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Photos from Jamnesty!

Another BIG BIG THANKS to everyone who made Jamnesty such a wonderful night. Particular gratitude is extended to the performers (Yew, Chrissy Barnacle and Flying Penguins) who were universally excellent and who kindly agreed to perform at our charity event. It was mentioned during the night, but if you enjoyed them please check out their stuff –  they all have stuff to listen to FOR FREE (or you can pay what you want) so go for it:

And a big well done to everyone else involved as well- those who helped organise, co-ordinate, make decorations, put up decorations, take down decorations and ensure the smooth running all made it possible. You all know who you are and you all put in a lot of effort so you all share in the success.

(click on an image for a full-size popout)

Lastly, thanks to everyone that came along- you can’t have a gig night without an audience! Whilst it was a fun, entertaining night it touched on important and serious issues- equal marriage, LGBT rights in Russia and everywhere, the Transgender Day of Remembrance and the minute’s silence. These are matters close to many that were there.

 

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Photos from Meeting 9 – Nathan Gale and Day of Silence / Jamnesty Crafts

Many thanks to Nathan Gale from the Scottish Transgender Alliance (see www.scottishtrans.org) for coming along and giving a really informative and positive talk about what we can do to promote transgender rights issues, the equal marriage legislation – more properly, the Marriage and Civil Partnership Bill – amongst other things, which was very well-received.

Kudos to everyone who painted a t-shirt for the Day of Silence and Jamnesty- they looked fab!

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Tuesday 19th November: Guest Speaker from the Scottish Transgender Alliance, Day of Silence and Jamnesty!


Hey everyone,

The highlight of our semester is here! I hope you are all as excited as I am for Jamnesty next Wednesday! Please, please remember to get tickets from me on Tuesday if you haven’t already and bring back money/spares. Also remember your t-shirts for decorating! See below for all the details.

In other news – Friday was the deadline for our SPB poster competition so if you really wanted to enter but didn’t quite manage to draft one up then you can still send one over the weekend if you want. Just email it to spb@guamnesty.org.uk

Next meeting: QMU Committee Room 1, 5pm

Presentation from Nathan Gale, Scottish Transgender Alliance Development Officer

Due to time constraints we are aiming to start at 5pm so please try and arrive on time.

Our speaker Nathan Gale is coming along to talk to us about the work of the Scottish Transgender Alliance and the Equality Network. This talk is coming at a crucial time, in the midst of the new equal marriage bill making its way through the Scottish Parliament and the day before the Transgender Day of Remembrance and I am sure that Nathan will spend some time talking about both of these. The presentation will be quite informal and Nathan says that he is happy to answer any questions afterwards. I think this will be a brilliant opportunity to discuss effective campaigning strategies as demonstrated by the huge campaigning efforts for marriage equality.

After the discussion, we will jump straight to making our posters and t-shirts for our Day of Silence. Please remember to bring you own t-shirts for decorating! If you don’t have any spare, don’t worry, we will also have materials to hopefully make badges and material signs to pin on.

Our Publicity Officer, Nikola, is going to discuss how we can use Facebook and Twitter to promote the event ourselves and detail our plans for a publicity launch on the day. Most of this will involve using Thunderclap, which is a method of mass simultaneous posting on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. Sign up to it and add the message you want to appear on your wall. Once you have added your message, this will be posted automatically for all of us at the same time – Wednesday 20th at 12 noon. How cool is that! Here’s the link. We need 100 people to sign up so get your friends to add their names as well.

Wednesday 20th November: Day of Silence and Jamnesty!

This is a very important day for lots of reason. It is the Transgender Day of Remembrance, the day of the first vote on the equal marriage bill at the Scottish Parliament, and of course our Day of Silence and Love is a Human Right Jamnesty.

Our Day of Silence is about solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community and recognition of the silencing effect that bullying, discrimination and persecution has on people who identify as LGBTQ+. We will be promoting this solidarity action with the t-shirts that we are decorating at the meeting on Tuesday and putting up the posters that we will have completed around campus. We will also be launching a Facebook publicity campaign using Thunderclap (as mentioned above). Make sure you sign up to it!

Jamnesty tickets are selling quickly so please don’t forget to bring the right amount of money to get all the tickets you need on Tuesday. I will not be giving away any more tickets unless they are paid for so make sure you know how many you need and get friends to give you the money. Of course there will be some tickets on the door so if you/your friends are not 100% sure if you can make it then you will still be able to come. Tickets on the door are £4.

The Equality Network has organised an equal marriage rally to take place outside the Scottish Parliament from 12.30pm till 2pm ahead of the vote on the marriage equality bill. If you are free during the day and want to head to Edinburgh to take part, here are the details.

