menu

Rainbow Chorus new members night in September

Rainbow Chorus, the South East’s only LGBT-mixed choir, will be launching a new ‘Members Night’, for those seeking new inspiration and melodious music, at St George’s Church, Kemptown on Monday, September 15 from 7pm.

Rainbow Chorus
Rainbow Chorus

The chorus, a non-auditioning choir, have just celebrated their most successful year with over 20 performances in their home city and further afield, including the Various Voices Festival in Dublin, plus Trans*Pride and Brighton Pride.

Event: Rainbow Chorus Members Night.

Where: St George’s Church, St George’s Road, Kemptown, Brighton, BN2 1ED.

When: Monday, September 15 from 7pm.

For more information, CLICK HERE: 

 

Support meeting for small LGBT/HIV community groups.

Community Works reps announce their plans for the year ahead.

LGBT Community Groups NetworkThe newly formed LGBT Community Groups Network that involves and supports people running smaller LGBT community groups has its first support meeting planned for Saturday August 16th.

This first meeting will focus on deciding support priorities for the groups, putting into place the help and support they can provide for each other, and the support that can be sought from elsewhere.

The emphasis is on peer-support groups getting to know each other and becoming stronger as a result.

The meeting will set in place plans for regular quarterly meetings, ongoing networking and support, developing and sharing community resources.

Gary Pargeter and Chris Cooke, Community Works LGBT representatives are facilitating the network:

Gary Pargeter and Chris Cooke
Gary Pargeter and Chris Cooke: Community Works LGBT Reps

They said: “Since the network had its first Open Space discussions in May we’ve been planning for our first full meeting in August. We’ve been talking to group leaders and getting to know people better. It’s been really enjoyable, and it’s truly amazing how diverse, passionate and committed people from our smaller organisations are.

“Now’s the time to start planning the activities of the network, based on bringing people together, putting into place support that we need, and finding the shared resources which help make our groups successful.

It takes a while for word of new things to get out and to start up, and we’re incredibly excited that as a collective we can now start putting plans into action. If you run or organise a smaller LGBT group and haven’t yet joined, please get in touch to talk about how the network can help.”

The network welcomes ongoing membership of any local LGBT/HIV community group which is not-for-profit and has an annual income of £35,000 or less.

For more information about membership and the first network meeting, EMAIL: 

For more information about the LGBT Community Groups Network, CLICK HERE:  

FOI reveals thousands face long waits in ambulances outside of A&E

Thousands of patients across the South East were caught in queues of ambulances outside of A&E last year.

WEB.600.38

Some patients waited over four hours to be admitted with over 39,500 patients in ambulances waited too long to enter A&E in the South East last year.

A Freedom of Information request by the Labour Party has revealed that in 2013/14, 34,102 ambulances were delayed for more than 30 minutes and a further 5,448 faced waits longer than one hour.

In the South East Coast Ambulance Service area – which covers Brighton & Hove, East Sussex, West Sussex, Kent, Surrey, and North East Hampshire – 25,298 patients had to wait over 30 minutes, 3,047 had to wait over an hour. The longest wait was 4hrs 15minutes.

Meanwhile the risk management papers for the service reveal fears the hold ups “delay the availability of crews to respond to new incidents, some of which will be life threatening.”

The “handover delays” occur when ambulance crews cannot transfer a patient to the A&E department because of staff or bed shortages. New arrivals should enter the hospital within 15 minutes and the ambulance trusts record delays in excess of 30 minutes.

Hospital and ambulance chiefs warned in internal documents over the period that the growing trend puts a patient’s clinical care at risk and prevents ambulances from responding to subsequent emergency calls.

Nancy Platts
Nancy Platts

Nancy Platts, Labour’s parliamentary candidate for Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven said: “Let’s be clear, ambulance crews are not at fault here, but long waits to handover patients is keeping them from responding to other emergencies in Brighton and Hove. They need to be able to do their job and be available to help people who are sick and injured. It’s time the Government woke up to this A&E crisis and put patient care first.”

Jamie Reed MP
Jamie Reed MP

Jamie Reed MP, Labour’s Shadow Health Minister, added: “Under David Cameron, hospitals are full to bursting and he’s forcing ambulances to queue at the doors for hours on end.

“Thousands of vulnerable people, many of them elderly and frightened, are being wrongly held in the backs of ambulances because hospitals don’t have the space. And yet Ministers deny that A&E is in crisis.

