Collaboration is the key to Triad LGBT organizing

Last Saturday, numerous events within the LGBT community were planned across the Triad. All on one night. All of them overlapping.

The first event was Greensboro, Out at the Movies, run by Alternative Resources of the Triad/OutGreensboro.com. The second was the Guilford College Pride group’s “Genderbend”, the Spring dance. The third was Wake Forest GSSA’s Q-Ball, which was billed originally as a dance for all Triad Pride groups.

What interested and concerned me the most were how two events, both put on by Triad LGBT student groups, could end up being on the same night and even at the same time.

Guilford Pride has been holding the “Genderbend” for years now. In fact, it is one of their biggest traditions (almost like UNCG PRIDE! and their PRIDE! Prom). What was new this year was the Q-Ball by the GSSA at Wake Forest University.

The Q-Ball was organized by the Wake Forest GSSA and they received some help from the Adam Foundation. What they didn’t do, however, was collaborate with the other schools for which they intended on having this dance. This, along with the lack of advertising, was definitely the reason why the Q-Ball didn’t go off quite as expected.

In what little advertising the GSSA did have, they showcased the event as a “Party for Triad students and their friends, with students from WFU, Salem, NCSA, UNCG, and WSSU.” Could someone please tell me how the GSSA could have, in good faith:

1. Used these schools names without significantly involving the schools’ LGBT student groups in the planning or co-sponsorship;
2. Actually expect students from these schools to show up when they have been left out of the planning for something that is supposed to be for them;
3. Leave out some Triad area schools like Guilford and NC A&T; and
4. Plan the dance on a night when one of their fellow LGBT student groups was planning a similar dance?

While the Wake Forest GSSA Q-Ball had about a dozen people there for the majority of the night, the “Genderbend” at Guilford College had, at one point, over fifty people. Imagine, for a moment, that Wake Forest had even wanted to work with other groups. If they would have talked to Guilford, that could have been another fifty or so people attending the Q-Ball. Imagine if they had worked with UNCG PRIDE!… last year we had approximately 130 people at our Prom and this year we had right close to that number.

Weeks before the Q-Ball was scheduled to go off, I contacted the individuals in charge of planning for the Q-Ball. As the College and Youth Liaison of Alternative Resources of the Triad (and in that role the coordinator of QCYNT, the Queer College Youth Network of the Triad), I was more than willing and more than happy to not only get myself involved in the planning and the organizing, but to get QCYNT involved (and ultimately only helping to bring out more people to the Q-Ball).

The next day after the Q-Ball, one of the organizers even got upset at the fact that the event didn’t turn out to be what it was intended to be. I can understand his frustration, but what do you think is going to happen when you don’t collaborate with other people and you don’t advertise?

I just think that it is a shame. Wake Forest GSSA got what it wanted I guess…. a dance for GSSA.

I cannot stress how important collaboration is to the Triad LGBT Community. Our organizing is going to go no where unless our groups start working together. We don’t need all this competition. We don’t need our names in lights and we sure as hell don’t need one group to think they are better than another. All of our groups are working together for one common goal and we should start acting like it. Winston-Salem groups need to start working with Greensboro groups and vice versa. College groups need to start working together, too. Instead of working all alone, college groups could come together every now and then and do something better… hence the reason for my vision of QCYNT.

Maybe next year the Wake Forest GSSA will work with other Triad groups when it comes time for planning an event intended for groups across the Triad. That only makes sense.

Maybe the Adam Foundation and the Guilford Green Foundation can work together in putting on some more events.

Maybe Alternative Resources of the Triad and the Out at the Movies folk in Winston-Salem should start working together a little more, too.

Like I said, collaboration is key. Going around in circles, repeating ourselves isn’t going to move us forward at all. We all have to work together… if we aren’t, then we are just wasting our time.

Posted in College/University, Greensboro, LGBT, LGBT Youth, North Carolina, Triad, Winston-Salem |