Thursday 21st November: Positive Action in Housing Food Bank Proposal

STAR (Student Action for Refugees) are holding a meeting at 12noon in the Fraser Building to discuss setting up a food bank for the charity Positive Action in Housing. Unfortunately their website seems to be down at the moment but here is their Facebook page. This is a charity whose work includes helping asylum seekers and refugees who are experiencing destitution and the food bank would help to provide the much needed aid for those who have been made homeless during the asylum process. They are one of very few places that can help destitute asylum seekers as they provide an emergency fund and shelter.

Please feel free go along if you are interested in helping to formulate plans for the food bank on campus.

Have a great weekend and see you on Tuesday!

Ruth

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Tuesday 12th November: Our Right to Education, Write for Rights and FGM

Hi everyone,

I know this is the stressy essay time of year but hang in there, you’ll make it! Also, we have Jamnesty to look forward to so remember to get your tickets on Tuesday and bring back money/spare tickets if you have taken any away to sell.

Next meeting: Right to Education, Write for Rights and FGM

On Tuesday Debbie is going to talk to us about our right to education. We are focusing on this as part of the ‘Right to Education Week’ which was established to raise awareness of the many Palestinians who are being denied access to education in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

After this discussion, we will be looking at the Write for Rights campaign, which AIUK launched earlier this month. There are 13 cases that Amnesty are focusing on and asking us to get involved with. Some of these are specific to women’s rights, our current campaign, and therefore we can focus on these.

The final part of our meeting will be on Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). Jana will take this part of the meeting as she has studied this as part of her course. We deliberately decided to make this last so that anyone who thinks that this will upset them and does not want to hear about it can leave earlier. This presentation has been designed to be the most informative but least distressing and Jana will give an introduction to what she will cover so that you can decide whether or not you want to stay.

Tuesday 19th November: Guest Speaker – Scottish Transgender Alliance

A reminder that Nathan Gale from the Scottish Transgender Alliance (part of the Equality Network) will be coming to talk to us, so we are really looking forward to hearing from him. We will also take part in their postcard campaign and discuss how to include this at Jamnesty.

Wednesday 20th November: Day of Silence and Jamnesty!

Day of Silence – All day on campus/at home/in your bed/at work/wherever you are in solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community

Thanks to Debbie and Alex who visited the SRC drop-in, the SRC are going to publicise our Day of Silence via social media and try to get it in the next SRC mailing if that comes out beforehand.

We thought of buying white t-shirts so that we can decorate them with our GU Amnesty stamp and solidarity messages. Jana has looked into these and the cheapest are £4.50 ethical and fair-trade so we can discuss whether or not to go for these.

Jamnesty: Halt 2, Woodlands Road, doors open 7:30pm, tickets £3/£4 on the door

Of course we have Jamnesty in the evening, which we are all super excited for! Please remember to get your tickets in advance as they are selling fast. You can get tickets at the meetings, and you can take tickets away for friends that you know are coming. You don’t need to pay for these at the time, I’ll make a note of who is taking away tickets and can collect money the week after.

Now get back to that coursework you’re supposed to be doing,

Ruth

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Meeting on Tuesday 5th November: Women’s Rights and Upcoming Events!

BOO!!

Happy Hallowe’en everyone.

This one’s early because it is indeed the Student Conference this weekend and then the next time we meet it will be November! Talk about scary.

If you missed our meeting this week, Dominyka has written the blog, so check it out. I can now report that we have photos from the GUU, SRC and GUSA to add to our LGBT photo action. You can find them all on our website thanks to our Website Manager Rob who does a lot of hard work with that camera.

Next meeting: Tuesday 5th November, Committee Room 1, QMU

We are moving onto our next campaign – women’s rights with a focus on India. Dom is putting together a presentation that looks at the recent gang rape case in India and the subsequent changes in law with regards to reinstating the death penalty for certain forms of sexual violence. However, it has been largely overlooked that there are certain forms of rape that are still considered legal. This meeting will be a good opportunity to discuss what really ought to have been changed in India in terms of legal protections for women.

The first plenary at the Student Conference is ‘Women in Afghanistan – in the news for the wrong reasons’. Those of us who are attending will hopefully have lots to talk about after listening to the various speakers. This was in fact Amnesty UK’s October campaign for student groups, so we will cover this on Tuesday as well.

We are hoping to end the meeting at 6pm for mobdro free download those of you who have plans for bonfire night. If you don’t have plans and wish you did, you can join those of us who are heading to Glasgow Green after the meeting for the fireworks. Remember warm clothes!

Film Event: Wednesday 6th November, 12-2pm 217A Gillmorehill Centre

Screen Seminars at Glasgow – Women making documentaries in the Arab world

One of our members pointed this very well timed event taking place next Wednesday, right after the beginning of our women’s rights campaign. And it’s on campus, even better.

‘Filmmaking in the Middle East is often a matter of idealism and activism, especially in the case of women documentary makers. In spite of harsh censorship, conservative morals and a lack of investment, women have found ways of subtly negotiating dissidence in their films, something that is coming to light very clearly since the ‘Arab Revolutions’. In this talk I will introduce the aesthetic and ethic practices by the very first women making documentaries in the Middle East.

