So, Mondays are back to normal here at GLYNI now, with our usual weekly mix of session work on Mondays and social fun on Fridays. Both nights we open at 6pm, with the session work running 7:30 – 9pm on Mondays with a mid-session break for all you smokers!

This term we hope to have an exciting array of sessions, with particular focus on having one-off speakers in on alternating Mondays to give talks and discussions on what interests YOU. Our calendar >>>>>>>>>>>>> will soon be updated with an agenda, so keep calling back!

No matter how careful you are (and you should be careful everybody!) sometimes you might, through no fault of your own, catch some sort of STD. In partnership with Rainbow Project, we will have sexual health clinics operating on other weeknights, usually once every couple of weeks. Rainbow Project workers will administer any checks you need, as well as offer vaccinations against some STDs such as Hep-B. It is obviously discreet and anonymous. A valuable service indeed if you are even slightly worried you might have caught something… unpleasant. Again, details of this will be posted on our calendar!

Final announcement is to just remind people about our upcoming residential and activity weekend – 22nd – 24th October! There are limited places available and the price is £20 a head, but this is great value – activities include Kayaking, Canoeing, Abseiling, Archery, Climbing Wall, and more! Plus, we have been promised that the volunteer team will be performing a GLYNI Cabaret act! Not to be missed – speak to Mark ASAP to book your place!

Peace, out!

- Matt

GLYNI will be on as usual on Fridays, and throughout August we will be opening our Monday evenings as an additional summer drop-in. So come along, whether you are old or new! Would be great to see some new faces from Pride!

Peace, out!

The event is being held in the Black Box, and begins at 7pm. There are no age restrictions!

Identify as lesbian, bi, gay or trans?

GLYNI’s newest group starts on Monday 24th May in Community Network Craigavon, Church St, Portadown 7pm. If you’re interested in joining, come along.

Email craigavon@glyni.org.uk for more information!!

Come along and get involved, be the founding members of our newest group.

Hope to see some of you there!!

GLYNI

For further information on how to join the group, see the poster below.

Below is the email we received from Youthnet asking us to compile a response. It is going to out to all members, and this will inevitably have impacts across all youth organisations currently in receipt of funding from the Department or other Govt branches.

GLYNI’s regional youth officer is funded by DENI through Youthnet, along with several other projects. This budget is constrained enough without further cuts being made to it. GLYNI also is in recepit of Youth Council of Northern Ireland monies which are paid to Cara-Friend to cover running costs for the rooms we use, as well as rent etc.

If we lose these, or have them reduced, GLYNI’s services to LGBT young people across NI, including supporting our new groups, will be severely affected, and disrupted. Please support us by telling us your views on how you believe GLYNI has helped you or someone you know, and how it is a vital service that needs to be kept at it’s current funding level, or indeed increased. PLEASE!! Thank you, Liamx

Dear Youthnet Member

We are writing to update you on the current funding situation.  We are also urgently seeking information in relation to the impact of proposed cuts or potential cuts on respective staffing positions within your organisation.

At this point, none of the Northern Ireland Departmental Budgets for the period 2010 – 2011 have been agreed by the Northern Ireland Executive and in light of the Easter break, the Executive has now gone into recess until 16 April 2010.

The Department of Education along with all other Government Departments in Northern Ireland is unable at this stage to give any guidance on its budget allocation until the global budget has been confirmed.

Please provide the following information:

• Staff positions potentially under threat or already threatened to include role and responsibilities (provide brief description).
• Relevant Funding Stream(s).
• Relevant Department/ Government Agent from which funding is received.

Please treat this as a matter of priority.  Thank you

We look forward to hearing from you.

Linda Gordon on behalf of Denis Palmer, Director, Youthnet

We have everything, from the special screening of Stonewall’s new FIT film, to creating an effective Anti-Homophobic Bullying Campaign for NI, from meeting with the NIABF Coordinator to meetings with Family Ties and Brook Clinic, as well as inviting the Children’s Commissioner to meet the members on May 17th, to mark International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia.

Over the next couple months, GLYNI will also be planning our participation in Belfast Pride, as well as continuing to update our website and create a fabulous newsletter.

Our drop-in continues to run on Friday nights, with our Peer Educators in training on Friday nights.

It’s all a buzz at GLYNI. So if you’re young (aged 14-25) and L G B or T, or somewhere in between but not quite ‘straight’, feel free to come along. You can join GLYNI through our website!!

Hey and welcome everyone to our newly designed website! We hope you like it, there are still a few things to be tweaked here and there but it’s about time it was unveiled!

You can still get access to all the information from before using the links across the top of the page. This information will soon be undergoing a major refresh and update – so keep coming back! You can also still get the most up-to-date GLYNI event schedule, it is now over on the right of your screen, and PinkNews is still shown on the right too.
New features are aplenty – now, anyone can register for our blog, we want everyone to be able to submit their content and have it displayed proudly on our website. We will have members only discussion pages on various issues, with commenting enabled across all the posts you can leave your feedback on any of our articles as well as submit your own in a simple to use web interface – it’s just as easy as Facebook!

We hope these new features will make up for the temporary suspension of new registrations on our GLYNI Message Board / Forum. Unfortunately, it has been deluged by Russian spambots since this time last year… :( so I have taken the step of preventing new sign-ups. Current users can still access, and all the posts are intact – I removed all the spam (I think!). I will keep it this way until we make a decision on where to go from here with the forums. In the meantime, you have plenty of ways to make your voice heard!

Contribute!

“So Matt, how do I contribute?” I hear you ask? Couldn’t be easier! Firstly, comments are enabled on all pages and posts, meaning you can leave your feedback either anonymously or, if you want people to know who you are ;), you can register for a GLYNI account by using the link *on the right*!

What does registering get you? Well it means that no-one can pose as you in discussions of course :P! If you also have a Gravatar account associated with your email address, your avatar will be shown on comments you make and, in the future, posts you make.
Speaking of posts, did I mention that registered members can submit their own articles, reviews, posts, thoughts, announcements and much more, AND have it displayed right on our homepage? Not only that, but as the website grows, members will gain access to the members only discussion pages, where we could discuss anything and everything?

It really is an exciting new chapter for our website, one which we hope that you will help us create – so sign up now!

Peace out!
-Matt

What did GLYNI get up to in 2009, you might ask? Well congratulations guys, because once again GLYNI had an even more successful year in 2009!
A big move to a new building marked a start of a big boom in numbers – we now have more GLYNI members than ever before, and long may it continue! We had the Young Women in GLYNI designing a fantastic banner, now decorating our great new room, we had another successful Pride parade, and a fantastic residential weekend recently with Corrymeela.
Behind the scenes, we have a supplementary “OUTstanding Youth Work” resource available, and we are dedicated to helping The VOICE in Enniskillen with their work – could it be the start of something big?

Wow. So what DO we have planned for 2010? Well, who knows exactly what the new year will bring, but knowing GLYNI, its bound to be good! So make sure you don’t miss it! We are committed this year to making sure as many people as possible find out about us. The first thing you should do is take note of the calendar at the top of the page, it shows all our events and WILL be kept up-to-date! Next, grab your Facebook login and search for “GLYNI” to join the GLYNI group on Facebook, where you can keep in touch with all the members and get the most up to the minute info there is!

Peace, out!

GLYNI Facebook group, click here!