Butler County PFLAG Meetings, News and Notes for March 2010
Meeting Dates for March
Thursday 11th – Evans City, St. John’s United Church of Christ 7:00 – 8:30 PM “Movie Night”
Thursday 25th – Butler, Butler Area Public Library 7:00 – 8:30 PM
Go to www.butlerpflag.weebly.com for directions
Chapter Membership
It’s done! All the paperwork, the bank account, and documentation is complete! We should be seeing our own little star on the national organization’s map very soon (www.pflag.org) .
Now we are able to receive membership dues. Annual dues are $20 per member family. Here’s what they are for:
$15.00 – To national organization. This supports the work of the national office and provides our local chapter with access to trainings, materials, and support. Each member family receives a copy of The Flag Pole which is PFLAG’s national newsletter. The dues are paid one time a year and provides membership for your entire family.
$5.00 -- This money goes to our local chapter to help in the costs of operation Typically, our local money will be spent on materials to be made available to the public, printing supplies, and costs associated with our meetings. In addition to this $5, our local chapter will be organizing fundraising events to help us provide greater outreach to the GLBTQ community and straight allies.
Checks may be made payable to Butler County PFLAG and given to our treasurer, Sabrina Schnur. We have opened our account at PNC because they have a very progressive position for their GLBTQ customers and employees. At present we have received donations of $450.00. These were given to help with our start up costs which will total close to $200. A detailed report of our finances will be given each month.
Straight Allies
The strongest of pillars in PFLAG is the straight ally. PFLAG was founded to be a support system for the parents, families and friends of GLBTQ people. Straight allies take many hits and often find themselves having to take sides in order to support and defend their loved ones.
Parents often wonder how they have ‘messed up’ in raising a ’gay’ child. They often hear from their friends and other family members that they must have done something ‘wrong’. That is an injury that many parents find crushing and hard to bear. It’s the job of every PFLAG chapter to help those hurting people by providing a place of safety and trust for them to express what they are feeling. We can help families and friends deepen their love and support for each other.
We are so proud of the strong presence of parents, friends and families in our chapter as well as the strong presence of every ‘initial’ sexual minority: GLBTQ. We have the great gift of being able to make a huge difference in individual lives and the whole life of our community.
Grant Submitted
The Three Rivers Community Foundation (www.trcf.net) released a Request for Funding Proposals and we have submitted an idea to them.
To help prepare us for the year ahead, we are hoping to have a retreat for our members in the late summer or early fall. Our hope is that we can recruit twenty members from our chapter to participate in a Friday evening dinner and workshop followed by a full Saturday of training and planning for 2011.
Leaders and facilitators of our regular meetings will be strongly encouraged to participate in the retreat. We will request a trainer from the national or regional offices to help lead us through the process of setting realistic and attainable goals. We will know if we have received the grant in June. Please stand by for details.
“Out in the Silence”
Join the members of Slippery Rock University’s RockOUT and their President’s Commission of GLBTQ Issues for a showing of the acclaimed documentary “Out in the Silence ( http://www.wpsu.org/outinthesilence). It concerns our very own Western PA neck of the woods and how the town of Oil City dealt with GLBTQ neighbors.
The showing at Slippery Rock University is on March 30th at 6:00 PM in the ATS Auditorium.
It is the hope that we can also bring a screening of the program as well as the movie “Gender Redesigner” to Butler. Stand by for further details.
WEBSITE
We are very fortunate to have Sabrina and Damon Schnur creating our website. On it you will find all manner of things: news, events, fun things, thought provoking articles, video clips and more. Please take a look at it and hook into what’s going on in Butler County and the region. (www.butlerflag.weebly.com)
Contact with Butler High School
Meeting with the principal of Butler High, parents of one of our youth members expressed their concern for their child’s safety and well being during school hours. They were assured that training is provided for all teachers and staff in how to address issues relevant to GLBTQ students. We are hoping to expand that training to include the “Safe Schools Project” of PFLAG. Check out the program at www.pflag.org and go to “Education and Programs”.
Should you have concerns or suggestions regarding the safety of GLBTQ students while at school, please join in this effort. Those of us who lived through it know what it’s like. Let’s be there for the kids!
