Hove based tranformational speaker Sophie Cook has been appointed the first trans patron at the sports campaign group, Just A Ball Game? (JBG?).
JBG? campaigns to encourage and promote football, sport and healthy leisure activities among lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgendered people (LGBT) regardless of race, religion, sex, age, physical ability or disability and Sophie joins other Patrons on the board including footballer Anton Hysen, captain of the GB Paralympic Sitting Volleyball Team, Claire Harvey, sports administrator, politician and equality campaigner Edward Lord OBE and Angela Eagle MP.
Sophie brings a wealth of experience to the table as both a rock photographer for band The Libertines and Premier League photographer at AFC Bournemouth. Along side of this, she now regularly attends LGBT events across the country as a motivational speaker touching on subjects such as overcoming fear in life and business, diversity and inclusion, LGBT issues and sports.
In the past Sophie served in the RAF, has been a motorbike racer and newspaper editor. It was her RAF grounding that’s been a support network during Sophie’s coming out story:
Sophie said:“In the RAF we were a very close-knit team, we knew that we could rely on the other team members, even now 30 years later we are a team and I received nothing but support from them when I came out as transgender.”
She continued:“Becoming a Patron of Just A Ball Game? is so important as it’s a great way for me to show my support for the outstanding work that they are doing to increase diversity and inclusion within sports. LGBT people should never feel excluded from watching or participating in the sports that they love.”
Chelsea FC launch their first ever LGBT supporter fan group.
Earlier this year members of the Gay Football Supporters Network (GFSN) visited the club to talk about how they could support their LGBT fans. Ed Connell, chair of the Gay Football Supporters Network (GFSN), and Gerard Green who is one of the GFSN’s founding members, visited Stamford Bridge.
Ed Connell, said:“We are delighted to see Chelsea FC join the growing list of football clubs that recognise the need to make their club a more welcoming environment for their LGBT fans. It is particularly important to me as a Chelsea fan to see the football club embrace the diverse nature of their fan base.”
GFSN was first established in 1989, as a social network for LGBT football fans across the country. Since then it has grown and expanded into hosting its own national league, aiming to take the lead in tackling homophobia in football.
The GFSN league is the world’s only national league that is aimed at the LGBT community and is open to all regardless of age, race, nationality, religion, gender or sexuality.
It currently hosts teams from across the UK including:
♦ Birmingham
♦ Bournemouth
♦ Bristol
♦ Cardiff
♦ Edinburgh
♦ Glasgow
♦ Leicester
♦ Liverpool
♦ London
♦ Manchester
♦ Newcastle
♦ Nottingham
♦ Trowbridge
♦ Wolverhampton
♦ Yorkshire
More teams join the league every season, and GFSN also has affiliated teams from the Republic of Ireland.
GFSN works closely with partner organisations including the FA and Kick it Out, to encourage a safe and positive environment in which LGBT people are able to watch and play football. Their mission is to promote the support and participation of LGBT people in football, establishing a social network for LGBT football supporters and encouraging the formation of LGBT teams for players of all abilities.
The new Chelsea fan group is a big step forward for GFSN who campaign against homophobia and transphobia in football, with a view to creating a safe environment for all, whilst gaining respect and recognition for LGBT involvement in football.
Working alongside Chelsea FC, Ed Connell will help in forming the group by offering his support and assistance to ensure its growth.
Ed Connell, said:“I am immensely proud to see this happen. I have been campaigning against homophobia in football for the best part of 12 years and spent the first seven or eight feeling very frustrated trying to get people to realise there was an issue so for me to see these things happening is fantastic.”
To find out more or to join the group email: chelsea@gfsn.org.uk or contact the GFSN on Twitter @ChelseaGFSN
Collabro, the World’s number one musical theatre vocal group who performed to over 55,000 people on their sell out UK tour last year, start new tour for 2016 playing the Brighton Centre on Saturday. March 12!
Since winning Britain’s Got Talent, Collabro’s diary has been a whirlwind of touring and promotion on a Worldwide scale! The new tour includes 29 dates across the UK, starting in the Wirral at New Brighton’s Floral Pavilion (February 23) taking in a date at London’s Royal Albert Hall on March 26 and then culminating on April 3 at Guildford’s G Live.
The five-piece vocal group swept to victory on the ITV’s Britain’s Got Talent in June 2014 winning a £250,000 cash prize as well as a much-coveted slot on The Royal Variety Show. They signed with Simon Cowell’s Syco Music and their career has gone from strength to strength here in the UK and Internationally.
Their debut album Stars rocketed to the No.1 spot beating Ed Sheeran in the process and remains the fastest selling album for a debut act. A Christmas released special edition of Stars followed to further their domination of the album charts. A sell out 32-date UK tour in 2015 saw the band play in prestigious venues such as The London Palladium.
