What was happening in January? Here’s our Kohitātea update – all items collected in one handy page!
The first Rainbow Youth (RY) national social marketing campaign, which ran for a month on Mediaworks television and radio stations, has been a big success.
The 30-second television ad shows a farming scene, where one mate disagrees with another who says ‘oh, gay’ when he drops his pie in the grass. “Look bro, unless that pie is a man who loves another man, then it’s not gay,” his mate says. Another mate adds: “Or a woman who loves another woman”. Then it turns out that Steve, pictured, is “quite gay”.
The radio ad was a conversation between two men, one of whom had just been to a wedding; “it was pretty gay”. His friend picked up on that, so he explained that two male friends had tied the knot. “You’re right then”, says his mate, “then it is gay”.
The video on the RY Facebook page was viewed more than 800,000 times in its first week and has now had 1.1 million views, circulating widely online in Australia and Europe. The development of the ad and the television and radio time was paid for by the MediaWorks Foundation.
Communications Manager Toni Duder says there was a 70 percent increase in traffic to the RY website during October, when the ad was screened. “We’ve had huge positive feedback on Facebook, people have shared it with their family members.”
RY wanted a campaign that would appeal to people in rural and provincial areas, and it reached all its goals, she says. “It increased numbers coming to our website, increased enquiries and use of our services”. It also created many conversations about the use of the word gay to mean something bad, and increased awareness of Rainbow Youth. JR
September 19, 2018 is the 125th anniversary of the passing of the Electoral Act 1893, which gave all women the right to vote in Aotearoa/New Zealand, and the government is commemorating the event as Suffrage 125. Pictured are suffrage campaigner Meri Te Tai of Te Rarawa, left, and Pakeha prganiser Kate Sheppard.
There is no government funding set aside for events, but the Ministry for Women and the Ministry for Culture and Heritage are compiling a national programme of commemoration activities throughout the year and around the country.
The government’s aims for Suffrage 125 include highlighting previously untold stories of people from Māori, Pacific, and Chinese communities who contributed to women’s suffrage, as well as celebrating a range of women from different backgrounds working for social justice for women.
Focal dates will be September 19 and the anniversary of the first time women voted, November 28.
Proposed activities include public programmes around the Suffrage Petition at the National Library in Wellington; an online exhibition of 125 people who have contributed to women’s rights, with a screening series and discussion forum by Ngā Taonga Sound and Vision; and a major suffrage exhibition at Auckland Museum.
The Ministry for Culture & Heritage will develop a Suffrage 125 webpage on NZHistory, with an online exhibition featuring current women activists, 1970s women’s liberation and the 1890s suffragists.
A reunion concert celebrating the lesbian music of the 80s and a play that tells five New Zealand LGBT stories will be among lesbian highlights in Auckland’s Pride Festival in February.
The 80s Reunion Concert features Teresa Trull and Jess Hawk Oakenstar from the USA, members of Auckland women’s bands Vibraslaps, Turiiya and Red Beryl, as well as Charlotte Yates, Jan Hellriegel, the Topp Twins and many others. Arani Cuthbert is producing the show at the Auckland Girls Grammar Dorothy Winston Centre on Friday February 9.
Random Shagger, an uplifting one-woman show written and performed by Andrea Kelland, below left, will be directed by expat writer and comedian Deb Filler. It tells the story of Andrea’s coming out as a solo mother into a world of lipstick lesbians and stone dykes, where the topic of ‘boy children’ at womyn-loving-womyn events was hotly debated.
The play also draws on bent biological family members, including Andrea’s great-aunt, who embarked on a joyous relationship with a lonely widow during World War I. Random Shagger, with live music by Hilz King, right, will run at Garnet Station Tiny Theatre, from Saturday 3 February to Sunday 11.
Among early confirmed events is a one-off concert by the LnP Project, folk-pop duo Ellie Lim and Jodie Pringle, at Q Theatre on Wednesday 7. An art exhibition by the Pulse lesbian art group will also show at Garnet Station during the season of Andrea’s play.
