The weekend's offerings

Wow!  There is a ton one can do this weekend!  You will find a few individual posts to follow on events that are happening today and for the following week.  I will be hitting HotFlash (Neighbours 6-10pm $10) that is sure to be to my liking as I am a huge fan of DJ Wildfire!  She tends to play a great mix of the disco that I prefer and it keeps me on the dance floor.

I hope to stop into hear Shan Ottey spin a few tunes at the World Dance that is a great community event before the evening is over.  Shan does an amazing job and I love the multi-cultural aspect of this event - it is just plain good ole fashioned fun!  The challenge is that there is just too much to do in one evening.  I wish you the best in whatever you decide to do!  Ms T.

Shan Ottey spinning the tunes at World Dance Party tonight October 1st

Tonight is the World Dance Party at the Southeast Seattle Senior Center - located at 4655 South Holly Street, Seattle, WA 98118. Mini-dance lessons in Hawaiian dance, Jewish dance, Line dancing, Salsa, West African dance, and Samba-Reggae will be taught. Feel free to invite friends and family!

Bring a potluck dish and your dancing shoes and come dance the night away with us! The event will be from 6:00 pm until 10:00 pm. Shan Ottey is an amazing DJ that keeps the crowd dancing throughout the evening. This is an event you do not want to miss!

Blood, Sweat & Queers Party is tonight October 1st

Blood, Sweat & Queers

Sat, October 1, 8pm –  2am

 In the Annex

$20, non-members are welcome

Blood, Sweat and Queers is a play party for queers of all stripes

If you identify as Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Trans, Queer, Pansexual, Questioning, Asexual, Homo/Heteroflexible, Gender Fluid, Gender Queer and/or just Gender Fucked, come and join us, party and have fun!  Play starts at 8 PM and goes until 2 AM.   Every month features a different theme, workshop or demo.  Check the Blood, Sweat and Queers FetLife group (http://fetlife.com/groups/8907) to know what to expect. 
The party is open to Queers 18+ CSPC members and non-members alike.  Admission is $20 at the door.  CSPC members get a $5 discount if they arrive before 9 PM.    Come and join us for the hottest Queer kink debauchery in Seattle! We offer a safe and fun place to play, sex it up, meet new people, and have an overall great time! 
Questions? bsq@sexpositiveculture.org

GSBA Annual LGBT Candidate Forum on Friday September 23rd

Friday September 23rd you have the opportunity to participate in the GSBA Annual LGBT Candidate Forum.  It will be held at the Sheraton Seattle Hotel from 11:30am - 1:30pm.  You can register at: www.thegsba.org with the cost: 
$34.00 - Members
$39.00 - Non Members
$34.00 - Students
Sheraton Seattle Hotel,
1400 6th Ave, Seattle, WA 98101
(206) 363-9188

It’s time for GSBA's Annual LGBT Candidate Forum, the only LGBT candidate forum in our region. Come early to meet the candidates and to hear first hand how these candidates respond to issues of concern to our community. This is our time to have our voices heard around LGBT and business issues.

This year's featured races will include some of the most contested and important races for our community. In addition to the races being covered, there will be a number of other candidates present who you can meet during registration. Initiative representatives will be present to answer your questions as well.

Anne Levinson, will be our moderator for the Candidate Forum. She is a former Deputy Mayor, Retired Judge, founding owner of Force 10 Hoops, Seattle Storm; a 2007 GSBA Collaboration for Social Change Awardee Chair of Approve R71 and the current Independent Auditor, SPD Office of Professional Accountability.

Our races this year will be:

King County Council, District 6 Jane Hague & Richard Mitchell
   

Seattle City Council, Position 1 Jean Godden & Bobby Forch
   

Seattle City Council, Position 3 Bruce Harrell & Brad Meacham
   

Initiative 1183 Pro & Con
   

Registration is at: www.thegsba.org

The Long Houses Future is up for discussion Sunday Oct 2nd, 2pm

I have observed (as you have) many organizations adapt through growing pains.  I recently received a meeting notice regarding the Long House in Renton, WA that I am including in it's entirety.  I appreciate the approach that is being taken for the meeting on October 2nd.   I wish the Long House continued success.  Ms T.

Dear friends of the Sharma Center,

I have been attending events at the Long House in Redmond for about 10 years, and have been fairly involved aspects of the leadership process of this community for the last 5. It is a place and a community I have a great deal of love and respect for. We are in a process of creating the structures that will carry our community and the facility into the future. There is a meeting coming up about this very purpose. As part of this meeting I will be presenting my ideas for basing this project on the book The Three Laws of Performance: Rewriting the Future of Your Organization and your Life by Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan. If you would like to contribute to this conversation, I invite you to be a part. I would appreciate you letting me know if you plan on coming and to contact me if you have any comments, concerns or questions.

