This post may seem a bit self-indulgent or congratulatory, but every so often people badger me to get this or that done on queer activism and seem to find it hard to imagine why I don't deal with that particular thing. So an incomplete diary of last week's bi activist shenanigans: it wasn't an especially busy week, I just decided to make some notes as I went along. Done around having a low-paid day job that is nothing to do with lgBt, partners, important radio listening, slouching on a sofa and so forth. So, if I didn't do the thing you were hoping for, I was probably taking care of stuff like this instead...
Monday.
From midnight to 2am, try to work out why a PDF isn't generating
properly of the otherwise finished artwork for the new issue of BCN. Get
to bed when it finally does what it should do. Over breakfast, upload
the PDF to the print house's servers. And go off to the day-job for a
rather taxing day.
Monday evening, book a last-minute stall at
small local Pride festival a few miles away. I wasn't going to do this,
but the stall we did recently at a Pride some 50 miles away reached a lot of people who
were clearly really happy to find something specific for bis at last, so
I'm on a bit of a high. I suspect this weekend's event won't have such a
sunny day and such luxurious icecream, but I'm on a high from last time
so let's give up another Saturday eh?
Jot down a few ideas for a piece for a book on bi life someone's writing. I usually get these at the wrong time, like when I'm in the bath or on a bus somewhere and my thoughts will have flown by the time I get anything onto paper.
--
Tuesday.
After work, spin up the database to generate mailing labels and get the
envelopes stickered up for a magazine mailing. Over the years I have
developed very fine labelling skills for getting envelopes labelled up
in the most efficient way possible! Talk with Katie who is our finance
person about when we can arrange for me to get back a load of expenses owed. Some tweeting and facebooking about
Pride London and about Tameside Pride. A researcher who we helped last
year gets back in touch, so I thank them for being one of the rare breed
of researchers who are conscientious about feeding back to the
community after - a practice I try hard to encourage! Jot down first
thoughts about what's going in the August edition of BCN. Line up a
story on BiMedia about same-sex partnership recognition on
the Isle of Man.
--
Wednesday. Early in the morning
BCN arrives from the print house; this means it's time for a BCN
stuffing party! Call in enough pairs of hands and ensure tea and cake to
keep up the stuffing momentum. Lug the first two bags to the post
office and get them out into the post.
Around all this, find out
that the organisers of the bi entry for Pride London have realised the
banner they were going to use has gone awol. Contact people nearby who I
think are going to London this weekend to see if anyone can take our
banners down - no joy. Run up some designs for banners, get feedback
from some people in London, run up some further designs, get more
feedback and do more artwork tweakery. Find a print company and order
the pair of them to be made as a rush job and off it all goes. Not used
this print house before, fingers tightly crossed that they will do a
good job.
Post this week's edition of my "what I'm doing at the moment" bi activism blog, which is not on blogspot.
--
Thursday. Before work, line up some
news items about today's announcements re Civil Partnership and Marriage
reform in Wales & England. Bill in the post goes onto the BCN
"stuff to sort out" pile for the next time we have a finance meeting.
Notice a news release about the TUC's LGBT conference which has decided
it is against homophobia, with nary a mention of transphobia & biphobia, which I could blog about...
Instead go
for dinner with one of my partners. Generally, take an evening "off the
grid". Someone else can grump at the TUC for us, I'm sure.
--
Friday.
Run round a quick circular about Tameside Pride on email lists. Talk to people in the
USA about some problems they've picked up on. Tweet a bit about Bi
Visibility Day and try to engage some other organisations in thinking
about what they are doing in three months' time, so we get information
in before September rather than all in a rush in the final week.
Find
a soundcloud podcast of a meeting recently hosted by the council - feel
glad I didn't attend as the whole thing is achingly LGbT and I'd only
have been disenchanted. The good thing about podcasts is you can do the housework
while they play...
--
Saturday. Get up early, take
three trains and a bus ride to run the bi stall at a small local Pride.
Awesomely [thanks to the power of the internet on my phone] get to see
photos of the new bi banners being unveiled at Pride London 200 miles
away. Run stall for four or five hours, chatter with a wide range of stall
visitors, give out different leaflets and resources according to their
needs. It's a small event but there are a couple of stall visitors for
whom I think us being there has been really important. Feel loved as a stallholder when the event organisers bring us fruit and cake.
Public
transport wends me slowly home and there I find an email waiting.
Someone wants to reference a particular item in an old issue of BCN but
it is not yet on the website. Get it up on the web for them as a rush
job and settle down for dinner before catching up with two of my
partners and generally going floomp on a sofa.
--
Sunday. Fried breakfast, shopping, an afternoon of watching episodes of Doctor Who from the 1960s, and a game of Civ. Eager volunteers need time away from activism too :)
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