“Gay Spirit”
Joe Tomlinson met with members of Ginger Hill Unitarian Universalist Church on February 21st for an hour long session on gay spirituality. The warm and inclusive atmosphere of Ginger Hill UUC made for an environment of trust and honesty. There were no arguments about the Bible, Torah or Koran. No specific ‘god or goddess” was mentioned. It was a time to reflect about GLBTQ life experience.
A second meeting will be scheduled soon to continue this conversation. Next time we will begin to discover the traditional roles that GLBTQ people have played in history.
Should your faith community wish to have such a conversation please speak with Joe. One of PFLAG’s great hopes is to encourage faith communities to broaden their perspectives on sexual/gender minorities and to learn more about their experiences with religion and spirituality.
Responding to Myths, Anger and Homophobia
At our meetings in December, January and February we began to approach the issue of how we can best respond to myths about GLBTQs, the anger we might feel and the anger others might feel about our place in society and the out and out fearful beliefs that, somehow, GLBTQs are out to harm the world.
Using information from PFLAG training our facilitators help us learn more about what’s behind the myths and anger. We had small and large group discussions, role playing, and were given tips on how best to respond to negativity.
Tom Bodie, facilitator at the Slippery Rock site, encouraged us to develop an “Elevator Speech”, This is a speech we, ourselves, have prepared that would last no longer than two minutes and would express what you feel about issues relevant to our experience. For example, what do you really feel/believe/think about “same sex marriage”. Can you express it in two minutes? Is it without anger and does it educate?
We will put a version of those trainings on our website so that everyone can have access to the information we received at the meetings.
AND….THANKS once again, to Ellen Garbuny and Tom Bodie for their leadership as facilitators of our meetings in Butler and Slippery Rock.
Secretary Needed
We are still anxious to see who will step forward to be our Corresponding Secretary. This position, an officer of the chapter, is responsible for the following things: 1.) keeping the official documents of our chapter in proper order 2.) responding to official correspondence of our chapter 3.) meeting with the president and treasurer regularly to oversee the work of the chapter.
This position is NOT about having to attend every meeting. You would not be required to take notes or minutes of the regular meetings (with the exception of an annual business meeting of the entire chapter).
Our hope is that each of the three meeting sites will have a Communicator. This person would provide notes and minutes of meetings held at their site. A Communicator could serve as the secretary, as well, but it is not expected. A Communicator helps our three sites stay in touch with one another.
The time requirement for the Corresponding Secretary position would be about 5 hours a month, in addition to the time spent at regular chapter meetings. Are you able to step forward? Please speak with Joe or Sabrina and we’ll get you on board ASAP.
Slippery Rock University’s “Straight Talk”
Members of SRU’s GLBTQ group, RockOUT, regularly offer a time when students can gather together for a panel discussion of issues that are important to GLBTQs and those who wish to know more being a sexual/gender minority.
Participants on the panel introduce themselves and then receive questions from anyone in attendance. Questions of every kind are asked, e.g., gay marriage, ‘coming out”, gay sex, religion. Joe Tomlinson participated in one such panel in February. Should you be interested in being part of this please contact Ashley at rockout@sru.edu. Ashley is the president of RockOUT.
Need a speaker? Want to be a speaker or part of panel?
We are ready to actively pursue speaking engagements with organizations, clubs, faith communities, professional groups of any size. This is an opportunity for your social or business organization to put human faces to the issues that confront them about sexual and gender minorities.
Butler PFLAG Library
We have already received copies of books and DVDs which members of the chapter wished to donate for everyone’s use. There are more on the way. What is the best way to make these available to everyone? Have any ideas? Want to work with someone else to develop our own library of resources? Speak up!
Visiting other PFLAG Chapters
We have been so lucky to have received the attention of other chapters in the area. They have visited us and offered their help and support. Would you be available to attend another chapter’s meeting to represent us and bring back to us ideas of how they operate? Wouldn’t it be fun to carpool together, meet some new people and connect with other PFLAGers? Wanna go?
Newsletter Master/Mistress?
Wouldn’t it be great to have this “Meetings, News and Notes be in a more user friendly form? Is there ANYONE or ANYONES who could take this on for us to give us a more polished look? C’mon, you know you want to. Please talk with Joe about it.
Comment via Facebook |
Shortened link for this page is http://is.gd/dGOp9
Erie Gay News
1115 W 7th St
Erie PA 16502
(814) 456-9833
info@eriegaynews.com
Co-editors Michael Mahler and Deb Spilko