Thank you
John East
Former Co-Director of the Sharma Center
fstop64@comcast.net
206 898 5876

 Presentation announcement:      LH2015

A conversation for the future of the Long House
Sunday October 2 - 2 pm at the Long House

What is the probable future of our community? Is it the same as what has happened in the past, or something different? Did you know that over 70% of change efforts in organizations fail. Why is this so? Could it be because, though circumstances change, the patterns of communities tend to continue.. We tend to create new circumstances, that then resemble what has happened before. However, this does not always happen......only almost all the time.

 What does it take to create something entirely new? On Sunday October 2nd, This is the conversation I invite you to be a part of. I propose we create a new future at the Long House, using the ideas laid out in the book:

The Three Laws of Performance:
Rewriting the future of your organization and your life
by Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan

In their book, Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan lay out the process involved in articulating our default future, completing past issues that stand in our way, and how to create and align on a new vision for the future that we as a community stand for. I invite you to be coauthors of an Invented Future for the Longhouse. Please let us know if you will be participating. To do so, or If you have any questions, comments of concerns you can write to fstop64@comcast.net.
You can now get this book in paperback fairly reasonably. You can also find our more info and download a study guide at www.threelawsofperformance.com.

25th Annual AIDS Walk in Volunteer Park on Saturday September 24th

I remember the first days of the Seattle AIDS Walk when it was a small(er) event and there was still little known about HIV/AIDS.  I volunteered registering walkers on the day of the walk for several years and stuffed various packets in the office.  It was one of the few things that I felt I could do during a time of such helpless feelings.

By 1991 my world was shattered when I learned my brother Steven who I was extremely close to was HIV+.  I barely had any time to process the news when he had a freak accident causing a hairline fracture to a rib.  He received poor medical attention due to his HIV+ status and went into septic shock followed by a coma and death.  It has taken me many years to come to terms with the loss of him in my life.  I know many others have had similar experiences or feelings due to HIV/AIDS. 

I continue to wear a "Until there is a Cure" bracelet in his honor.  My heart is still heavy with the loss of my brother, friend and confidant and some days are better or worse than others.  The AIDS Walk is a great way to honor those that have passed and to assist those that are fighting these illnesses.  Check out their website for registration information. 
From the heart,
Ms T.

Join Lifelong AIDS Alliance and thousands of supporters for the 25th anniversary Seattle AIDS Walk & 5K Run. The Seattle AIDS Walk is Lifelong's largest annual fundraising event in support of those living with HIV and AIDS in our community. Walk with us on Saturday, September 24th, 2011 (9am-1pm) in Seattle's Volunteer Park as we honor 25 years of hope for a future free of HIV and AIDS. 

The walk will start at 10am in Volunteer Park, south down 12th Ave. to Union St., and returns to Volunteer Park via Broadway.

Sex Change Hospital featuring Dr. Marci Bowers is transforming TV

Currently Sex Change Hospital, a six part series is playing ON Demand via Comcast (Discovery Fit & Health - Channel 222 in the Seattle area) and on several future dates during August.  Each 1 hour show tells the story of 2 individuals changing their gender from either male to female or female to male.  It features Dr. Marci Bowers a well known and beloved Seattle surgeon who relocated to Trinidad, Colorado to preform sex changes at the Mount San Rafael Hospital. 

Dr. Bowers has an amazingly personal and empathetic bedside manner I imagine in part due to her own experience with gender reassignment surgery over 10 years ago.  She has a strong medical background as an OB-GYN in surgical gynecology and has delivered over 3000 babies.  She relocated to Trinidad which has become known as the sex change capital of the world as so many gender reassignments are preformed there.

The town is amazingly supportive of the trans community that flocks to Trinidad for surgery originally under Dr. Stanley Biber who preformed his first male to female sex change in 1969.  Dr. Bowers took over his practice in 2003 when Dr. Biber retired.  Dr. Biber passed away at the age of 82 in 2006.     

I have a bit of melancholy as I watch these shows as I had the experience of going to Trinidad, supporting my then partner/future husband through gender reassignment surgery.  I walked those very halls, did the consults and got to know Marci (who I just love, love, love) over the course of many years.  It is a part of my life that changed my views in so many ways and made me an even stronger advocate for full gender equality.  Parts of my own identity changed and I understood things more fully than before I had this experience.  Ms T.