The Aurora meeting on 20th July 2006
It was a lot to cram into two hours! But we covered most of what we'd been doing in the two months since the last meeting. Here's a summary.
Review of the event for IDAHO (the International Day Against Homophobia)
The previous meeting of May 17th immediately followed the IDAHO event. We had failed to get any publicity in the local press about the IDAHO event that preceded the meeting of May 17th. This was because we sent the press release far too close to deadline – and we always forget local radio, which we must address. On the other hand we had a bumper attendance at the meeting afterwards and had begun or boosted some good projects as a result of it (see the next four headings).
We’re still a very small group acting on behalf of thousands. We need more active members – and more members who just turn up or even read the e-newsletter. We agreed to publicise the elections for officers and the AGM as widely as possible so that we were open about how we were acting for other LGBT people in the area.
School Bullying
We’d contacted the Greater London Authority and Chrysalis (which has worked with Croydon police in the past) and Stonewall has offered to send out its copies of its DVD on bullying through us, so there’s scope to develop some effective work with schools.
Black and minority ethnic people
We’re still trying to get more representation from this group. We’ve got some good beginnings, but we’re too busy with other stuff to take big initiatives at the moment.
Gay and Lesbian Asylum Seekers
The posters advertising the helpline number of the UK Lesbian and Gay Asylum Group are being distributed to the Migration Helpline, which is keen to display them in their offices. Asylum seekers are sent to the Immigration Helpline for many of the services they routinely need. We decided to ask for another ten posters for other suitable places.
Transgender policing issues
The first stage of the trans-safety project has been completed: a list of issues that characteristically affect the safety of transgendered people is about to be published. There has not yet been time to work on the topic of the lone female on a motorway.
LGBT liaison officers
Croydon is in course of training up five new LGBT liaison officers. They are being trained to deal with LGBT people as victims or witnesses in case we had a major incident in Croydon.
Lloyd Park Loo
A local newspaper article had asserted that the public lavatory at Lloyd Park had become a venue for cottaging, and embellished this theme with attention-grabbing detail and an inflammatory tone. The report seems to have been entirely groundless – it would be difficult to believe that this location had been used for cottaging or cruising in view of the context and history of the site, even if there had been evidence to support such a claim, but there was no evidence.
There were several aspects to this incident that were being followed up in detail but are not reported here.
We need more people in Aurora
We spent some time suggesting ways to make Aurora better known and to involve more LGBT people of all sorts. It was suggested that we needed a strong personality to lead the group – though Aurora’s job is to listen to collaborate and to raise the concerns of LGBT people. The new Black Sheep Bar was suggested as possible venue for an Aurora meeting and we hope they would display Aurora leaflets and a poster.
It was suggested that we depend too much on access through the Internet and this can be off putting, although it was noted that the phone line is hardly used.
We are aware that we need to keep people interested. One way is by making sure that Aurora continues to make things happen, but the meetings are usually taken up with trying to catch up with the progress and the volume of work from the previous two months. It would help if we summarise action points at the end of each topic to help us, as well as new members, keep pace with what Aurora has just done and what we’re going to do next.
BT
Our LGBT police officer is meeting with BT in August about an LGBT contact page in telephone directories. We were invited to suggest suitable local and national groups.
Aurora leaflet
Lots of groups wanted to be included in the Aurora leaflet.
Croydon College’s Enrichment Day
The police will have a stand at Croydon College's Enrichment Day for new students in October: attendance is compulsory and about 13,000 students are expected to attend. We must provide Aurora leaflets for the stand.
Brighton Pride
We accepted Croydon Area Gay Society’s offer of a share of its stand on the 5thAugust.
Croydon LGBT Forum
Sadly Croydon LGBT Forum decided to close a few weeks ago. They will send copies of our leaflet with a covering letter, to their members. Special mention was made of David who came to be regarded as the anchor man for the forum, but was particularly appreciated for taking a leading role in the Forum’s work with the police throughout the last decade.
Transgender Working Party
One Aurora member strongly disagreed with the provision of unisex or disability toilets for the use of transgendered people, because it was more important to educate the public to being more tolerant. It is a problem to balance this with the concern for the safety of the individual transgendered person, but the majority view was that in this case we were concerned to provide for safety: individuals will decide which facilities they choose to use.
Promotion Working Party
The Borough Commander had offered us £500 to publicise Aurora, of which £245 will pay for 1000 copies of the Aurora leaflet.
We are now registered as an LGBT community organisation through the PIPS survey, which will help get us more widely known.
Croydon Community Police Consultative Group (CCPCG)
The CCPCG meets quarterly with the Borough Commander. Aurora has its strengths, but lacks access to statutory bodies. There is currently no LGBT representation on the CCPCG. The CCPCG chair is sympathetic to accepting Aurora as a member group. There had been extreme problems with getting LGBT issues through the CCPCG subcommittees in the past, but Aurora would remain an independent body, not a subcommittee. So we decided to apply for membership of the CCPCG.
Nomination for Officers
Nominations for the election of Community officers for Aurora were requested and it was recorded that one name of the Community Representative had already been proposed.
Date of next Meeting
The next meeting will be on the 11th September 2006.