Invitation to Bland

Editor:

I am responding to Bob Bland's letter in the December 1998 issue of OITM. It is unfortunate that Bob decided not to attend the conference this year. It would have been great to have his input in the planning of the conference. I started asking for input for the October conference in April. In July, the VCLGR board had to make a decision about whether to have the conference at all, because NO ONE from the community responded to our requests for help in the planning. I committed to planning it, because I felt it was an important event. As you may all recall, the organization TIP put a flyer in every newspaper in Vermont in March - members of the community were outraged. I decided that the conference needed to address this issue; after all, we are Vermonters, too, despite the claims to the contrary by TIP.

As a result to the lack of planning support, I basically coordinated this conference on my own. Considering the fact that I work a full- time job, I would have welcomed any help I could get. I thought the conference went well. We did have workshops on family and marriage, but there were also workshops on using the web to stay in touch, youth, growing old (which we will all do), dealing with homophobia, money, health, and bisexuality.

If the planning and coordinating energy is out there, as Bob claims, where was it last summer? The mission of this conference is not only to bring our community together; it is also to raise money for VCLGR so that we may better serve our community and address the issues of concern to us. Two years ago the conference lost money and this year we broke even. Perhaps more involvement in the planning and generation of ideas would have lead to a different result.

VCLGR is looking forward to this next year and to, possibly, another conference. I will be sure to put Bob's e-mail address in my address book. He will be one of the first people I contact to help with the planning!

Virginia Renfrew
VCLGR Co-Liaison