minutes (29/6/20)
LGBT+ Association Meeting
Date: 29/6/20
Time: 11am
Location: Online
ATTENDEES
Members
Jonah Graham
Allen Drews
Fliss Barrows
Erica Chan
Megan Hogg
Amy Rees
Scott McCarter
Peter Kissack
Anne Sim
Freddy Sperring
Amanda Ong
ORDERS OF BUSINESS
amanda: first order of business, plans?
jonah: how we should operate this year, the more cooperative it is the better. e.g. if socials wants to host a campaign, ask campaigns, etc. don’t want people to feel like they are limited to their role - minus welfare because there’s a special category for that. also, if you need help ask me, allen, or fliss. gonna try to get everyone to be editors on the page from ben. don’t know who is going to be responsible for answering messages, but whoever does please put your name and title at the bottom just to know who responded. for plans, i will try to talk to ben and i have a list of qn to ask him, if you want me to just message me. plans: need to get handover done, by the end of this week try and talk to your handover person so we can get that done. also doing the article for the tab and need to speak to campaigns and social about what we're doing to celebrate pride because we haven’t done much due to the elections. i also wanna help you guys do what you want to do
fliss: doing the parenting system. kinda want to bring it back on the agenda, but i have some ideas about the parenting system. also in charge of sorting out the fashion show, but who knows because of the situation currently. i have some ideas about where we’re going with that, but i think a fashion show will be fun, but if we did a ball or a cabaret those will be good as well, but
allen: fliss if you need help with the parenting scheme i will be happy to help. also want to help with the GNB because i’m in contact with the lgbt staff network, was corresponding with tim. also sam was promoting the liberate my library scheme, we can help with that.
amy: me and peter have been talking about the plans for welfare, peter?
peter: just a few various things, but it’s on the agenda.
scott: had a casual handover with fran, because of the way it works, i need to do a workshop before i can have access, at the minute there’s nothing much i can do, but i will update you guys.
fliss: it’s usually on the exec webpage and they will upload when the seminar will happen
amanda: next point of the agenda is outreach and colleges
jonah: the colleges are hesitant to get involved, so i was wondering if fliss can get in touch with them
fliss: will get a list of the previous reps so we will know who the new one is
jonah: are the college reps working with the association? or are they separate?
allen: they’re separate
amanda: yup, not under our jurisdiction or anything
allen: what colleges do we have represented?
[mildret, hill bede, ustinov, cuth’s, collingwood, trevs]
fliss: maybe we can have more informal ties to the college rep to ease tensions
megan: maybe someone should turn up to their events instead
[agreed]
jonah: anyone from hatfield?
[negative]
fliss: if anyone knows any reps can you message me? be it current or next.
jonah: they might be on the college page
peter: amy and i were saying the best way to contact them is individually
jonah: we’ll just have to make friends with them.
peter: it would be more productive for everyone if we had a better connection
jonah: maybe one of us can go to the hatfield event as well.
amanda: summer campaigns?
erica: first, we were gonna try to do the campaigns committee. sent the email to get people on the committee. we have different campaigns planned. what we have from last year is the GNB and the mental health campaigns. but the mental health was supposed to be an exams time thing so we can keep those till next exam season. anne and i wanted to introduce the gender neutral dress code. we also have some ideas for the post that you guys want to put up; microaggression, racialized dating preferences, etc. and maybe also the importance of queer poc spaces, why we need intersectionality, and focuses on certain poc groups
allen: what do you mean by the gender neutral dress code? also we also have the racism survey from last year, we could repeat that to get more answers
[anne to address allen’s question, but there were microphone issues so we proceeded on with the meeting first]
erica: plans for the committee, we probs won’t have a screening process because we don’t know how many people will sign up, we’lll leave it open for a week then create a facebook group, do a zoom call to introduce the campaigns, depends on how many people we can. from there we will split into the different groups within the committee and focus on working with them. for the anti-racism post, we can post like one a week to spread it out
amy: was just wondering, maria was saying it might be good to get the other associations to read our posts, so maybe we can get in touch with the poc group
jonah: i feel that we should do a welfare campaign about isolation, loneliness, and for those living in homophobic environments
erica: good idea, slightly unrelated, by campaigns last year wasn’t super well publicized, so we were thinking if we should make dedicated accounts like twitter to boost it, esp because if we have a campaigns committee, it might be easier for them to have an account as well
jonah: we shouldn’t have too many accounts
fliss: we should def have the insta account more active, from my exp alot of the younger generation doesn’t use facebook
erica: do we even have the password?
