Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Men's coming out / questionning group starts again on 14/02/12

Newcomers, the support group for men who are coming out or questionning their sexuality, is taking a break over Christmas.

We're going to change the group's meeting times in 2012 to the second and fourth Tuesday of each month. The group will start up again on Tuesday 14th February from 6pm-7.30pm at Anvil House, Wakefield Street, Wellington.

Why should you come to Newcomers? Here's why!

- Each evening you'll hear a gay or bi man tell their life story. It's always interesting and there will always be something you can relate to
- It's a chance to meet other gay, bi or questionning men in a relaxed, non-bar environment
- Everything you say or hear is confidential
- Gay Wellington pays for free drink and nibbles!

If you'd like to know more or have any questions, email us at newcomers@gaywellington.org or phone helpline on 473 7878 (Sunday-Wednesday, 7.30pm-9.30pm).

Friday, December 16, 2011

LAGANZ

LAGANZ (the Lesbian and Gay Archives of NZ) invited Gay Wellington members to their end-of-year function, so yesterday I went along to it at the Mark Hutchins Gallery on Willis St. It was a good group of 20+ people and an interesting gallery! If you haven't heard of Laganz check out the Laganz web site (here). I've finally joined up as a 'friend of laganz' for $20...

Stu

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Wellington Police District Media Release to the GLBTI community

Hi everyone. Here's a media release we received from the Wellington Police today.

13 December 2011

Wellington Police investigating the murder of 43 year old Phillip Cottrell wish to allay safety concerns raised by the GLBTI community.

Phillip Cottrell died on Sunday afternoon as a result of injuries sustained during an attack in Boulcott Street around 5:30am on Saturday morning.

Detective Senior Sergeant Scott Miller, officer in charge of the homicide operation says it appears Mr Cottrell was the victim of an unprovoked, random and vicious attack.

"We do not believe Mr Cottrell's sexual orientation was a factor in his death. Any member of the GLBTI community who has serious safety concerns or has any relevant information in relation to this investigation, should contact Wellington Police on (04) 381 2000 or phone Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111."

Police Diversity Liaison Officers are also available within the Wellington District. You can find contact details for these officers via the New Zealand Police website on the link below:

https://www.police.govt.nz/about/diversity-contacts

Detective Senior Sergeant Miller says Police are following a number of lines of enquiry and remain confident that those responsible for this cowardly attack on Mr Cottrell will be located and held accountable for their actions.

ENDS

For media queries, please contact Victoria Davis, Wellington Police District Communications Manager on 0274 373 020.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Co-Chair reflections on the month and the year

November was a busy month for WGWG. We had a field trip to Emperor's Bathhouse, ran a successful intake day, voted in Kura as our new co-chair, went live with a new website, switched to Kiwibank and sent Jo on a course in Auckland. It’s a bit harder to measure our impact on the GLBTI community for the month, but for the first time we put together some firm statistics. Have a look at the below article and if you have suggestions to better capture our impact on the community, share them. One idea so far is to supplement these sorts of numbers with some personal testimonials and surveys.

2011 has been an active year as a whole and the group's monthly newsletters make it easy to reflect back on some highlights. The strategic planning days at Strathene, the gay fair, welcoming so many new members, upgrading our website, and employing George and Kassie for School’s Out are some of the events which stand out for me. A big thank you to everyone who put in time and effort to make the year a success. You know who you are. Stu

November in Numbers

What did we do in November?

For the first time we asked all the group leaders to record the extent of our interactions with the Wellington GLBTI community in November. Here’s the result - a typical WGWG (Gay Wellington) month in numbers:

729 visitors to the Gay Wellington website
444 visitors to this blog page
10 new facebook friends joined WGWG
47 facebook posts and 109 comments
14 helpline calls
3 men came out at newcomers
8 women attended the lesbian drop-in
2 men with HIV made grant requests
17 school kids attended School’s Out, coming from 7 high schools. 35 youth are in email contact with School’s Out
1 homeless youth received financial support
19 youth came to Tranzform.

Tranzform Update

We are getting closer to the end of the year, a year of some change for Tranzform.

We have new facilitators and new people coming to the meetings, as well as some of those who have been with us a while.

The safe spaces policy has finished being developed in coordination with members, and we are now setting out to develop a system for collating complaints with the medical profession. There always seem to be a number of complaints and unless we do something about them we are the only ones who hear about it. So perhaps Tranzform can help to make some change too.

Many thanks to WGWG, your help keeps this group going. Dee

[You can find more information about Tranzform on the Gay Wellington Website]