http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/DD7L7ZS
14.7.10
ROLL UP! ROLL UP!
CANTERBURY CITY COUNCIL’S CRAZY COMEDY CREW
PROUDLY AND WITHOUT A HINT OF SHAME PRESENT
“CARRY ON BOX-TICKING”
ANOTHER OF THEIR FAMILIAR ROLLICKING FARCES
At least it would be funny if their prejudice wasn’t so detrimental to the LGBTS in the area.
A few months back now Gscene magazine printed an article stating that Brighton’s Tourism office was advertising to attract American LGBTs to visit the City. We sent a copy of it to Colin Carmichael, the Chief Executive of Canterbury City Council. In March of this year we received the following email from an officer at the City’s Tourism Office.( Items in blue are copies of the actual emails received.)
Hi Andrew
My name is xxxxxx and I have been passed on your email to Colin Carmichael regarding LGBT tourism. We are now starting to bring this information together to add to our recently redesigned website www.canterbury.co.uk
I have contacted the LGBT officer at Kent University, and wondered if you might be able to meet me at sometime too, to help me get the necessary info to assist visitors. I only work on Monday and Tuesdays, so if you have a free hour maybe next Monday or the following week, I would be really appreciate your input in this project.
Many Thanks
We met a couple of weeks later. I had to point out that there is very little, specifically, to attract LGBTs to the City, but I made several suggestions as to how things can be improved. The officer clearly had little knowledge of the LGBT scene, culture and issues, but told me that her boss was very keen to make the City more LGBT friendly, and I left, feeling reasonably optimistic. Will I never learn!
At the end of April, I asked for a progress report, and the reply contained the following
I am still searching for enough info to create a page on the above website-it is very difficult to create a page for this without enough info to make it viable………..
I am working hard to pull things together for this, but it will take time!
In May an enquiry as to progress received the following comments
I have asked my colleague to write to the local press - we need to start at that level think-to get some local businesses involved and coming to us with info they have. It’s difficult to go to the gay press with a statement that we are hoping to attract more gay visitors - but that we actually don’t have anything specific yet to offer.
I am awaiting her statement, and will let you know once it has been sent! Fingers crossed!
In June I wrote requesting a statement on what steps the Tourism Office had taken to act on the suggestions I had offered at our meeting in March and below is the reply that I received.
Hi Andrew
There have been some steps taken, but there are number of projects going on, a reduced staff and also a budget freeze - so a number of the issues we discussed are not possible at this time due to these factors.
We produce a Bulletin style news letter which goes out to the accommodation providers and local businesses, and this edition - which will go out towards the end of next week will have an article in it asking for businesses to contact us with info on gay events or gay friendly accommodation etc
We have no budget to do any advertising of any sort this financial year - we have pulled all tourism adverts, and have massively reduced the printed documents we used to produce, so we can't do any advertising for students, jobs etc.
To be quite honest, it isn't really my job to contact the programmers for the Marlowe or Canterbury Festival - if there are LGBT theatre companies or exhibitions etc they need to be doing their own marketing and contacting the programmers. My role is a tourism marketing role, in which I am here to promote what we do have.
I have contacted the Kent on Sunday paper who were keen to run a story on LGBT Canterbury, so I have supplied them with some info and we hope they print something of use and not just a council bashing article which does no one any good.
I am doing all I can with the time I have, but there isn't much more I can do until the business providers get on board and help to push it.
Hope this helps.
Well, Surprise! Surprise! It doesn’t!
Over six years now, we have done our best to work with the City Council, but here is yet another example of how they express an interest in the needs of the LGBT community, meet with us, and then do next to nothing. Until the situation changes we will continue to repeat THEY ARE ONLY INTERESTED IN TICKING BOXES. I suspect that the meeting in March allowed them to do this. (“Have you met with LGBT organisations to discuss their needs? If so tick box”).
Unfortunately, given the current financial situation and projections they can now try to use the present problems as an excuse to do nothing for possibly the next ten years, ignoring the fact that they did nothing when the financial climate was considerably sunnier. This ignores the fact that there is now the Equality Act in place. We wonder if they are now closing down action to help other minority groups?
