Benefits of Membership

  • Print
Details
Category: Membership
Published on Thursday, 30 June 2011 22:22
Written by Super User
Hits: 188

Our membership year matches the calendar year – which is easy to remember.
You may like to see what you get for what is a modest subscription.

  • Regular social opportunities with other LGBT people. We have pub nights once a month at gay or gay friendly venues. At least twice a year, we organise dinners for members. We organise other social events on a one off basis from time to time
     
  • Representation on a wide range of political issues of concern to LGBT people. This year we have been active in consulting widely over which issues are of particular concern to our communities, and presenting

  • these to the political parties. This exercise also meant that our well-publicised Election Candidates Forum in October concentrated on these issues, rather than on ones chosen by the parties themselves.
  •  
  • We have also continued to pursue cases of discrimination through the Human Rights Commission resolution and mediation process. To our knowledge we are the only LGBTI group which does this. 
     
  • Current cases under discussion are the inability of gay men in any kind of sexual relationship to donate blood, and the free WiFi service offered by McDonalds, which discriminates against LGBTI websites. 
  • We have also organised talks on themes of interest to LGBT people at intervals. We have been running a series of talks on various aspects of Human Rights Law, which have proved popular.
  • Regular newsletters which as well as publicising the above contain information of interest to LGBT people from the local scene and around the world, We are affiliated to the International Lesbian and Gay Association
  • We also give grants to such regular community events as Out in the Square and the Outtakes Film Festival. In 2011 we were also a major sponsor of the highly successful Human Rights Conference which formed a part of the Asia-Pacific Outgames, by supporting the visit of two key speakers from overseas.
     
  • We are often asked about the "benefits of membership" as if these are only financial ones, dependent on how many events you attend. We hope that the list above demonstrates to you that your membership pays for and contributes to far more than that. 

Our only source of income is our membership subscriptions, so obviously the more members we have, the more resources we have and the more we can do in all these areas. Without your support we could not do any of them at all.



Tony Simpson
RW Chair

November 2011