Posted on by Ian

Job ads for the BASH PEP worker (1995)

There will be much more on this later, but in the mid 1990s Bisexuals' Action on Sexual Health ('BASH')[1]What the 'Bisexual Development Group' that tried to advise the Health Education Authority turned into. won funding from the UK arm of the Red Hot Organization for a part-time worker to run a peer education project in the UK bi community.

I'd been one of the group that put together the application, submitted the finished version, and I ended up as 'chair' of the three or four people who managed the project.

Although I would have been surprised if the person who would eventually be appointed, whoever it was, didn't read Bifrost, the amazingly reliable UK bi community monthly newsletter that ran from 1991 to 1995 or go to a bi group, as part of the funding application we included the cost of advertising outside the community.

So I designed and placed at least four ads about the job and I can currently find three of them… Read more

Notes

Notes
↑1What the 'Bisexual Development Group' that tried to advise the Health Education Authority turned into.
Posted on by Ian

The first (failed) attempt at some BiCon guidelines

For BiCon 97, someone brought along a small pile of zines – primarily 'ConRunner' – for SF con organisers.

I had a look at them and while much wasn't relevant to us – there are reasons why we don't use hotels or pay for writers to come and speak or have a 'green room' where celebs can escape attendees – one of the things I really liked was the idea of having a document that said what the event was, what distinguished it from other events, so that attendees and organisers could both know what to expect from it.

OK Ian, what makes a BiCon 'a BiCon'? Erm… Read more

Posted on by Ian

The 'Chronos being Chronos' bi-erasing 1998 Pride questionnaire

Chronos was one of the many names of the company that published lesbian and gay newspapers and magazines such as Boyz and, between buying it from its original founders in the early 90s and later selling it to the 'publishers of Gay Times and owners of an adult shop' Millivres in 2005, the Pink Paper.

After the failure of Pride Events UK, the bunch of chancers that tried to run a commercial Pride event in London in July 1998, Chronos's Kelvin Sollis and possibly its co-owner, David Brindle, did the same maths that PEUK had done and discovered that running a commercial Pride event could be very profitable. Read more

Posted on by Ian

The design for the bi 'tent' at London's Lesbian and Gay Pride 1994 and 1995 festivals

As mentioned in my post on what lead up to London's Pride event changing its name to 'Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride' in 1996, until that happened, the London Bisexual Group used to pay around £100 for a stall in the festival's "marketplace".

In 1993, the minutes of the LBG executive suggest that the group paid for two 2m x 2m stall spaces at the festival in Brockwell Park. At the moment, I cannot if a supplied table was supplied or if we took a pair of folding table ourselves.

In 1994, the cost of what we wanted – again in Brockwell Park – was going to be £150, but this was found from another source..[1]The minutes call it a 'grant', but don't say who it was from. Read more

Notes

Notes
↑1The minutes call it a 'grant', but don't say who it was from.