The LGBTQI writers’ festival, SameSameButDifferent has a free Pride Poetry Speakeasy on Wednesday 7 frollowed by the festival on February 9 and 10 at AUT. Speakers include Leonie Pihama, Gina Cole, Courtney Sina Meredith, Tulia Thompson, Renée, Marilyn Waring, Madeleine Sami, Mani Bruce Mitchell, Ciara Cremin, Joanne Drayton and Susannah Walker. See the Facebook event page; tickets from iticket.
Three of the six short plays in the Legacy Theatre season feature queer female roles or writers; the full programme is planned for release by the end of this month. The seven-night season opens at Q Theatre in the first week of Pride. See the website or the Facebook page.
Excerpts from some of these shows will preview in the Gala Opening of Auckland Pride 2018 on Friday 2 February at Q Theatre.
Team Auckland Masters Swimmers (TAMS – the LGBT swim team) will host the fun TAMS/DSW (Different Strokes Wellington) swim competition on Saturday, February 10 at the Tepid Baths in Customs St, city. It will include 25m to 100m races in a mixture of strokes and a fun relay, as well as the Capital Shield medley relay and the freestyle relay between the two clubs for the TAMS cup. Decide your stroke and length, guess your times and fill in the entry form. Awards will be given at a dinner afterwards at nearby Monsoon Poon.
The Pride Parade theme is Rainbow Warriors: Pride and Peace. Tickets are available for the Parade Grandstand in Western Park with celebrity commentary, $30 general, $40 grandstand seating.
Oceania Pride Aotearoa invite indigenous people from Aotearoa and the Pacific to join their float focusing on Decolonization across Oceania. “We join in international solidarity, to resist with our diverse, Rainbow LGTBQIA+ communities and march in unity”, says Pacific co-ordinator Sonya Apa Temata. Email email@example.com, phone Sonya on 021 047 5999 or see her Facebook page.
Training young event organisers
The Pride Festival will include a strong group of events by and for young people as a result of the first Pride Youth Project. This will train a group of 20 young Rainbow volunteers over summer to organise and run events for young people, and produce the Rainbow Youth Pride Parade float. The project will run from December to the end of February and is organised by Auckland Pride and Rainbow Youth.
Eight people will participate for the full three months and 12 for the last four weeks. They are expected to work on the project for 20 hours a week, which includes a weekly one-day workshop by Pride and Rainbow Youth staff and board members. The Ministry of Youth Development. Funding provides a koha for participants, food costs, as well as a budget for youth events and the float.
Register your Pride Festival event online by the December 15 deadline, or email Festival Director Julian Cook. The website listing is due by the end of December and the printed festival programme is due out in mid-to-late January. Register your Pride Parade entry online by Friday February 2, or email Parade Director Shaughan Woodcock. JR
Queer female artists supported the Sexual Abuse HELP Wellington fundraising exhibition, No Apologies.
Wellington-based lesbian/queer artist Siân Torrington, above, is pictured at the launch where she launched her book We don’t have to be the building and donated art with 23 other artists, including Danielle Burns, pictured below.
The exhibition raised approximately $5,000.
Lesbian MP Jan Logie, now undersecretary for Justice with responsibility for responses to domestic and sexual violence, opened the exhibition.
Other speakers included HELP general manager Conor Twyford, poets Tarns Hood and Mary Rainsford, artists Siân and Danielle.
As part of the exhibition, Siân is running an expressive drawing workshop on Saturday 2 from 1-3.30pm at the Thistle Gallery, 293 Cuba St in the city. Participants don’t need any prior drawing experience and will produce large scale charcoal drawings together “in which all marks on the paper are welcome, acceptable and appreciated”. See the Facebook events page or enrol here.
Siân’s book is named after her collaborative exhibition of the same name, which illustrated the personal stories of lesbian, bi-sexual, queer female bodied, trans* and female identified activists.
The loose-leaf, poster-style edition of 100 was designed by Jemma Cheer, and includes a commissioned essay by Ellie Lee-Duncan, written reflections and images from the collaboration process, and colour prints of the final works, which can be put on the wall.
