Outgames Legacy fund. Thanks to everyone who helped getting that submission together, as Ross put it, it made Ben Hur look like a minor effort.

The job descriptions have been finalised and are going ahead for the new School's Out community workers.

Greg and I met with Vaughan Meneses the manager of Outline, where we discussed progress towards sharing some of our services. It is likely that we will be sharing the Outline phones with Auckland perhaps as soon as early next year.

We also had a meeting with the acting chair of Gayline Wellington, an organisation that is doing major work on creating a centralised database for use by Gay Wellington and Outline. They are also very keen to help out with some of School's Out's 'one-off' expenses. As you may recall they very generously paid travel and registration costs for quite a few School's Out people to go up to Auckland earlier in the year for the Kazam hui. We are looking forward to continuing this collaboration in the next while.

George
Gay Wellington Co-Chair

Lesbian Drop-In

The Lesbian Drop In continues to meet on the 1st Thursday of the month. Our next meeting is Sept 1st at Blondinis cafe, the Embassy. We would love to see you there between 6pm and 7:30pm. It’s a friendly inclusive and welcoming bunch of women.

You are welcome to email me ahead of time for more details. Peace, Jo
jo.morrison.nz@gmail.com

Mike's School's Out Report

School's Out has (as always) been going very well this month. Recently we've had talks on coming out, stereotyping and rules. Stereotyping was fun, we asked the youth to draw pictures of certain stereotypes with amazing (and often hilarious) results. The pictures are great and will be put up on my wall at some point.

We also had a rule-making session wherein we asked the youth for some rules that they thought appropriate to increase safety.

Tomorrow we have Anny and Toni coming in to talk to us about the That's So Gay theatre project (more on this later!) Also, us facilitators have been busy with planning term schedules and meetings and all sorts of things.

Has been a great month and I can't wait for September. -Mike-

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Co-Chair Update: Donate and help make a difference

Winter is a hard time of year for a lot of people. Not only are people cold, but they are often lonely as well. Wellington Gay & Lesbian Helpline offers them someone to talk to and, hopefully, make things a bit easier.

School's Out has offered support and social times for young queer kids even over the holiday break, it has been really fun. Tranzform has also been going well, with a great regular group and lots of fantastic plans about the direction of the group. Gay Wellington has also given grants to transgendered youth that have been in strife over winter. As dire as things get sometimes, it is great to be part of a group that is making a real difference to people's lives. This is why so many of us give up our time and volunteer.

You can help. Donations to Gay Wellington mean we can make more of a difference in your community. You can make a donation by either sending us a cheque or making a deposit directly into our bank account:

Bank account details:
Account Name: Wellington Gay Welfare Group Inc.
Branch: ANZ Manners Street, Wellington
Account Number: 01 - 0517 - 0127100 - 00

Our charity registration number is CC29680. Information about us, including our annual financial details, is publicly available on the Charities Commission website.

Contact us by phone on (04) 473 7878 or email if you would like more information.

Tranzform

Tranzform is a support group for Trans/Gender Queer/Gender Non-conforming youth, and by youth we mean under 30’s. My name is Dominique and I am co-facilitator of Tranzform. With Griffin I organise the twice monthly meetings for our group.

In this past month Griffin and myself have begun the process of revamping Tranzform and the way it is managed/run plus how we promote the group. This includes consulting with the lovely members of Tranzform to see what changes they would like to see made, figuring out how the group can best serve its members, and writing a new Tranzform mission statement to give us direction in moving forward.

Tranzform is lucky to be supported by WGWG, without this support our meetings may not even be able to take place. The WGWG has kindly voted to continue supporting the group, help in the production of promotional materials which currently are rather lacking, and even procuring a mobile phone to be used as the contact point for Tranzform. Many Thanks.

Until next time
Dominique
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