jonah: get megan to ask liv
allen: might just have to create new accounts
amanda: next point on the agenda, we’ll move fliss’s point up as they have to leave at noon. fliss you wanted to talk about the parenting scheme?
fliss: want to post on the pre-fresh pages, not even to have the sign ups but to make people aware, the thing with the system is there are always more parents than children, so we need to get it out to the freshers. also have to get to the college people to see if they have anything that they send to the freshers. as far as the actual system, will just do the same thing with the form. if anyone has anything specific things to include i’m happy to include
freddy: i did do some research on the facebook group for freshers, they don’t seem to make new groups, they just seem to change the name of old groups. posts might not reach the intended audience well
jonah: want to find a way, there is a durham signpost, but no one reads it
fliss: we need to post stuff on insta
jonah: if we can get college execs to send it
fliss: trying to work on that
megan: when i have access to the instagram we can send it there, especially since college groups are more active on instagram now
peter: a lot of colleges are responsive on the instagram
freddy: especially because a lot of people don’t have their families on instagram
peter: and instagram is more anonymous
jonah: @megan have you talked to liv?
megan: will message her about passwords
peter: one more point about parenting is that maria said welfare should be involved, there are a lot of inappropriate responses we need to sort through
fliss: absolutely
peter: also helps to weed people out
[agreed]
jonah: just to go back to an earlier point, are campaigns not vetting the committee?
erica: nope, we want to gauge responses
jonah: could you do a questionnaire?
anne: we’ve done a google form that has basic what are your skills etc.
amy: people might have prev experiences as well
anne and erica: yup we’ve included
jonah: back to parenting @fliss has kate given you the stuff?
fliss: nope, but they said they would send it in
jonah: parenting social?
fliss: we could do a picnic or something, depending on the situation
jonah: worry that people will not sign up
fliss: people probably will because they want to meet other gay people
freddy: i’ve had some back-up ideas, if we have to do it on zoom. in my college we have a murder mystery night, you start in a big group then split into chat groups, then we can have a small murder mystery game
jonah: sounds like a really good idea
freddy: the picnic sounds good, but this is just in case. we could also just do it as a social for fun if we don’t use it for parenting
[agreed]
amanda: next point on the agenda, megan you mentioned wanting to discuss next term’s possibilities
megan: want to figure out what we’re going to do if we have to be online. kinda want to work on trying to get some of the campaigns post sorted for the new term
jonah: do you want to say what we will be doing?
megan: maybe, but basically we just need a backup plan
jonah: yup sounds good, we’ll just whenever someone comes up with a plan, we’ll just have a backup plan for online as well
erica: if you need, we can discuss as well
megan: if anyone knows who runs the separate group chats as well. don’t really know how to publicize them as well
freddy: when i’ve done for the non-binary chat, i’ve had a post that just tells the people to like the post or if they’re not out then to message me personally
amy: quick question, there are different facebook pages on facebook for like the smaller minority groups
[affirmed]
peter: we can do a pinned post of the different facebook pages
allen: currently our pinned post is safe se supplies, but we can unpin that and pin that one instead
amanda: i can also send it in the email
peter: and we can put it on the instagram as well
freddy: for the minority reps, it’s really just me and peter
peter: yeah, will try and get something more official done because it’s supposed to be under welfare. there are a few not run because there is no one in the position
erica: there is a bi and multi oren page, but no one is running it
peter: yup, will try and get the password from the admin
jonah: we can also do a post and state if there is anything we’ve missed
megan: would it be good to do one for colleges as well?