Lesbians and other queer women resident in Canterbury are encouraged to respond to the Christchurch Women’s Centre’s Rainbow Services survey.
The Women’s Centre has developed the short (5 minutes?) survey, with funding from the Rule Foundation and the Tindall Foundation. It will gather views on various rainbow-focused services in post-earthquake Canterbury, including identifying gaps in service provision. The centre hopes a cross-agency response to expressed needs can be engendered by the report.
There has been a good response so far, but they are hoping for more before the survey closes early January. Analysis and report writing are expected to be completed by March 2018.
LGBT issues are being debated in the smallest country in the European Union (population 1.3m). The Republic of Estonia in northern Europe is bordered by Latvia to the south, Russia to the east, the gulf of Finland to the north and the Baltic Sea to the west. It currently has its first female President, Kersti Kaljulaid, and one Rainbow NGO, Eesti LGBT Ühing/the Estonian LGBT Association. Jenny Rankine spoke with Kristel Rannaääre, the association’s half-time Executive Director, and Kristiina Raud, the half-time Community Co-ordinator, about the Cohabitation Act which passed in 2014.
Kristiina says that the act was passed without an accompanying implementation act, which specifies all the amendments to be made to other laws, “so the law isn’t actually functional. LGBT people are signing civil union contracts and adopting children, but they are not registered anywhere.”
“For example, if one partner adopts the other partner’s biological child, it’s not in the registry that controls all the online systems. So every time that you want to enrol your adopted kid in kindergarten or open their bank account, you have to bring their adoption papers, but it still might not be accepted because it isn’t online.”
The Minister of Justice announced after being elected in 2015 that he would not work on the implementation act, so it is likely to be introduced by members of the Riigikogu (parliament), as the Cohabitation Bill had been. The Eesti Konservatiivne Rahvaerakond (EKRE), the Conservative People’s Party, which has seven MPs, was pushing for the Cohabitation Act to be repealed at the time of the interview. If the implementation act is not passed, the Estonian Human Rights Centre NGO expects same-sex partners to sue the state for failing to enact their rights.
The debate has aroused strong feelings, including conservative bigotry. Just before the law was passed, a conservative demonstration slogan was “aberration must be treated”.
Kristiina described a recent public debate that changed minds: “A top TV discussion show had a group of supporters and opponents, and two Lutheran pastors from different congregations [Lutheran is the main Christian denomination]. The older male pastor was against the law and a female pastor was very supportive.”
“She kept looking at the representative of EKRE who was spewing hateful stuff, and said ‘I’m trying to understand what happened to you, why you are so full of hate and pain?’ Her long comment went viral on Estonian social media. It moved you, whether you’re LGBT or just an intelligent, compassionate human being. Thousands of people sent her thank you letters and flowers.”
“The head of the Lutheran Church said she went against the church policy, but it stirred things up in a good direction. People see how cruel other people can be and think ‘LGBT people need my support’.”
Just under half the population (46%) supports same-sex civil unions, and support for marriage equality has grown to 39 percent. While 52 percent still don’t accept homosexuality, acceptance increased to 41 percent in a 2017 survey. Attitudes are more positive among Estonian than Russian-speaking people, “who tend to consume media from Russia, which is anti-LGBT,” says Kristiina.
Standing for public office
In October, Kristel boosted lesbian visibility by standing for a municipal seat in the capital, Tallinn, on the Sotsiaaldemokraatlik Erakond (Social Democrat) ticket. She was asked to stand by the Social Democrats leader, who had been a panellist in the Pride conference organised by the association’s Education Co-ordinator Maret Ney in July, and wanted more young female candidates who were expert in different fields.
Says Kristel: “We don’t have out LGBT people in the Riigikogu or outside the human rights field, so I decided maybe I will start with myself. Also I’ve been working in the association for five years, so I have some experience. It’s a good starting point if I want to do something more.”
She received 160 votes. Kristiina says: “To think that there are 150 queers or queer supporters in one district is great!”