We have been suggesting for six years now, that if the Council is genuinely sympathetic to LGBT causes and concerns, then they should send out a press release, to the local, national and gay press declaring this loudly and clearly, with information about the officers who would be working to these ends. In the days when there was a Council Diversity Officer, in theory with responsibility to our community, she expressed horror at the thought of her photograph and job details, being published in the press. Such publicity is FREE and it should certainly be a story that the press would jump at. And it is no good just contacting one paper as the email suggests the office has done.
It is generally worrying, that the email seems to suggest that the Tourism Office has cut back massively on attracting all tourists at a time when the City will desperately need their money. Again, time and time again, the Council and the City ignore the importance of the Pink Pound – the money that LGBTs can bring to an area.
One of the areas in which the City is a desert for LGBT people, is in its lack of interest in their culture. Yet when, with all the work that they are, apparently, having to cut because of the recession, this officer rejects our suggestion that the Tourism Office should encourage more LGBT culture in the City, including in the programme for the Council owned New Marlowe, with its studio theatre, and in works and artists during the Canterbury Festival. The excuse given is “isn’t really my job”! How quickly the interest and enthusiasm expressed at our meeting has evaporated.
The email, indirectly, accuses us again of “council-bashing”. Well, until the Council realises that it has obligation the minority LGBT community in this area, accepts its obligations under the Equality Bill and clearly demonstrates this in its actions, we will continue to draw attention to its considerable shortcomings and will be proud to do so.
We ask everyone LGBT or straight who agrees with us, to write to the City Council, Julian Brazier and the Equalities Officer.
22.6.10
OUR COMPLAINT AGAINST THE COUNCIL – THE FULL STORY.
Readers of the old website will know that for some time we had felt that Canterbury City Council was not taking our aims seriously.
We therefore lodged an official complaint with them on 11th November of last year. We did not get a reply or an acknowledgement.
We therefore asked the Local Government Ombudsman to obtain a reply for us.
The Council told the Ombudsman that they had already replied to all the points we had raised.
This was very far from the truth, but the LGO supported them.
The Council then issued a press release spinning the result to suggest that Canterbury is a gay Utopia.
It is not.
Because the Council, at the moment, is under no obligation to support our aims by providing services for the LGBT community, that does not mean that they should not and when the Equality Bill is passed, they will have to. This shows that at present Canterbury City Council is not sympathetic to the LGBT cause.
OUR COMPLAINT IN FULL
HOW CANTERBURY CITY COUNCIL IS IGNORING THE NEEDS OF THE LOCAL LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL AND TRANSGENDER COMMUNITY
In January 2002, we were running Canterbury Area Gay Men’s (Social) Group, and heard that Canterbury was bidding to become European City of Culture in 2008. We wrote to Janice McGuiness, Head of Leisure and Culture offering the Council any help that we could give with the bid, but drawing attention to the fact that there was little Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) culture in the area, a factor that we felt would prove detrimental to the City’s bid. The bid did indeed prove unsuccessful.
In 2003, we formed Pride in Canterbury to raise mainstream awareness of LGBT life and culture in the City and we have worked towards the development of a more vibrant scene for the LGBT community ever since. We have received in excess of 21,500 hits to date on our website.
In June 2003, a Consultancy Document undertaken by the Hub and commissioned by Canterbury City Council’s Leisure and Cultural Services Department entitled “Exploring the Creative Potential of Canterbury, Whitstable and Herne Bay”, contained the following quote
"Creative, innovative and entrepreneurial activities tend to flourish in the same kinds of places that attract gays and others outside the norm. When people with varied backgrounds and attitudes collide, economic growth is likely. Most centres of technology-based business growth also have high concentrations of gay couples. What I have found is that straight men and women also look for a visible gay community as an indication that a city is likely to be an exciting place to live." (Richard Florida, Professor of Economic Development at Carnegie Mellon University).
There have been no indications in the years following the document’s publication that the Council have taken any action that suggests that they believe that a “visible gay community would be of value to the City”.