amy: yup, but message the colleges indiv first
megan: okay, will do one will colleges and one with caucasus
amanda: next agenda point – finance message?
scott: received the message and fran said last year they had a general principle of not advertising anything that wasn’t by them or colleges just in case. not sure how we would like to approach it this year. someone messaged to set up a recruitment for lgbt people
allen: durham specific?
scott: recruitment people has advertised to a few unis
allen: personally think they should advertise and we shouldn’t advertise for them as an association as we may end up advertising something problematic if we continually advertise for everyone
jonah: might just do a one off post?
freddy: maybe the colleges should advertise and not us
amy: have they got a load of opportunities for lgbt people or are we just advertising their recruiting committee?
erica: if we want to do this, we should go to the direct recruitment person
amanda: don’t think we should advertise, i’ve received an email about lgbt recruitment in my personal email, but in was sent from my department and not an association, it should be left to the school to advertise
jonah: perhaps at the end of the term we can do a recruitment post, with no advertisement
allen: because if we advertise this now, it might create a flood
jonah: yup, we don’t want to start a spam
peter: yeah and we might end up publicizing something that is not great as well
jonah: yup, we can just write back and say it’s not our policy to not advertise
amanda: great, next point – welfare over the summer
peter: amy and i have chatted, we want to make a booklet about welfare to put on the website. the welfare page as well, once we’ve had more of a chat we’ll update that cause there’s not much there. minorities within minorities, been working on a questionnaire which has like a list of all the reps, how we can represent them, etc. but it’s unlikely people will want to answer it over the summer, so maybe michaelmas. the bi mul page will try to get in contact with them. over the summer there is a welfare issue of people being in isolation. one thing i thought of is there is an expectation of online events that welfare should be at events to approach us and talk to us. but it is difficult to do that over a zoom call
allen: can message privately?
jonah: events are not really a space for in depth chats as well
peter: it’s also just in case if people have issues during the event. we thought of having a separate call link so that people can join as well
amy: people just messages us as well might be good
megan: the private messages might be better so that people don’t actually have to leave the call
peter: issue of people accidentally messaging everyone
amy: we can just have our emails open instead then?
peter: sounds good, as long as there's a way to reach us. also to be on the facebook page to respond to messages
megan: @welfare back to an earlier point: the booklet, would you like me to help?
peter: we would like to be in charge of the contents
megan: how about the making of the booklet?
amy & peter: that would be great, thank you
peter: we also have some ideas about social media and stuff but that depends on @megan your plans
amy: general question, peter and i have looked at different days that are specifically linked to lgbt people and even not, it might be a good idea to create a post or getting in touch with someone who will be posting on that day and share their post. looking at our facebook account last year there wasn’t much and i’m not sure if it was spam or something else
allen: it was mostly because liv was busy
jonah: might be good to do a fundraiser during those days as well, just a link to a fundraiser
megan: might be good to collaborate with the other associations as well
erica: does anyone know if there is a calendar out there with these dates? if there is one out there or if we can make a calendar?
peter: we’ve got a calendar with the lgbt+ specific dates
erica: could you share with us?
peter: yup sure
amy: i also have a list of some dates we can combine
scott: one thing we could potentially do is we can work with the other minority groups and share their events as well
[affirmed]
erica: there is an itner association collaboration group, but in the case that they create a new group, whoever enters the group please let everyone else know because last year i didn’t know until next term
allen: there is already a group, amelia created one
[peter invited erica into the group]
amanda: another thing on this note is that usually at the end of emails i have a welfare link, i’ll send it into the group if anyone wants to add to the links
[affirmed]
amanda: next thing is summer socials?
freddy: i have a few ideas. wanted to do a kahoot game, we can do teams or indiv. we could do a pub quiz style
jonah: we could do one for pride like lgbt history or culture
freddy: was gonna do an lgbt one, but could do a funny one. also wanted to do something with fancy dress, get everyone to come on the call in fancy dress, but not sure how popular that will be
megan: we can do the quiz first, then from there gauge interest
freddy: yup
jonah: prizes?
freddy: might not be feasible.
