OUTniagara held its AGM on Thursday night with 16 community members attending, plus a quick, quirky visit by a couple of young teens – who were those girls? Partners represented at the meeting were PFLAG, Transgender Niagara, OUTvisions, TransParent Canada, Rainbow Youth Niagara, Brock Pride, Niagara Pride Support Services and PRIDE in Niagara.
We first heard from our keynote speaker - Coletta McGrath from Quest Community Health Centre. Coletta told us how committed Quest is to serving the LGBTQ community. A community health centre is a non-profit, community -governed organization that provides primary health care, health promotion and community development services. On staff are physicians (one who is transgendered) , dietitians, social workers, counsellors, nurses, occupational therapists, outreach workers and coming soon possibly – a dentist! Two of our community members serve on their board – Nadine Wallace and Joanne Theobold. It is the policy of Quest to hire staff who understand the needs of sexually and gender diverse clients as well as train their staff to ensure ongoing understanding of and capacity to work with sexually and gender diverse clients. This is a very positive step for our community, and for Niagara.
We then heard from Carrie Lee and her upcoming Gobi Trek – please check out the events page for Carrie’s upcoming fundraiser for this adventure.
After that, it was AGM business with a past year review, treasurer’s report and some by-law tweaking. My only concern is that at this time we have no new board members for this coming year. OUTniagara will not continue to exist without fresh people coming on board to take over when the present members end their terms. As I have said previously, being a board member of OUTniagara is not an onerous job – about 8 meetings per year. Please consider if you are able to volunteer for our community in this way and email me at martyhunt.com for more information.
Thank you again to everyone who came out and supported our efforts on behalf of the LGBTQ community in Niagara.
Connect with OUTniagara