“People know from their own experience that the NHS is heading downhill on David Cameron’s watch. It is clear the Tories can’t be trusted with it.”

Women city leaders feature in new campaign

A local project charting the lives of women has been launched to celebrate Brighton Women’s Centre’s (BWC) 40th birthday.

Brighton Women's CentreOver the coming months BWC, who help women in the city with counselling, local information and by providing a safe space, will be collating ‘selfie’ images of Brighton & Hove women holding up a message describing what makes them proud to be a woman today.

Women from all walks of life can submit images on social media using the hashtag #bwcselfie.

BWC will select 40 images for a public exhibition at the Jubilee Library in December. They hope that the images will capture the range of experiences of women today, in contrast with 1974 when the centre was established.

Lisa Dando
Lisa Dando

Lisa Dando, BWC’s director, said: “This is a big year for us. I doubt the women who set up Brighton Women’s Centre all those years ago could have predicted that we would have achieved so much over the past years.

“We’re needed now more than ever, with women calling in for advice, counselling, childcare, support and even food parcels in far greater numbers.

“We couldn’t do all that we do without the help of so many wonderful local supporters. With high profile women leaders across the city participating, we hope that more women across Brighton & Hove will be able to find out more about the vital services BWC offers.”

All pictures will be viewable under #bwcselfie and on the Brighton Women’s Centre Flickr gallery: http://bit.ly/BWCSelfie

 

Lea Delaria will be Manchester Parade Grand Marshal

Orange is the new black star to lead Manchester Pride Parade.

Lea DeLaria
Lea DeLaria

Lea DeLaria, star of American TV sensation, Orange is the New Black, will be this year’s Grand Marshal at Manchester Pride’s Parade.

Lea who achieved stardom with her stand out role as Big Boo in the Netflix hit series, follows in the footsteps of the likes of Sir Ian McKellen, who has previously lead the parade.

The theme for the 2014 Manchester Pride Parade is LOVE, which is being rolled out across the festival, whether it be to honour the same sex marriage act, or challenge the final pieces of the legislation. The charity is calling for participants to celebrate and embrace their love with the city.

Mark FletcherMark Fletcher, Chief Executive of Manchester Pride, said: “We’re excited that Lea will be leading this year’s parade through Manchester City Centre. We’ve loved watching her in Orange is the New Black.

“Not only is she an incredible performer but she’s an inspiration for the global LGBT community. We know she’ll bring her unique charm and personality to really get the crowd going and kickstart the parade with a bang.”

As Grand Marshal of the parade, Lea will ride lead the parade through the streets of Manchester alongside patrons of Manchester Pride.

In 1993, DeLaria was the first openly gay comic to perform on television in America, after which she gained a reputation as a global gay icon. Prior to her success on Orange is the New Black, she appeared in numerous television series, including Will and Grace and Friends and had film roles in The First Wives Club, Edge Of Seventeen and Attack Of The Big Haired Lesbians.

Lea’s on and off Broadway highlights include a Drama Desk nomination and a Drama League Honoree for On The Town and portraying both Eddie and Dr. Scott in the Tony-nominated revival of The Rocky Horror Show.

Lea said: “It’s an honour to be invited to marshal the Manchester Pride parade. I can’t wait to return to Manchester. The girls there are really hot!”

To view message of support from members of Orange is the New Black cast, CLICK HERE:

This year’s parade is expected to consist of around 3,500 people from across Greater Manchester, with almost 100 entries, from small community groups, to large commercial organisations all expressing their support to the LGBT community.

The procession will weave its way through the city centre, following a 1 mile route, as thousands of visitors are expected to line the streets of Manchester. Past themes have included Heroes, Through the Decades and last year’s Acceptable in the 80’s.

A host of big names including All Saints, Anastacia and Conchita Wurst will perform in Manchester during the Big Weekend, presented in partnership with G-A-Y.  They will be joined by Pixie Lott, Foxes, MNEK, Neon Jungle and many more.

The Parade is a free event that is part of the wider Manchester Pride festival.

Tickets for the Big Weekend are currently priced at £22 for a weekend ticket, day tickets are also on sale and start at £12.50. Child’s Day & Weekend tickets are now on sale too.

