Thanks for coming to the Gay & Lesbian Fair 2012

It was great to see so many people at the fair today - the weather did us proud.

Gay Wellington's stall had the usual sausage sizzle courtesy of discounts from the butcher at Island Bay. And a big thanks to the Chocolate Cake Company for donating 20 delicious mini chocolate cakes to help us raise money.

If you came to the stall you may have seen our fresh new Gay Wellington flyer which was hot off the press this morning. Tranzform and School's Out had a busy table as well, with impressive new banners.

A big thanks to everyone who volunteered to help, as well as to everyone who came up to say hello!

And congratulations to the School's Out folk who were interviewed for TV1 news tonight. The clip about bullying was excellent :-)

Meet us at Out in the Square on Saturday

Out in the Square, the Wellington gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersex (and generally queer) fair, is taking place in Civic Square this coming Saturday, 21st January (from around 9.30am to 4.30pm).

Gay Wellington has had a stall at the fair ever since it started 25 years ago. We'll have a BBQ sausage sizzle with top quality bacon and sausages from the Island Bay butchery. We'll also have our new flyer to give away, a donations bowl, and plenty of other stuff there under the big Gay Wellington sign.

Drop in and say hello. You can even sign up as a volunteer if you like!

See you there :-)

Gay Wellington - what do we spend our $ on?

We run a pretty lean organsation at Gay Wellington.

We've just filed our annual accounts with the Charities Commission, which you can find on the charities register link here. Our charity number is CC32286.

For an organisation that runs a helpline, two coming out groups, School's Out, makes grants to men with HIV and helps Tranzform, our total expenditure for the year was $32k (salaries, which were for Schools Out, were $13k).

Compare that to OUTLine NZ inc in Auckland, which primarily runs a helpline. Their most recent Charities Commission return shows total expenditure of $106k (salaries were $64k).

A lot of that difference in expenditure between Wellington and Auckland is due to the time people donate voluntarily here.

Another noticable difference between Auckland and Wellington is that we received donations of about $300, compared to $64k received by Outline NZ. Outline does a great job of obtaining donations from the public. Convincing local folk that we're worth donating to is something we'll have to work on in 2012!

If you have any questions about our financial accounts, or if you would like to donation some money to us, drop us a line :-)

Libra Tampons Commercial

Radio NZ will broadcast an item on the Libra Tampons Commercial tomorrow.

They asked Gay Wellington to comment as an advocacy group, so I gave a quick interview as co-chair about an hour ago.

I said that Gay Wellington supports the campaign to have the ad removed.

We're involved with the trans community through the helpline as well as Tranzform which is a support group for tranz youth. I said I think trans people are really brave and courageous, coming to terms with their situation and doing something about it. And trans people often say how important it is to have role models so they know they are not alone. So an ad that ridicules and jokes about the trans gender community is not acceptable.

RNZ asked what damage I thought could be done and I said if you marginalise people then suicide can be the result, so that's the ultimate damage.

I don't know whether they'll use the clip, but if they do I hope it helps...