Equality Alliance report No. 2
13 May 1998
(Originally posted to the UKPFC-Forum mailing list)
Here is the second report of the Equality Alliance as promised, sorry about the delay, I have been receiving more info and wanted to add it to this, so it is right up to date.
At Pride 98, the Europride 98 banner will lead the march and it requires 150 mad volunteers to carry it as it is huge, anybody willing? Banners, ballons and placards will also be provided for those that wish to carry them. The theme of Pride 98 is a call for the repeal of Section 28 of the 1988 Local Government Act. The festival afterwards is being organised by a new team named Freedom UK that has recently renamed itself Pride (events) UK after it was granted a licence by Lambeth Council. The festival will again be held at Clapham Common unless there is a last minute change as the fee for the venue is £150,000. The festival is being restricted to 100,000 people and will be by ticket only, these will be on sale shortly. UNISON, the public service union is expected to be the major sponsor. It is felt by the Alliance working group that Pride should be a good venue for the Alliance to make a big impact during the march and the following festival and get ourselves really well known and show everyone that we are here and not something that will fade away after a while. The commitment is there and the Alliance should do good things for all the Communities that it will represent.
For those people that buy or read The Gay Times, Page 45 has a report on the Equality Alliance. I know the report only mentions Gay and Lesbian organisations as part of the Alliance, but I can assure you that Bisexual and Transgendered Communities are also very much part of the Alliance and all four Communities have been recognised as part of the Alliance and will jointly campaign on issues relevant to the groups as a whole once the working group has finished the Alliance setting up process.
It is planned that there will be a press release (probably in the Guardian, as the Alliance prefers that paper to the others) on May 24th and a protest on the Anniversary of Section 28. If anyone would like to take part or support this, then the Alliance would like to hear from you on the phone numbers listed in this report. If I have more details I will post them for anyone that wants to take part.
There are further meetings of the Alliance working group coming up and many meetings have been held in London since the start-up date of the Alliance on 4th April. I attended the working group meeting on the 18th April and have been involved by phone in all the other processes in setting up sub-working groups to deal with Media/PR, Lobbying, Publicity, Campaigning, Admin, etc. The Alliance is growing rapidly and the Organisations that are involved or that have expressed an interest are growing daily and by now should be around 100. So far we are the only Transgender Organisation represented but others that feel they want to be part of the Alliance are most welcome. The more the better as the variation in views is always welcome. Due to problems involved in writing the Constitution the next meeting of the Alliance as a whole will probably be put back to a date after Pride as it is felt that we cannot rush it any faster without mistakes being made. There are further meetings of the working group coming up and I hope to attend as many as possible. There is also an invite for the Alliance to carry out a workshop at a conference/meeting in Manchester on 20/21 June and I hope to be there as the TG representative with the Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual representatives. As I have more details of these events and confirmation of dates, I will post them to the Forum/News Lists.
As I have already stated, a Constitution is being drafted for the Alliance and an interim one has been prepared to enable an Alliance bank account to be opened for the receipt of funds for the Campaign. This is being treated as an area of caution by the working group and every measure will be taken to ensure that this is set up in a proper legallly correct manner, no Treasurer has been nominated at present.
Various Organisations are willing to provide us with office space (Eddie Surman Trust), web space and funds for advertising and postage. A Post Office Box will also be sent up for future mail requirements. A telephone number has been set-up for the equality Alliance, it being:-
07050 610634. More numbers are available on the web site.
Close contact is being maintained with the Pride organisors and if there are any changes to venues, details etc, I will post them, unless PFC gets them first.
An Equality Alliance web site has been set-up and its site address is:- http://equality-alliance.diversity.org.uk
It also has a link to the PFC Site.
Direct phone contact can be made with the Alliance Co-ordinator, Ian Farmer on:- 0xxx-yyy yyyy normally out of working hours.
Up-to-date phone numbers are now on the Alliance’s own website
Theresa Davis, whose forum message on the Unison meeting recently held at Harrogate, has expressed an interest in helping on the Alliance. She works at a University in the Midlands and is also a Unison steward and as Unison is sponsoring Pride it is very fitting that she should be involved with the Alliance. I also believe that she might be the first UNISON representative on the Alliance as well. Any way I am glad to welcome Theresa along and I hope she does not mind plenty of work once the Alliance is fully up and running.
It has been stated that direct action will be the responsibility of the respective organisations/groups that are involved in the Alliance, not the Alliance itself.
On the politics side, an Alliance delegation will meet with Stephen Twigg to discuss issues that will not wait for the Government to be re-elected after its present 5-year term. The general feeling amongst the Alliance is that they will not carry out reforms that were promised in this term but use them as a re-election ploy to get in for another term of office. Support has been expressed by other politicians for lobbying Parliament on various issues when the need arises and a delegation will meet with them as well.
It was a point of interest to discover that the Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Communities do not have a Parliamentary Forum, as we do, so in some ways the TG Community and PFC are very much further ahead at this time. A point that has recently become very relevant to us over the DfEE Consultation paper.
A logo is needed for the new Alliance, if anyone has any suggestions or artwork they would like to submit, they can be sent to me at:-
Romana Mewett — qdrytgdr@aol.com
… and I will get them to Ian and the rest of the group for perusal.
An official Alliance Launch will also be set-up for a date to be advised.
I will be in hospital for the next two days, so I will not be able to answer any messages till Saturday. I will send another updated report after the next set of meetings in London.
Best wishes to everyone
Romana