East Midlands Proud Newsletter no. 14

Hello Again!

Hope you are all well!

Just a brief newsletter to keep you up to date on some recent issues & future events.

PROUD WEBSITE

This has been redesigned recently by Dave Hodgetts, the Proud Web Officer, who has done an excellent job!

The address is:
www.pcsproud.org.uk

You can find all the Proud events & news on here, as well as previous newsletters & information about Proud in the rest of the country.

It’s well worth a look if you’ve not been on the site before!

PROUD AGM

This takes place on Friday 9th September at PCS HQ in Clapham.

You should hopefully have received details already – If you need any more on this, please let me know. There are also details on the Proud website.

We’ve had confirmation that Mark Serwotka will be attending & speaking this year!

CIVIL PARTNERSHIPS

The Civil Partnerships Bill comes into effect on December 5th this year, giving more rights to same-sex couples.

There is a DWP website available giving some general information on this that may also be of interest to non DWP staff:

http://intralink/1/pension/client/subsites/civilpartnership/cpteams/dwp_m147524.asp

GENDER RECOGNITION ACT

This came into effect on April 4th this year.

It means transsexual people can apply to be legally recognised in their acquired gender and to benefit from any rights that are restricted to that gender.

I personally don’t think that this was well publicised to people.
I work in the DWP & part of my job is to act as the local central point of contact for our customers who wish to take advantage of their rights under this act – So far we have had none.

WEST MIDLANDS REPS

Our colleagues in the West Midlands have 2 new reps for Proud.

They are Marcus Ford & Richard Jones, who are both based in Birmingham.

We’re hoping to get both the East & West Midlands members together for a social event at some point – If anyone has any views or ideas on this, please let me know!

LOCAL PRIDES

Saturday 25th June – Leicester Pride

Saturday 23rd July – Nottingham Pride

I’ll be on the PCS Proud stall at Leicester Pride, so come & say hello if you’re there!

For those of you who get this newsletter by post, I’ve enclosed a couple of flyers for these events (Is it just me or does the person at the bottom of the Nottingham Pride flyer look like they’ve got a bit of wind?).

I also went to the Derby May Gay Day on May 14th.
This took place in Derby marketplace during the day with people moving on to Derby’s gay venues after, & was their first event like this.
It was very well attended & everyone seemed to have a fab time!
I’ll keep a look out for next year’s.

NEW VENUE

There is now a gay bar & club in Chesterfield at 13 Marsden Street.
It’s a bar called Baby Jaynes, with a club called Dorothy’s.
The website is below:
http://www.dorothysbabyjaynes.com/

There’s also a gay-friendly pub called The Yellow Lion” at 61 Saltergate, Chesterfield, which is also gay-run.

MONTHLY SOCIALS

These are a chance for members to get together on an informal basis.

We alternate between Leicester & Nottingham (though this is open to change if people want to, & also depending on when we meet up with some of the West Midlands members!).

As it stands, the next few meetings are around 1pm at:

Sat 9th July – Coco Lounge, George St., Nottingham.

Sat 6th August – Rainbow & Dove, Northampton Square, Leicester.

Sat 3rd Sept – Coco Lounge.

Sat 1st Oct – Rainbow & Dove.

OTHER DIARY DATES

30th June – 1st July
TUC LGBT Conference, London

2nd July
London Pride

16th July
Proud Annual Report issued
9th September
Proud AGM, Clapham

7th – 9th October
Proud Stage 1 Training (Possibly Newcastle)

18th – 20th November
Proud Seminar, Nottingham

FINALLY…..

That’s it for now.

As always, please feel free to get in touch with suggestions, ideas or problems.

Hope to see you at the Prides or Socials!

Dean.

I’d like to ask everyone again if they would prefer to receive any future newsletters or messages by post or e-mail – My contact details are at the bottom of this page (Please note – When e-mailing, please put “.CHKD” (without the quotes) at the end of the subject heading, as the DWP computers do not always accept e-mails without this).

All members’ details are kept in confidence!

Thanks, Dean.