‘A historical overview of the struggles by women making documentaries will be supported by images and clips taken from documentaries by the pioneering women of Arab documentary making, e.g. Jocelyne Saab (Lebanon), Ateyyat El Abnoudy (Egypt), Selma Baccar (Tunisia) and Assia Djebar (Algeria).’

Tuesday 19th November: Guest Speaker – Scottish Transgender Alliance

I know we had our last meeting on LGBT rights this week but there is actually still more to come, yay! Nathan Gale from the Scottish Transgender Alliance (part of the Equality Network) will be coming to talk to us and we can take part in their postcard campaign. We are delighted that he can make it and after that we will have achieved everything that members suggested we do in terms of events for LGBT rights this semester. So that’s something to celebrate!

Wednesday 20th November: Day of Silence and Jamnesty!

Day of Silence – All day on campus/at home/in your bed/at work/wherever you are in solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community

Jamnesty: Halt 2, Woodlands Road, doors open 7.30pm, tickets £3/£4 on the door

We have begun looking into t-shirts for our Day of Silence and Maisie is emailing Mobdro Online TV the SRC to make sure that a message is sent to every student telling them about our plans. We thought of buying white t-shirts so that we can decorate them with our GU Amnesty stamp and solidarity messages. We’ll let you know next week how much this will be and see if you want to go ahead with ordering the t-shirts. Whatever we decide, we need something visible for those taking the pledge to be silent and those who are supporting – everyone is welcome to take part so encourage friends outwith the society to join in too.

Ali has been busy finding the best deals for printing the LGBT campaign photos for decorating the Halt 2 and also for creating a poster collage. We are hoping to have big posters in the QMU, GUU and SRC to publicise our solidarity action on that day.

Of course we have Jamnesty in the evening, which we are all super excited for! Please remember to get your tickets in advance as we are almost through our first batch of 30. You can get tickets at the meetings, and you can take tickets away for friends that you know are coming. You don’t need to pay for these at the time, I’ll make a note of who is taking away tickets and can collect money the week after.

Spook to you soon,

Ruth

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Meeting on Tuesday 29th October and our Pub Quiz Today (Sunday)!


Hi everyone,

Welcome to our new members! It’s lovely to still have people joining the society. If you missed the meeting, you can read Ali’s blog on what happened.

I hope you are all remembering our PUB QUIZ TODAY!! Looking forward to seeing you then! We will be starting at 7.30pm in Jim’s Bar, QMU and those of you who are bringing home-baking, thank you in advance, we will add them to the stall with our tote bags.

Conflict-Free Campus Initiative

If you didn’t make this meeting (2 weeks ago), you can read the blog to see what this is all about. Some people who were there said that they would ask certain lecturers if they would support the campaign – please do this is you haven’t already. I will also remind folk on Tuesday!

Next meeting – Tuesday 29th 5pm, QMU

We have been unsuccessful in finding another meeting room for Tuesday so will still be in Committee Room 1.

Unfortunately the Equality Network and Scottish Transgender Alliance do not have anyone who can come and talk to us on Tuesday, but there is a small chance of getting a speaker towards the end of term leaving us with the opportunity to show a recent documentary featuring Stephen Fry who has travelled to various countries where the gay community face persecution, violence and potentially the death penalty.

As this is officially our final LGBT rights meeting, we were hoping to finish with a quick letter writing action to the International Olympic Committee to send with our photos.

Debbie will be bringing along our previous Secret Policeman’s Ball posters so that we can think about the design for this year, and for those of you who want to enter the competition, this is an opportunity to get started!

November Campaign – Women’s Rights with a focus on India

For those of you who have just joined us, we voted this as our 2nd campaign of the year. At Tuesday’s meeting we will have a discussion about what particular topics to cover in our meetings in November and possible campaign actions we want to do.

Day of Silence

Wednesday 20th November – Day of Silence

‘The National Day of Silence is a day of action in which students across the country vow to take a form of silence to call attention to the silencing effect of anti-LGBT bullying and harassment in schools.’

Although the date for this is in April and focuses on schools in the USA, we thought this was a brilliant solidarity action and even better when we can end our Day of Silence with our Jamnesty gig.  We will invite the LGBTQ+ Society to take part with us and anyone else who wants to join in is welcome to, so spread the word!

Love is a Human Right Jamnesty

Wednesday 20th November, The Halt 2 (Woodlands Road), 7.30pm

Well the banners are looking amazing! Thank you to everyone last week who helped make them J Ali is printing off all of our LGBT campaign photos as well so that we can stick these up all over the venue.

We are going to start selling tickets for this event because the Halt 2 need to know numbers in advance in order to organise staffing for the night. For this reason we decided to make tickets £3 in advance and £4 on the door- so remember to get yours on Sunday at the Pub Quiz, or at our next meeting.

See you later on!

Ruth

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