peter: esp with address
freddy: maybe send them a pride flag
amanda: might not be feasible with people living at home
erica: maybe a voucher
amanda: an online voucher sounds good
peter: there could be an issue with data protection with sending addresses
freddy: not really a social but the book club is running over the summer
peter: if we’re doing games, are we gonna create a discord server?
freddy: that was what i was thinking as well, discord will be easier for online games
jonah: maria did online games, can ask her
[affirmed]
amy: might be good to have the association emails on the facebook page as well
[affirmed]
amanda: also @freddy, i want to include the socials into the email, do you have specific socials or is it okay if i just write a general statement for the email?
freddy: a kahoot social next week? is easy to set up, we can do it over zoom
amanda: okay, will mention in the email we’re gonna do a kahoot and direct them to our page
jonah: for the tab article they’re asking how we’re celebrating pride, esp socials
megan: we can say the kahoot game
freddy: we can have a serious one about history and a fun one about culture
erica: the only thing with kahoot is that with a free account there is a limit with the number of people. we can create a free account and then cancel it after.
freddy: okay will do that
jonah: if it’s gonna be a constant thing it might be good to invest in it
freddy: will look into it. also, last year we did the speed friending, but not sure how to do it this year. last year we had a put in your favourite album and we matched people based on that, we can do something like that
peter: we can do the speed friending using breakout groups and change the groups out so as to not put people in the same groups
jonah: worried about carrying out zoom call
peter: if it’s a few people it should be fine
megan: a lot of this will be trial and error
freddy: we can have a meeting within ourselves to try it out. also we can do a scavenger hunt, where people have to run and grab it and bring it back to the camera
jonah: we can even do that in durham because that will be easy to social distance
freddy: sounds good
peter: also for summer socials, last year maria did things in collab with students with disabilities, we can do things with other associations as well.
freddy: we will have to see which one will be good for over summer and which to save for when term starts. like speed friending
jonah: speed friending can be saved. we also need a social to intro freshers
freddy: we could get a big room
erica: might not be possible
amy: depending on the rules that will be in place at the time
[break to discuss social distancing rules]
jonah: makes sense to do a social somewhere they’re already doing social distancing measures
freddy: will have to be very careful, a lot of pubs are having zero tolerance
jonah: might have a situation where people either go to anything because there’s not much on or no one goes to anything
amy: might be a good idea to have a mix of online and not online events to cater to various people
jonah: if everyone can think of an events like the scavenger hunt
freddy: also if anyone can come up with ideas for a zoom call besides quizzes
jonah: we can do films or something
peter: make sure to offer a variety
allen: had a dinner party thing. people would cook various dishes and bring it over. we can do a zoom version of a cooking call
amanda: sounds good, like a cooking or baking call
jonah: we can do like easy cooking
amanda: anti racism
freddy: have discussed already, will be posting about intersectionality, etc
jonah: will be good to have specific posts, can share the bias testing as well
anne: can share a resource of petitions and donations. have got a few ideas already
jonah: at some point will want to interview lgbt poc and put what they say online. need to find ways to lend our platform to bme voices
amy: can work with DPOCA as well
anne: there was an article written, we can do something like that as well
jonah: for like a week or sth we can have a takeover of our platform
peter: we can do a video interview or talk or sth
jonah: we should host a panel ourselves of minority voices within the lgbt community. i can message the politics society or something.
anne: i’m in the DPOCA group i can message
jonah: sounds good. it should be a priority over the summer.
amanda: next thing on the agenda is updates on east asian queer history talk. there hasn’t been much change, he hasn’t replied to me since thursday but he’s explained that there’ll be delays due to being back home. the plan is still to have his recorded talk uploaded then maybe 3-4 days after host a q&a
jonah: sounds good
amanda: also, just wanted to confirm, are we having a meet the exec with the q&a or will they be separate as it can be confusing
[decided that it should be separate and that meet meet the exec should happen next year instead]
jonah: finishing up the video, can post that alongside meet the exec
amanda: any other business?
[negative]
amanda: end of meeting thank you everyone