At about the same time, Pride in Canterbury made a presentation, entitled “Bringing the Rainbow to Canterbury”, to the Council. (This is still available for inspection). Among other things, this drew attention to the fact that in an area where there is little LGBT Culture, young LGBT people, either growing up in, or visiting to study in, the City, would not be attracted to stay and would take their talents and energy elsewhere, while middle-aged and elderly members of the community, would stay lonely and isolated “in the closet”.
It also pointed out, the value of the Pink Pound - the fact that Gay Culture promotes commerce and brings money to an area. We have repeated this message to all Canterbury City Councillors recently at this time of considerable financial difficulties. We received no response.
Pride in Canterbury were responsible for the Gay Pride Day in 2005 and were involved in the one in 2006, both were very successful events, attracting 2,500 plus people to the City on each occassion, but while LGBT visitors from outside of the area will be happy to come in to party for a day, on becoming aware that the City has nothing else to attract them they are unlikely to revisit, let alone wish to reside in the City. Similarly, locals will stay closeted because nothing for the remaining 364 days of the year sends a message to them that it is OK to be “Out and Proud”. No events have been planned by the City Council to follow up the success of the Gay Pride Days in attracting LGBT and straight visitors to the City.
In 2008, six years on from our first contact with the City Council, Liverpool is European City of Culture, but sadly, Canterbury is still a cultural wilderness for LGBTs and the Council seems to have learned little during the time they have been involved with the project.
Because so many of the LGBTs in the area are closeted, we have in our regular contacts with the Council, emphasised the need for the Council to attract positive LGBTs to the area, through advertising jobs, housing and tourism in the Lesbian and Gay Press. We do not believe such efforts have been made. We have urged them to send out a strong message using the local press that the LGBT community (not just Diversity groups in general) have their support, but the appointment of an Equalities and Diversity Policy Adviser was not given any significant publicity, no photograph of her was sent out and no significant article about her and the aims of her work with the LGBT community appeared in the local press.
In the time that Pride in Canterbury has been in existence, there has been no culture of special interest to LGBTs in the City, apart from a few camp comedians, and the events that we have organised ourselves (only one of which, the Diversity Officer has attended) .
The City Council own the Marlowe, the City’s main and largest theatre, yet there seems to be no interest in presenting drama, dance and other entertainment of special interest to our community. There was, rightly, outrage and publicity, when Sheila Ferguson was subjected to racial abuse, while appearing at the theatre, but when we protested at the use of stereotypical images of gay men for easy laughs in a farce presented at the Theatre, the City’s Head of Leisure and Culture Janice McGuiness and Mark Everett, Manager of the Marlowe, were not prepared to do anything about it, and showed no interest in discussing the issues raised with us.
As a result of our dissatisfaction with the lack of positive action from the Council, we met Jean Law, (Conservative Deputy Chair of the Council), Julia Seath (Labour) and Alex Perkins (Lib Dem) at our home in October of last year and it was decided that further meetings should be held to plan a Conference. It was our understanding that the purpose of the Conference would be to allow the area’s LGBT people to tell the Council what they needed in the City. (Whatever faults we may have, we are not liars, fantasists or idiots.)
After a few meetings were held, it became apparent that they had been taken over by the EK LGBT Network, a group originally started up several years ago by Kent Police, and in the running of which, the police are still involved. (This was denied, but Minutes of the meeting clearly show the truth). However good their intentions, we do not believe that police involvement in the meetings, as we believed they were to be, can be helpful.
We each have at least 30 years involvement with the struggle for LGBT rights and yet, at these meetings, most of our opinions and aims, including bringing more LGBT culture to Canterbury have been dismissed by members and at the last meeting the work that we are doing was attacked by an EK LGBT Network member, with no interruption from the Chairperson, the Council’s Diversity Policy Adviser.
We withdrew from the meeting and will not return, while it has the present aims and attitudes.