A Big Weekend ticket provides guests with access to the event site, including the Main Arena, Sackville Gardens, the Gaydio Dance Arena and Expo plus it helps Manchester Pride raise money for LGBT and HIV charities and organisations in Greater Manchester.

For more information, CLICK HERE: 

There’s more to Manchester Pride than the Big Weekend and, since 2003, the festival has grown to include Pride Fringe which encompasses a series of art, culture, heritage, debate, sport, music and film events celebrating the great diversity of the LGBT community.

The Manchester Pride Festival 2104 kicked off on August 1 with Pride Fringe.

To find out more information about Manchester Pride, CLICK HERE:

 

 

Lesbian teenager parodies Westboro Baptist Church video

Rebecca Anderson, a 16 year-old lesbian teenager from Edinburgh, was so infuriated by Westboro Baptist Church’s homophobic parody of Panic! At The Disco’s ‘Write Sins Not Tragedies’ that she felt moved to make her own parody of their parody, entitled ‘Your Beliefs Are A Lie What A Tragedy’.

Rebecca Anderson
Rebecca Anderson

Rebecca’s video, can be found on Youtube and has already been viewed over 8,000 times, invites the world to recognise the hypocrisy and hatred of Westboro Baptist Church, best known for its extreme ideologies, especially those against gay people, who used homophobic and offensive language in their parody of the Panic at the Disco song, which they named ‘You Love Is Sin What A Tragedy’.

Rebecca’s mum was so proud of her daughter, she circulated the video link to the media and is urging all LGBT people to view it.

To watch the video, CLICK HERE:

Local businesses support the Rainbow Fund over Pride

This year, a number of Brighton businesses supported the Rainbow Fund during the Pride weekend.

John Inch and Paul Elgood
John Inch and Paul Elgood

· The Sussex Yeoman – £101. John Inch owner Sussex Yeoman donated 10% of their food take on Pride Saturday.

· Brighton Lanes Apartments, Ship Street – £200.  The agents who handle bookings for Jamie Hakim’s serviced apartment business – Brighton Lanes Apartments on Ship Street – charged anyone making bookings over Brighton Pride weekend a £50 ‘Pride Premium’. Jamie passed on the ‘premiums’ charged for his four apartments direct to the Rainbow Fund.

· Cyber Dog club wear – £105. Cyber Dog put together a special gift bag for Pride with all proceeds going to the Rainbow Fund. Plus their staff also made personal donations.

· Brighton Twisted Market – £85.30. Kindly held a bucket collection for people attending the pre Pride Twisted Market.

Rainbow Fund Chairman Paul Elgood said: “It is great that individual businesses are doing their bit for the Rainbow Fund. We are usually known for receiving donations from community, venue and event fundraising, but this year a number of businesses have approached us directly to put something back into the community during Pride.”

“The Rainbow Fund does not fundraise itself, but receives donations from high profile events and activities to allocate through its grants programme. Decisions on all grants are made independently via our grants panel.”

September 1 will see Pride and the Rainbow Fund come together for the very first LGBT Business Awards and Grant Giving Ceremony, acknowledging the support of local businesses for Pride and the Rainbow Fund.

To view the Rainbow Fund website, CLICK HERE: 

or @BHRainbowFund

Staff at Cyber Dog, Brighton handover cheque to Paul Elgood, Chair of Rainbow Fund
Staff at Cyber Dog, Brighton handover cheque to Paul Elgood, Chair of Rainbow Fund

PREVIEW: Picture of John Gray

The Picture of John Gray, a period piece exploring sexual identity and acceptance and a completely new angle on the story of Oscar Wilde, is playing at The Old Red Lion Theatre, London till Saturday, August 30 from 7.30pm.

 The Picture of John Gray
In the play, set in 1889, writer C.J. Wilmann offers a challenging, untold story about the circles Wilde moved in and a time when it was, possibly, the most dangerous ever time to be gay in Britain.
Director Gus Miller said: “It’s a big play, spanning the lives of real people across a period of enormous change but it remains, at its heart, a deceptively simple love story. It unearths challenging questions about purpose, acceptance and compromise in love.”
Event: The Picture of John Gray
When: Till Saturday, August 30 from 7.30pm.
Where: The Old Red Lion Theatre, 418 St John Street, London EC1V 4NJ
Tickets: £15 (full price), £13 (concessions), £10 (previews)

 

X