Fighting through the courts
Kristiina, below left, and her US wife Sarah have also been in the news from a court case against the state denial of Sarah’s residency. “I met Sarah when she was came over for a conference,” she says. “Sarah went back to the States and we went back and forth to see each other a lot, but that meant a three-month visa every time. We got married in the States in 2015, and she moved here.”
The timing of the country’s denial of Sarah’s residency “worked out really well because the Human Rights Centre was looking for an example couple, willing to go public, for strategic court litigation. They paid for the court case and we talked about the case and our relationship to the media.”
“It seems to be working, maybe not legally because the Immigration Office is very stubborn, but people have said to me ‘I saw you on TV and that made it easier for me to come out to my parents’. Or they’ve written ‘I never really cared what’s going on with the law because it doesn’t concern me, but after seeing how much crap the state makes people go through, now I see how horrible our bureaucratic system is and now I support same-sex couples’.”
The pair received overwhelmingly positive feedback, but lost the case in November in the second-level circuit court. They will appeal to the Supreme Court, “So it will go on for a while”. But this wasn’t the only court case Kristiina was involved in.
“While we were in court, Sarah had to go back and forth all the time, which was very financially and emotionally draining. We asked that she be protected while the case was in court, so she could at least stay here. Because the Immigration Office kept appealing, that case went to the Riigikohus (Supreme Court of Estonia), the first case where it could take a stance on same-sex issues.”
“They said that same-sex couples deserved the same protections as any other family. It was symbolic but it didn’t help our main case. There’s still a long way to go.”
The association’s activities
“We run all kinds of events,” says Kristel; “support groups for transpeople, gay Christians, youth, and same-sex parents, fun events like board game and movie nights, and information nights about issues such as the Cohabitation Act. We provide a psychologist, peer-to-peer counselling, and a library, where high school and university students can do research.”
“We educate youth workers and teachers, and are planning to do that with health workers and journalists,” says Kristel, who also works as a high school teacher. “The school curriculum requires acknowledgement of different family forms,” says Kristiina, “but teachers don’t always do it. Our education co-ordinator has been training teachers and going into schools to talk with kids about those things.”
“Some schools are very welcoming, and others say ‘Oh, I’ve never met a gay person, why do you have to come and do this?’” A recent article by Maret, about how many LGBT kids there are in schools, saying teachers need to realise that these kids might be affected by the way teachers talk about LGBT issues, caused a big debate. Says Kristiina: “The conservative Foundation for Defence of Family and Traditions website devoted an episode to her, they called her a paedophile, and she’s received angry and threatening letters, just because she dared to put LGBT and kids in the same sentence.”
“It’s funny because the pundits from the foundation, work somewhere nearby and we see them walking by all the time, so me and my wife we hold hands and walk in front of them.”
The association is funded from gambling taxes; “at the end of the year we don’t know if we’ll get any money for the next year – it’s really difficult,” says Kristel. The association has also received occasional project funding from groups like the Council of Nordic Ministers and the Open Society Foundation, set up by billionaire George Soros to promote inclusive democracies.
Says Kristel: “There are more female LGBT activists, but there are more men out in the LGBT community. But those men who are out don’t contribute to activism. Most of us are lesbian in the association; we have only one man, who is trans. Any field that is underpaid will be mostly women, but especially activism.”
Baltic and Tallinn Pride
Before human rights laws and the LGBT Association, Estonian activists organised an annual Tallinn Pride Parade from 2005 to 2007. In the first year a few hundred people marched, but numbers dwindled. “In the last year opponents got violent and people stopped organising it,” says Kristiina.
The annual Baltic Pride event started in 2009 and rotates between Riga in Latvia, Vilnius in Lithuania and Tallinn in Estonia; “they are small countries without the resources or communities to have Pride every year yet,” says Kristiina. Estonia hosted the event in 2011, 2014 and in July 2017, with Kristiina as project manager.
After two festivals in Estonia without a parade, “people decided it was time to have a parade as well, since it had been ten years”, she says. “We set up Tallinn Pride to run it, while the association organised the festival. We thought if we got 500 people we would have exceeded all our expectations. We got about 2,000 people, which was pretty amazing.”