After our departure from the meeting, we received two sympathetic emails, one from Kath Mole of Kent Police, but we heard nothing from the Councillors in spite of having sent an email attempting to clarify our position. We then sent an email to the three Councillors in an attempt to verify the original purpose of the Conference, but received only aggressive replies from two of them
No-one from the Council has expressed any understanding of the importance that we place upon the need for regular LGBT culture in the City and yet how can any community be healthy if it is cut off from its culture? Through our culture we identify, we learn, we question, we are enriched, we grow. Absence of visible LGBT culture in Canterbury must be detrimental to the quality of life and the mental health of many LGBT people and yet we have had no assurance or evidence that this aspect of LGBT life is being taken seriously by the Council, but we are damned for not accepting that everything is now fine for LGBTs in Canterbury.
As members of Pride in Canterbury, an organisation that has been working on behalf of the LGBT community for over five years, we have no confidence in the Council’s Diversity Team. At no time, since our initial meeting with the Diversity Policy Adviser, has any member of this team made contact with us to try to understand our aims, or to seek information from us.
Our doubts and fears were confirmed by the programme for the Open Day. While the issues on the agenda are, without doubt, very important, they are only part of the bigger picture regarding the City and significant LGBT issues continue to be ignored. We believe that focusing during the day totally on the problems faced by LGBTs was unlikely to inspire the many closeted people in the area to attend and become involved. Where were the workshops championing the positive side of LGBT life? Why no celebration of LGBT Heritage and Culture, the community spirit, the fundraising that is done elsewhere for gay and straight charities. Where was the recognition of the fun and the colour that LGBTs contribute to society? Where was the loud and clear message to the many closeted LGBTs in the area, the importance of which we have repeatedly stressed that it is “Good to be LGBT” and that LGBT people are welcomed to, and needed by, the City?
We believe that some of the important issues that should have been scheduled to be addressed at the meeting are:
The importance of regular LGBT culture in the City – drama, films, entertainment etc. We sponsored a photographic exhibition as an umbrella event in this year’s Canterbury Festival. It was the first event of its kind either for the Festival or the City. We sent invitations to City Councillors and to the Equalities and Diversity Officer. Few of them replied to the invitation and none of them attended.
We enclose a copy of a letter we sent to the Equalities and Diversity Officer raising many of the above points about the Open Day. You will note that all of the issues that we as gay men (and rate-payers) believed to be important were ignored in her reply.
We are grateful for the funding we have received from the Council, but unfortunately, while the City Council obviously needs to be seen to be addressing Diversity issues, nothing in our five-year contact with them leads us to believe that they truly appreciate the value of, and want there to be, a thriving LGBT scene in the City.
Throughout these difficult times we have been criticised, sometimes by members of the LGBT community, some of whom have short memories and many who should really know better. We could not have continued, if we had not been supported by people, straight as well as LGBT, who believe in what we are doing and who have been prepared to put their support for us in writing. We will publish their words of support over the coming weeks.
8.7.09
PATRICK NEWLEY. We were very sad to learn in June of the death of Patrick. He supported Pride in Canterbury, giving us his talk on Douglas Byng and Rex Jameson (Mrs Shufflewick) in 2007 and we had hoped that he would talk to us this year about Quentin Crisp. He will be sorely missed.
9.7.09
DIVERSITY POLICY ADVISER
Angeliki Ioannidou left her post as Diversity Policy Adviser in February.
Mark Bursnell, the Head of Policy & Improvements (Diversity Issues) at Canterbury City Council informed us in an email on 10th July, that "no final decision has yet been taken about replacing the post."
COUNCIL FUNDING
We are no longer funded by Canterbury City Council.
We will not be applying for funding for 2010 onwards and we have refunded the unused portion of our grant for 2009/10.
As we have stated elsewhere, after six years of contact with the Council, we do not believe that they sincerely want a thriving LGBT community in Canterbury. They dismiss the value that this could have for the City.
We are not prepared to help them to tick the necessary diversity boxes,
while they ignore our aims.
14.7.09
NEW GAY BAR
We went to CO2, Canterbury's new Gay Bar, for their Tuesday evening Quiz Night, and had a very enjoyable time. Staff, Quizmaster Billy and customers (lesbians and gay men) were very friendly, there was a good atmosphere and some gay magazines were available. This is a proper gay bar for Canterbury and it deserves to do well. It has had some hassles from the locals, so please turn out and support the venue.
15.7.09
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