In June 2015 their second album Act Two was released, charting at No.2 beaten only by Florence & The Machine. In just one year the band have gone from being completely unknown to selling over 300,000 albums, making them platinum album recording artists!
Collabro collectively are Michael Auger, Richard Hadfield, Jamie Lambert, Matt Pagan and Thomas Redgrave who first got together upstairs at a north London pub, having come together through mutual friends and social media.
Less than five months after meeting for the first time, Collabro won Britain’s Got Talent and the rest, as they say, is history.
Local boy Richard Hadfield, hails from Portslade in Sussex and is looking forward to another successful UK tour and the band’s second trip to America to perform for their USA fans with three dates across the east coast. As a swing busker in Brighton, Richard could never have believed that just that 2 years later he would be selling out the Royal Albert Hall as part of Collabro.
Since being launched into the spot light, avid rugby supporter Richard has been lucky enough to meet his idle Jonny Wilkinson whilst duetting with his favourite Van Jean of all time, Alfie Boe, at Wilkinson’s celebratory testimonial, which he says was his Highlight of the year. Not only has Richard been able to sing for the England rugby team, he also took part in Rugby Aid at Twickenham this year along side other celebs and ex pros. This was s real treat as he got to tackle Mike Tindall and other childhood heroes.
The full programme for the 50th Brighton Festival (May 7-29, 2016) – the largest and most established curated annual multi-arts festival in England – has been unveiled with experimental artist and musician Laurie Anderson as Guest Director.
Renowned for her inventive use of technology, Anderson is one of America’s most daring creative pioneers in roles as varied as artist, composer, poet, photographer, filmmaker, vocalist and instrumentalist.
The theme of this year’s Festival is home and place, and an eclectic programme – which spans music, theatre, dance, visual art, film, literature and debate – features work from some of the most innovative national and international artists, and includes 54 new commissions, co-commissions, exclusives and premieres.
Highlights include:
♦ Two exclusive performances from folktronica pioneer Beth Orton, who will be premiering new material exploring her electronic roots
♦ Renowned choreographer and dancer Akram Khan’s new full-length production Until The Lions
♦ The world premiere of A Room with Your Views, a global collaborative work by Turner Prize-winning British artist Gillian Wearing, which captures ‘snapshot’ views from windows around the world
Anderson’s own events include:
♦ The UK premiere of her unique Music for Dogs, a concert specially designed for the canine ear
♦ A screening of her acclaimed new film Heart of a Dog
♦ An exclusive new performance monologue about place and places called Slideshow
♦ A freewheeling walk through sonic spaces with fellow musician-composers, pianist Nik Bärtsch and guitarist Eivind Aarset
There’s also a UK premier of Lou Reed Drones, an installation of Anderson’s late husband’s guitars and amps in feedback mode which she describes as “kind of as close to Lou’s music as we can get these days”.
With ‘home’ at the heart of the programme, Brighton Festival will celebrate its relationship with its home city through its artists, its characters, and its sense of place and spirit.
A series of special home-grown commissions will include two works marking the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death: The Complete Deaths, a re-enactment of every onstage death from Brighton-based artistic powerhouses Spymonkey and Tim Crouch; and Digging for Shakespeare by Marc Rees, a site-specific homage to 19th Century Brighton eccentric and world-renowned Shakespearean scholar James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps.
Other city-inspired highlights include a specially commissioned film Brighton: Symphony of a City, screened to a new score performed by Orchestra of Sound and Light; and the entire Royal Pavilion Estate playing host to Dr Blighty, an ambitious, large-scale, immersive outdoor experience which highlights the untold story of wounded Indian soldiers hospitalised in Brighton during World War One.
The Festival will also look at the idea of home, communities and places of safety more universally, with highlights including: Minefield, a new work from Argentinian artist Lola Arias developed with and performed by Argentine and British veterans of the Falklands conflict; experimental composer and musician Yuval Avital’s potent and thought-provoking new work, Fuga Perpetua, which reflects on the situation of refugees; and the UK premiere of Berlin’sZvizdal, a filmic portrait of an elderly couple’s self-imposed solitude in a village affected by the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
2016 also sees Brighton Festival working with Guardian Live in a special partnership delivering the Books and Debate programme, with a line-up of writers and commentators that includes a panel debate on the looming EU Referendum and a visit from former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, as well as appearances from Orange prize winner Lionel Shriver and two Booker prize winners, Marlon James and Howard Jacobson.