“We were prepared for opponents – we had security, the police were briefed on the risks. But we only had one Bible-waving lady and a friend, and a couple more who were just ridiculous rather than threatening.”
Most of the Pride events were full or over-subscribed. “The opening night at a cinema had speeches, an exhibition and a movie – we thought we might get 80 people and we got 200. It was so full half the people couldn’t fit in, and people were sitting right under the screen looking up. The first Pride conference was full with just over 100 people.”
“The gender imbalance in activism was really apparent during Baltic Pride,” Kristiina says. “The face of the Pride Parade was overwhelmingly that of young women. Lots of high school students and younger women came out, more than any other group.”
Kristiina is a contributing author and the Instagram co-ordinator for “the only feminist website in Estonia”, Feministeerium or Feministry, which is part of a network of queer-feminist, leftist and anti-fascist groups.
Ladyfest, a grass-roots, international feminist festival in Tallinn, has been organised from the same networks for seven years, rotating between different organisers, including Kristiina. “It’s very queer, feminist, DIY, anti-capitalist”.
Both the women described women’s rights in Estonia as under attack. Estonia’s gender pay gap – 28% – is the worst in Europe.
Kristiina says: “The conservatives were against ratifying the Istanbul Convention; the states that sign it pledge to actively combat violence against women. You would think that’s a good thing, but the conservatives think it’s another ploy to force genderless, homosexual, extreme feminist propaganda on our country and our children, because feminists hate traditional gender roles. Not because they’re toxic and dangerous, but because we want all people to be genderless blobs.” Eventually, Estonia ratified the convention.
EKRE “built their platform on three issues: women are not oppressed and are trying to overthrow men; gays and refugees are bad. The conservatives said that women who are over 27 and haven’t had children are dangerous elements to society” says Kristiina.
She has also been an organiser for Queer Planet, which was started by people at the Anarchist Social Centre. “It’s a contrast to the mainstream male-dominated gay clubs – it’s an anarchist, not transphobic, anti-racist, anti-nationalist, queer party. Lots of queer and non-binary young people come, very few guys.”
We welcome your suggestions of websites, books, films and any other media of interest to lesbians and queer women.
We appreciate the original cartoons provided by Helen Courtney. This one, Flight of fancy, seems to fit particularly well with Media.
Season 1 of this original Wellington-based webseries covered the adventures of three lesbian flatmates. Debs, Beth and Mel met weekly over dinner in the first season; you can watch all six episodes on YouTube or TVNZ On Demand.
It was hugely popular and award-winning, and was selected for several festivals. Season 2 launches on December 10, online and in a Wellington screening at the Roxy cinema (4pm; 5 Park Rd, Miramar; $20).
This season is not organised around the dinners, but life, drama – and humour – continue. Debs is working out how to trust in a relationship again, Beth is wrapped up in her romance with Anna, and Mel is left wondering what to do when her friends have moved on without her. Keep up-to-date via the website and Facebook.
An Auckland exhibition, poetry reading and film screenings in late February will mark the posthumous launch of lesbian feminist poet Heather McPherson’s fifth book of poetry. Edited by poet Janet Charman, This joyous chaotic place: Garden poems brings together Heather’s poetry about a favourite subject.
Events will be held on Friday February 23 and Saturday 24, including a poetry reading and continuous screenings of archival footage by Auckland Women’s Community Video (AWCV). They include 1980 readings and interviews with Māori writers JC Sturm and Keri Hulme, and Heather herself; artist Joanna Paul’s short films; and 1990s film of Heather talking with writer Cathie Dunsford.
Heather was born in Tauranga, trained as a teacher in Auckland and brought up her son Carrick in Matata and Christchurch. In 1976, she co-founded the influential women’s arts magazine Spiral. It became a women’s publishing imprint and is publishing her book. In 1980 she co-founded the equally influential Women’s Gallery in Wellington.
The events will be held at the kaupapa Māori gallery Mokopōpaki, 454 Karangahape Rd, Auckland city, and the exhibition, This joyous, chaotic place, will run there for six weeks as a women’s suffrage 125th anniversary event.
