Minutes: June 2007

1.

Present: Paul, Richard, David, Nathan, Helen, Paul, James, Sharon, Doug, Jeff, Chris, Ken, Cllr Sharp, Robin Stannard - Wilts Police, Kati Wood - SBC, John Taylor - SBC, Kathleen Daley - SBC

Apologies: Mark Castle, Councillors Dart, Lovell, Bluh, Steve Bryce, Darrell Haskins, Martin Longmore

Paul welcomed everyone and introductions were made around the table.

2.

Minutes of last meeting:

Amend item 7 to read Darrell not Russell. With this amendment the minutes were agreed as a true record.

3.

Matters Arising:

Item 4 - Children Services Equalities Action Plan: Section 8 on page 16 has now been re-written and Pride Youth were sending it to Rita Glen Gallo. All were asked to comment on the report, no comments received.

Item 6 - Community Assets Review - Paul completed the forms on behalf of the Coalition and no other comments received. Helen might have done on behalf of another group.

Invite Councillor Wright to the next meeting.

There is a counter on the LGBT website

4.

Update on Streets for Living Project - John Taylor

John said he was the Community Support Worker for the Euro Project involving parts of four streets between Manchester Road and Broad Street - Graham, Salisbury, Ponting and Gladstone. The project is tackling social exclusion and traffic problems in the Broadgreen Area, and as far as the community is concerned that is a top priority.

He explained that a series of event have taken place, a number of surveys carried out, door-to-door questionnaire and face-to-face interviews also taken place. From this we now have a new voluntary organisation going forward. - BOND, the Council's Cohesion Group attended by at least 250 people.

Phase 1 of the project has been completed - 'Gateways' at each end of the 4 streets. Pupils at Drove Central School were involved in re-designing the bollards and hopefully they will come back and paint them.

In June work will start in the alleyways. Engineering will improve the drainage system and re-surfacing will take place to make alleyways more user friendly. If we get more people using the alleyways the whole area will be lifted.

One message to take back is that when significant road works start in Gladstone and Salisbury Streets access to the car park of Broadgreen Centre will be disrupted and for a long period of time up towards Christmas you will not be able to drive through them. This is because those streets are being dug up and replaced with block paving, and the pavements will be removed completely and herringbone parking introduced.

Paul asked if the project would be rolled out any further? John said there were no plans at the moment.

Helen asked if the problem of prostitution had completely receded? John said in 2001 logged 30 girls a night now something less than 5.

5.

EAF Meeting feedback and Issues to be raised at EAF Interim Meeting

Paul said that the Pride next year was going to be very expensive. As the LGBT community was made up of older people, disabled people and women he proposed, at the next EAF meeting on 17 July, to ask the other Coalitions if they would like to give £1,000 each towards costs.

Paul said if we believed anything was going on in SBC that affected our Coalition we needed to take it to the Equalities Advisory Forum that was soon to become a public meeting.

Kati explained the process, available to each Coalition, on how to raise issues affecting their membership.

ACTION: Issue Sheet to be sent asking who sits on the Children & Young People's Membership Board to represent the LGBT Community? If no one does then there was a need to put someone there.

6.

LGBT Youth Welfare

6.1

Feedback from Pride Youth - Take to next meeting

6.2

Feedback from Helen Thompson - Helen said she belonged to the Equalities South West Transgender Group and at their meeting the previous month they had looked at the possibility of acting as Consultants to the Strategic Bodies i.e. Police etc. They would put the money earned into a shared pot and distribute to different people at the end of the year. 10 people attend this group and their next meeting is on 21 June in Taunton. There was a separate LGB Group within Equalities South West and 1 person from each Group sits on the Board.

Paul asked Helen to keep the Coalition informed. Pride Youth asked to be advised of the email address once it was set up as they have had a few Transgender people go along to Pride and don't know where to send them.

8.

Terms of Reference:

Paul asked everyone to study the Terms of Reference provided. He said they were the core Terms of Reference applying to all the Equalities Coalitions expect for the additions agreed at the last meeting.

• Item 1 'Local Area Agreement' added after Swindon Borough Council on line four.
• Item 2.1 'Local Area Agreement added in line 2.
• Item 3.1 bullet 1 'and work' added after 'Individual LGBT who live ...'

Final agreement to be given at the next meeting.

9.

PRIDE Update - Kati Wood

PRIDE Event: Project Overview.

Our aim is to hold a vibrant, free, family-friendly event, which will celebrate culture, creativity and diversity by positively promoting Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender life in Swindon.

The event will start at 12 - with music, food, stalls, activities, games, dance and Arts tents and fairground attractions. Late afternoon will see the parade which will mark the close of the morning's activities, followed by the evening festivities which will be mainly stage based entertainment.

Planning so far:

• Currently meeting every 4-6 Weeks we have:
• Agreed date and provisionally booked venue (16th August 2008 Town Gardens)
• Agreed Terms of Reference
• Appointed: Chair, Deputy Chair, Secretary and Treasurer.
• We also have committee members with specialist knowledge in security, health and safety and Arts projects.
• In addition we have secured support from the Arts/Events Team SBC as the Pride event will contribute to SBC's Diversity festival, the Funding advisor from Voluntary Action Swindon and others.
• We are compiling a list of potential stakeholders.
• To be launched July 07 - A monthly newsletter to be distributed to stakeholders/interested groups/individuals and published on LGBT website.

Creative Ideas:

• Community Poetry- resulting in post event book
• Schools based Arts project - Procession Icon figureheads linked to homophobic bullying awareness project
• Pride Idol - starting in August - competition to give local talent opportunity to perform at the Pride event
• Art/Culture Tent

Plans for Funding:

• Support from Paul Dixon
• Local Businesses/sponsorship - The Mailcoach has already committed support
• National lottery e.g. Awards for All
• Other Charities/funds
• Youth bank for youth project

It is estimated that we will need to raise £50,000 - £60,000

10.

Hate Crime Report - Robin Stannard

This was circulated with the minutes.

Paul asked if there was an overall increase in Hate Crime?

Robin said it was roughly up 25%. The type of incidents being reported were mainly very low level however they were incidents that affect people's lives and experience of life. The increase was encouraging in one respect with more people reporting, but also concerning because of the increase. In a lot of instances victims were having homophobic abuse shouted at them and had no idea who was doing it. Hopefully from more reports there would be more descriptions and we would get a cross match. Overall Swindon was still a very low crime area both in regards to Race and LGBT figures.

11.

Any Other Business

11.1

Paul proposed allocating £1,000 from the Coalition budget to the Pride Project. This was agreed. Full details would be needed for budget monitoring and audit purposes.

11.2

Paul said he was involved in the interviews for Corporate Equality Officer on 7 July.

Meeting closed at 7.20pm.

12.

Dates of future meetings

6-8pm, Wednesday 10 October: CR2, Civic Offices
6-8pm, Wednesday 12 December: CR2, Civic Offices
 
2008
6-8pm, Wednesday 13 February: CR2, Civic Offices
6-8pm, Wednesday 9 April: CR2, Civic Offices