Laurie Anderson says:“I’m so happy to be serving as Guest Director of Brighton Festival in its historic 50th year. I’ve been part of the Festival several times and it is so big and sprawling and exciting and there’s so many different things going on – it really has a kind of celebratory, crazy, art party feel to it. And I love the theme of home and place. It is especially relevant with so many people in the world on the move now looking, like all of us, for a place we can belong.”
Hedley Swain, Area Director, South East, Arts Council England, added:“It is very fitting that the theme for Brighton Festival’s 50th programme is ‘home and place’. The Festival, and more widely arts and culture in general, have long been synonymous with Brighton. Collectively they deliver inspiring performances and exhibitions for local communities (and) attract people from far and wide to drive cultural tourism and make a strong contribution to the local economy.”
For the full Festival Programme and to buy tickets online, click here:
Simon Kirby, MP for Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven, calls on City Council to rethink plans to close public toilets at Saltdean Oval.
Simon said:“I have been contacted by numerous constituents, and Saltdean Residents’ Association, with their concerns about the council’s plans. In particular, local residents who use the bowling green, skate park and children’s play park are worried that they may no longer be able to do so if these facilities are closed.
“The council should be making back room savings and reducing senior officers’ salaries before they even consider making cuts to much-needed frontline services such as these. I hope that they reconsider their decision and keep these toilets open.”
Labour councillors for Queens Park ward, Adrian Morris, Daniel Chapman and Karen Barford issue statement following the tragic passing of community activist, Chris Cooke.
“We are deeply saddened to hear about the death of our friend Chris Cooke following a fire in Essex Place.
“As a dedicated local campaigner, he focussed on LGBT and community issues, which were close to his heart. Chris stood as a local council candidate in 2011 and he was always a great support for the three of us.
“He was very active on Facebook and an invaluable source of information about community events.
“Two days before the tragic fire, he posted on Facebook encouraging people to join a new group called Kemptown in Bloom. Chris adored wild flowers and organised beautiful displays several years ago.
“His friends have suggested raising funds to sow more in his memory. We cannot think of a better way to commemorate two of his loves in life. Wild flowers and the community.
“We have included one of Chris’s photos of wild flowers in Kemp Town.
“Our thoughts are with his family and friends at this very difficult time.”
A message from Director of Public Health, Dr Tom Scanlon
♦ Public health alert for men who have sex with men
♦ Important HIV testing recommendation
“Please be aware of a recent serious concern about HIV transmission in Brighton & Hove.
“It has come to the attention of local services that a man may have recently passed on HIV through unprotected sex, after deliberately interfering with condoms and falsely reassuring partners that they were practising safe sex. The alleged incidents are reported to have occurred between October 2015 and mid February 2016.
“Sussex Police are investigating the matter. The man is in his twenties and has a Scottish accent. He has recently been released on bail in Scotland in relation to other matters.
“I am therefore asking any man who may have had sexual contact with a man of this description between October 2015 and mid February 2016 to contact local sexual health services. Service providers will be able to offer advice on whether further testing is required.
“HIV is a serious condition, and there are other sexually transmitted infections which can be acquired during unsafe sex. Early diagnosis and treatments are available and the message of safe sex with the clear and consistent use of condoms remains as strong as ever.
“The Claude Nicol Centre and Terrence Higgins Trust are supporting Public Health in this matter. If you think that you may have had sexual contact with the person described, please ring either of the telephone numbers below during working hours.”
Brighton & Hove Sea Serpents RFC played their inaugural match at Hove Rugby Football Club on Saturday, February 20 against The Kings Cross Steelers 4th XV.
Despite the miserable weather almost one hundred friends and supporters turned out in the muddy conditions to cheer both teams on, creating the opportunity for gay men to play rugby in Brighton and Hove for the first time.
After a shaky start the Sea Serpents settled down and in the second half had more possession. The Steelers came out winners 25-0 with all the points being gained from tries, there were no conversions.
After the match both teams enjoyed themselves at the Bar at Hove Rugby Club before moving on to entertain their guests from London at the Camelford Arms who are sponsoring the team.
For more information about the Brighton & Hove Sea Serpents, RFC, click here:
Barry Nelson, manager at the Queens Arms on George Street, hands over a cheque for £1,044.00 to Chris Gull, Chair of the Rainbow Fund. The money was raised during Barry’s Birthday Bash at the Queens Arms on Sunday, January 31.
The Rainbow Fund give grants to LGBT/HIV groups who provide effective services to LGBT people in the city.
Where you at University in Kent or Sussex in 1966?
The BBC have commissioned a series of regional documentaries about 1966.
Broadcaster Simon Fanshawe OBE is making the one about the South East and will be looking at the year through the lens of the Universities of Kent and Sussex.
He wants to speak to a lesbian or gay man who remembers what it was like to live in Brighton in 1966.
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