The exhibition is about Heather and her peers, highlighting those involved in the 70s and 80s women’s art movement, including Spiral and the Women’s Gallery. Wellington-based organiser Marian Evans is keen to hear from any women holding artwork by Sharon Alston for the exhibition, as well as anyone holding copies of any AWCVideos. She’s also keen to identify women in AWCV’s raw footage of Homosexual Law Reform interviews and concerts of the mid-80s.
See the LNA obituary for Heather. Jenny R
Renée was an honoured guest at the launch of her memoir: These Two Hands at the Women’s Bookshop in November. (There had been earlier events in Dunedin and Wellington.)
Unsurprisingly, the majority of the crowd were ‘lesbians of a certain age’, to re-work the phrase. Memories were experienced and shared: Broadsheet, the reviews, the plays, the books, … That made it a noisy crowd, too, so it was helpful to have Hilz start things off. Renée temporarily stopped signing copies of the book. Her publisher Mary McCallum and Carole Beu spoke about Renée’s contribution to feminism, arts (poetry, fiction, plays), and lesbian and feminist communities. And Renée gave us two little snippets (‘patches’) of her time in Auckland. Followed by more of Hilz’ music, and another queue to get more books signed!
The Wellington launch event earlier in the month was part of the Playmarket Accolades event, where Renée received a significant award. Everyone, except Renée, Mary told us, knew who this interesting, imaginative and talented playwright was they were describing; the only person astonished to see face flashed up on the large screen as they announced the name was the winner!
As to the book itself. I come to it from having read all the novels, having seen some of the plays and reviews. Some of these stories are mine, those of friends of mine. Does This Make Sense To You? is still one of the most powerful, painful and hopeful books I’ve read.
I love the format of the book: 88 patches, one for every year of her life. (It started being planned at 86, so you can imagine what would happen if you procrastinate too much about getting a book like this published.) Some are pieces from other works, and have a lovely familiar feel. Some are newly written for this work. The style is friendly, chatty, and has a sense of a real New Zealand voice. One of the consequences of that is you come across brief passages that bring you up short: “I look at twelve-year-olds now and wonder how they’d go working for forty hours a week.”
You can dip in and out, trying – or not – to make order out of the jumbled time. Or you can accept the author’s presentation (and why wouldn’t you?), and read it in order, building up a picture of her life, piece by piece.
How would this work for younger lesbians? Obviously they haven’t lived in the same time; detail of poverty in the 1930s and 1940s is very different from being poor in the 2010s. Other details are different too: prior to publication there was a discussion about whether there needed to be a glossary of terms no longer in use. But much of life’s experiences are universal: absence and presence of parents, emotionally and physically; growing up, understanding identity.
It’s not that there is ‘something for everyone’ in These Two Hands; it’s that there is much, for anyone. Read this book, more than once. Share it with friends. Think about your life, the life of people who are important to you.
You can follow Renée on her website and on Twitter. Listen to her talk with Kim Hill on Saturday Morning. Buy the scripts and read what Playmarket had to say, in awarding her the $20,000 cash prize to a playwright who has made a significant artistic contribution to theatre in Aotearoa.
See Renée speak at 2018 events: the Auckland Pride Festival’s Same Same But Different runs Friday February 9 to Saturday 10 (programme not yet launched). The Wellington Writers and Readers events are Thursday March 8 to Sunday 11 (full programme launch is Thursday February 1).
Information is organised by region (national events first, then north to south, then overseas), then by date.
Saturday 20 Fifth Season Garden Group visits Alan Thompson’s garden, 83 Endeavour St, Blockhouse Bay, 2pm. Park in Blockhouse Bay Beach Reserve carpark, walk to the end of Endeavour St. Bring something for afternoon tea and cash for a raffle. All welcome. Fifth Season is also offering car pooling to visit Heroic Gardens during Pride on February 10-11. Contact Wendy Wilson, 027 548 3510 or firstname.lastname@example.org.
Sunday 21 Coffee & Stroll 10am, meet at Café Miko, Botanic Gardens, 102 Hill Rd, Manurewa; 10.30am, a stroll around the Sculpture in the Gardens exhibition.
