Archive

Posts Tagged ‘nick mule’

Queer Ontario Thanks All its Volunteers for a Fabulous Pride Weekend

July 3rd, 2011 Comments off

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Hello Everyone

.
This is a post-Pride shout out to all those that made this past week possible regarding Queer Ontario (QO)’s presence at this year’s Pride Festivities in Toronto.  All of your contributions are greatly appreciated as we otherwise would not have been able to participate to the extent we did.  This included:
.
– Marching in three (3) marches: Stonewall T.O., Trans March and Pride Parade
– Co-hosting a community kitchen with Blackness Yes at Stonewall T.O.
– Cheering on participants in the Dyke March
– Setting up and staffing a QO table in the Community Fair for both Saturday and Sunday
– Ordering snazzy t-shirts featuring the QO logo
– Making placards
.
In addition our collaborative work continued, sometimes working (shared Community Fair table with the Ontario Federation of Labour [OFL]) and sometimes not (marching with the Canadian Civil Liberties Association [CCLA], as we couldn’t find each other).
.
Many thanks are extended to all who contributed (I’m refraining from naming people, as I’m bound to forget someone), both big and small, for pulling each of the above events together as your participation was key to their success.
.
Without a doubt and judging by all the comments I’ve received, the biggest shout out goes to the person behind the coordination of all these events being Queer Ontario’s Secretary Martin Otarola.  Quietly, but conscientiously toiling away in the background, Martin orchestrated the planning of each of these events, having to deal with numerous uncertainties throughout and last minute changes, yet did so with precision and all as cool as a cucumber.  We really owe Martin a lot of credit for the success of QO’s participation in this year’s Pride Toronto Festivities.  A big shout out thank you to Martin as we are so fortunate to have you!
.
Thank you everyone, now let’s all focus on recovering.
.
Nick Mulé
Chairperson,
Queer Ontario

Queer Ontario Thanks You For Our Success at Stonewall TO

June 27th, 2011 Comments off
Queer Ontario (QO) would like to express our thanks to all those who contributed to making our involvement in Stonewall TO yesterday such a huge success.
.
We participated in the Stonewall TO march with our political messages along with other politically minded groups and individuals sending a powerful message to the City of Toronto, Pride Toronto and any funders of official Pride events, that the essence of pride is not based on funding from corporations or government bodies or the political will (or lack thereof) of particular politicians, but rather by our own grassroots desire for equity and liberation.  It was both exhilarating and reaffirming to take over the streets from Queen’s Park to the 519 and assert our presence on our terms.  Thanks are extended to the QO volunteers who prepared the signs for this march.
.
Once at the 519 QO in collaboration with Blackness YES! hosted a highly successful Community Kitchen that fed between 300-400 people.  This really contributed to a strong sense of community to be able to feed our own with nutritious food on a pay-as-you-can basis.  Thanks are extended to all volunteers who contributed to this initiative, from pre-planning, shopping, food prep, set up, serving, take down to clean up.  Special thanks are extended to lead volunteers Alana and Davina of QO and Craig and Marcus of Blackness YES! This turned out to be an enormous success only made possible by the contribution of numerous committed volunteers.
.
We are now officially into Pride Week and as such, stay tuned for upcoming notices of how you can get involved in participating with Queer Ontario in the Trans March, Dyke March, Pride Parade and staffing the QO table at the Pride Community Fair.
.
Happy Pride Everyone!
.
Nick Mulé
Chairperson,
Queer Ontario