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 20^th 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 21^st 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