Saturday 27 Oceania Pride Aotearoa Fundraiser A great night of entertainment, talented & stunning array of performers!
Family Bar, 270 K Road, central Auckland. Doors open 8pm, show starts 9pm. Gold coin koha at the door. All proceeds to go to Oceania Pride Aotearoa float & Ue Nuku Whanau during Auckland Pride Parade 2018.
Sunday 28 Dyke Hike 11am. Dunns Bush. This track is part of the Te Araroa trail and goes through private mature bush and some pasture. Meet at the intersection of Ahuroa Rd and Remiger Rd, Puhoi. 3 -4 hours. Grade: Moderate (boots recommended, expect a few hills and stream crossings are possible, moderate fitness needed) to hard (boots required, tracks may be rough and difficult, steep hills possible. A reasonable level of fitness will help you to enjoy these hikes. If you are not an experienced hiker, we require you to complete two moderate hikes before you join us in a hike graded hard). Email email@example.com, visit www.lesbian.co.nz or the Facebook page.
Saturdays Rainbow Warriors women’s softball team play in the local league at Resthills Park in Glenview, either at 1pm or 3pm, depending on the draw. Check their Facebook page.
Thursdays Social dodgeball for takatāpui and LGBTIQ+ people Nau mai haere mai! Folks of all dodgeball abilities are welcome and a gold coin koha is appreciated. 6.30-7.30pm, University of Waikato Faculty of Education Gym just off Gate 4, 213 Hillcrest Rd. See the Facebook page.
LSG camping holiday in Raglan Bring your own tent, camper van, caravan, or book a cabin, and hang out with the gals for a few days of fishing, swimming, walking, kayaking and sunbathing. Contact firstname.lastname@example.org for details.
Anytime Self-guided LGBTTI walking tour of 24 historic rainbow locations around Wellington’s waterfront in one hour, free. Start at the former site of Carmen’s Balcony on the corner of Harris and Victoria Sts, now the City Library, walk through Civic Square, onto the waterfront, down to Bats Theatre and then back to the Michael Fowler Centre via Courtenay Place. Hear short eyewitness accounts at each location with your smart device using the interactive Google Map, or download the mp3 audio before you set off. See the website.
Sunday 14 Lesbian Overlanders walk the Camborne Walkway, Plimmerton seaside. Cath the 9.44am train from Wellington or 9.30am from Waikanae, meet at the Mana railway station at 10.15am. Txt Lainey to confirm, 027 303 9006.
Friday 26 Carterton Pink Drinks All welcome, friendly crowd. From 6.30pm, Buckhorn, off High St at the north end of Carterton, on Memorial Square near the roundabout. If you don’t see us in the main bar walk through to the room by the garden bar; to go on the mailing list email Kerry at email@example.com.
The Tasman Lesbian Connection (TLC) sends a monthly email of events in the area, Nelson and Motueka in particular. Contact firstname.lastname@example.org to go on the mailing list or for more details of any events.
There’s currently no-one co-ordinating activities for Nelson potluck dinners or brunches. Do contact TLC if you can help with regular – or one-off – events.
Sunday 28 Brunch, Motueka from 11am. Smoking Barrel, High St.
The Lambda Trampers and Lambda Lattes are mixed social tramping and walking groups for lesbians and gays living in and around Christchurch, and their friends.
Friday 12 FriGAY Drinks Pegasus Arms, 14 Oxford Tce, Christchurch. 7pm.
Saturday 27 Open Day at the week-long Papanui archeological excavation led by Shar Briden (pictured left on a Wild Women walk on the site) and Rachel Wesley, under the supervision of the iwi. Okia Reserve, Papanui Inlet, Otago Peninsula, Dunedin. Taonga continue to erode from the site due to movement in the estuary channel. Talk with volunteers, some of whom have recovered significant taonga over ten years. A six-metre, 460-year-old waka was dug out on the site a few years ago; see the article about it by Dilys Johns, Shar, Rachel, and Geoffrey Irwin through your public library in the latest Journal of the Polynesian Society.