Page 2 - Fyne Times Spring 2014

“Music acts like
a magic key, to
which the most
tightly closed
heart opens.”
For 2014, which has begun with huge
disparities worldwide in LGBT rights, we have
chosen Music as our theme for LGBT History
Month. So that quotation from the real Sound
Of Music heroine, Maria Von Trapp, is very
fitting. Our 9th year celebrates the huge
cultural contribution of LGBT people to one
of the Arts.
The last three years we really worked hard to
do a massive amount of education and raising
awareness of LGBTs in the sport, maths,
science and technology worlds. We did, I
think, achieve a great deal and we are proud
we have made a great many inspirational
people visible in those fields who are members
of the diverse LGBT community..
Choosing Music for 2014 was a joy. We are,
of course, blessed by having the fabulous
Elly Barnes who as a Music Teacher topped
the Pink List and who has organised several
amazing heart-warming concerts with school
children and professionals as well as our
launch in Birmingham - a tour de force
compered by the imitable Barbara Nice
who made all the performers, opera singers,
professional musicians, choirs, school students
and politicians feel at ease and able to do their
best to celebrate all things LGBT.
We choose our musicians with care Ethel
Smyth, Benjamin Britten, Bessie Smith and
Angela Morley representing L,G,B and T in
order. They are all creative geniuses in the
own right, pioneers in their work, and in the
LGBT world.
We have had a busy run up to the month and
the exciting news is, we should, after 40 years
of being an active organisation, become a
charity, which we hope will put us on a good
footing for getting better funding. We are a
small group of dedicated activists who make so
much happen. We are all volunteers and the
committee is only 13 people who ensure that
the three faces of our organisation are a success
(Schools OUT LGBT History Month and The
Classroom).
Our focus is to make education a place where
LGBT people in all their diversity can be safe
and be visible. Even now in 2014 there is still
have much to do. Many schools are slow to
pick up the demands of the Equality Act to
1) Eliminate conduct that is prohibited by the
Act, that is discrimination, harassment
and victimization
2) Advance equality of opportunity between
people who share a protected characteristic
and people who do not share it,
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SPRING 2014