From: keith@earth-sciences.oxford.ac.uk (Keith Refson)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: South Midland motss find home
Date: 6 Dec 91 14:56:30 GMT

A new lesbian gay bisexual centre opened last month in Oxford of all
places. It's being run 100% by volunteers from the local LGB community
and at the moment is open Friday - Sunday as a social drop in space and
is in use all week as meeting space for various groups.

Friday night is the women's night. An alternating mix of quiet chat nights
followed the next week by a party night, dancing, music and the occasional
cabaret. As a rider to this I believe Julie Felix is performing there this
Friday (Dec 6th).

On Saturday afternoon there is a drop in coffee shop. The centre is right
in the heart of Oxford's main shopping area and it's a great place to call
into while shopping. They serve a nice cup of coffee and some great home
baked cakes, just like the W.I really.

Saturday night there is a mixed lesbian & gay disco. The type of music 
varies as do the D.J.s but runs from Hi-n-rgy nights to house rave and
the latest indie chart hits. The licence is normal pub hours, but there
is the occasional late night, the next one is on the 21st of December.

On Sunday there is a buffet lunch, the food is prepared at home by the
volunteers and then brought in. It's nice food and quite cheap, the bars
open and there is live piano music most Sundays. They even have a "Tea
Dance" every 2nd Sunday, with ballroom dancing instructors, camp but fun.

The Sunday night it just opens up as a drop in bar. There's a pool table
and once it can be agreed where to put it I believe a darts board. It's
fairly quite there on a Sunday night, but with plenty of seating it's a good
place to go with a friend for a chat. 

It's nice to see a small town get a centre like this. A place where I can 
go and feel at home, a place where anyone can join in and take part in the
activities of the centre. The other good thing is that the profits go to 
helping the LGB community in Oxford and into improving the facilities of the
centre

Someday maybe every town will have a place like this, because if Oxford
can do this so can every other town and city in the u.k. But, getting
off my soap box, if you're ever in Oxford at a weekend and you're motss
friendly why not drop by?  If you live in or near Oxford and this is
your type of place, join in; the centre wants to expand but needs the
volunteers!
  

It is located in the Northgate Hall, St Michael's Street, (just off
Cornmarket Streer in the very centre of town).   Call in, telephone
(+44 865 200249) or mail Steve Cooper (src@jet.uk) or myself for
further details.


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| JANET   : keith@uk.ac.ox.earth        |   Keith   Refson                   |
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From: liz@fruit-and-fibre.ai.mit.edu (Liz A. Highleyman)
Date: 12 Feb 92 22:45:07 GMT
Newsgroups: soc.bi
Subject: Gender separate groups (was: Ground rules...)

> Dave Berry writes:

 >>Ciaran McHale writes:
 >>1. I know that Manchester, England has separate bi-female a bi-male
 >>groups. I can only guess that the reason for the separate groups was that
 >>the women felt uncomfortable/threatened around the men.

>The Manchester Bi-women's group was set up before the men's group. 

This is also the case with the Boston Bisexual Women's Network.
It was started in 1983 by a group of women who wanted to get 
together with other bi women and talk about issues of bisexuality.
The men's group formed a few years later.  This past year, a
mixed gender group formed because some people did not feel as
comfortable in single-gender groups.  The single-gender groups
still exist, though, and the women's group remains strong.

Sometimes women get together with each other purely for their own
enjoyment of other women.  It's a mistake to assume that women
getting together is somehow a reaction to something bad that men
have done, or because women dislike or are threatened by men.  

-Liz

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Liz A. Highleyman                     MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab
liz@ai.mit.edu                        Cambridge, MA  02139
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Ciaran.
-- 
Ciaran McHale                                                             ----
Department of Computer Science, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland.       \bi/
Telephone: +353-1-7021539 FAX: +353-1-772204 email: cjmchale@dsg.cs.tcd.ie \/
Newsgroups: soc.bi