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Community Compass is a service of OITM. GLBT organizations from around the state are invited to provide briet — 200 words or less — descriptions of recent or upcoming activities and events. Send your submissions to us by email by the 15th of the month.
Are you a pack rat? Are you saving magazines, newspapers, party announcements, photos, political buttons, bumper stickers, ticket stubs, and other necessary documents in some corner? Got stuff reflecting the history of Vermont's GLBT community? If so, the R.U.1.2? Community Center Archive Project wants you to bring it out of the closet and put it on display!
The Archive Project will serve as an educational resource and collective memory of events and trends in our GLBT history. We need all sorts of materials. We'd be most excited about anything dating back to the Reagan administration or earlier, but value and accept donations of all material.
We currently have very little storage space, so we ask that you begin by starting a box of your own. As the Center expands from an idea into an actual building, we will begin to store and display our collection.
The mounted collection is currently displayed at our monthly coffeehouses, and we are in need of more donations, specifically on Gay/Bi/Trans history. So if you have a small stack of papers, a few buttons or photos you'd like to donate, please let us know ASAP so we can create a new installation for the next coffeehouse.
To donate materials or get information, contact Cathy Resmer at 802-865-0569 or by email.
CVUUS in Middlebury will host a Decision Day Openhouse beginning at 7pm on whatever Friday the Vermont Supreme Court announces its decision on same-gender marriage.
If the court decision is positive, we will be hosting an open celebration of a very joyous day in history. If the decision is negative or remanded, the openhouse is "on" anyway, as a place to gather to express ourselves and support each other in light of the decision.
All are warmly invited, whatever the decision. Bring some munchies to share if you are so inspired, or just come. Please spread the word!
CVUUS is located at 6 Cross Street, on the corner of Cross and Water streets, Middlebury. For more information, please call 802-388-8080. Hope to see you there!
We are redesigning our library. Thanks to a generous donation by James Monstream and Sharon Stolberg, we have two beautiful bookshelves to house our collection of over 1,500 volumes. Sue Wilson has been working on a new classification system for our library, and Marge Coahran has developed a computer program to organize all that raw data into nifty user-friendly search functions.
Our collection is packed with romance, action/adventure, murder mystery, science fiction, fantasy, coming-of-age chronicles, poetry and short stories, as well as non-fiction on law, homophobia and heterosexism, relationships, coming out, and gender identity. In addition, we have a growing collection in the Cliff Rivers Memorial Reference Library, set up to honor Cliff's dedicated work with Outright Vermont.
A variety of youth service providers, teachers, human service professionals, parents, and youth use both libraries. Any community member may come in and browse; if you're not sure where to start, we can recommend reading lists, and you can borrow books for up to four weeks.
Which reminds me: those of you who have already used our library, please remember to return your books so others may enjoy them! Much of what we have in the library today was donated, and we cannot afford to replace them all.
Our heartfelt appreciation goes to those who have donated collections over the years. Currently, we are looking for books on bisexual and transgender issues, especially those geared toward youth 22 and under. If you would like to donate, please contact Outright at 802-865-9677. Happy reading!
Rhombus Gallery is a queer-friendly not-for-profit volunteer-run art gallery/performance space whose mission is to provide a forum for experimental and non-commercial art in Burlington.
It is the home of the Burlington Coffeehouse, an acoustic music venue run by Jeff Miller that brings in talented local musicians as well as performers from all over the country. The Coffeehouse series happens on Saturdays (and sometimes Thursdays or Fridays), with an open mike every Tuesday.
The Rhombus Gallery Literary Series hosts poetry and short fiction readings on Wednesdays, and the monthly Burlington (Poetry) Slam on the first Friday of every month. Rhombus also hosts the R.U.1.2? GLBT Community Center potlucks on the second Monday of every month, and often provides a stage for local playwrights who wish to produce experimental theatre.
In addition to its arts programming, The Rhombus Gallery also serves as the home base of the Minimal Press, Burlington's world-famous guerilla publishing collective and literary vending service.
For up-to-date information on Rhombus events, to get involved as a volunteer, or to learn more about Rhombus Gallery, please contact Jen Bell or Marc Awodey at 802-865-3144, or Cathy Resmer at 802-865-0569 or by email.
It's fair season, and the Task Force is there!
By the end of September we will have taken our booth on the road to the Addison County, Orleans County, Champlain Valley, and Deerfield Valley fairs. So far the reception has been great, and many fairgoers have been grateful to see us (especially after passing by our opposition's spread).
In addition, the Task Force sponsored a forum in Montpelier, following an interfaith worship service, and co-sponsored a panel discussion in Burlington on the eve of the Westboro Baptists' visit.
In late July, we mailed our our first-ever fundraising appeal. It was a great letter — please let us know if you didn't get it so we can put you on the mailing list and send it off to you.
There's so much to do!! Please, call us at 802-388-2366 and volunteer!
