CCQNWA is a volunteer based organisation that organises events and actions for students at Universities across the state. CCQN takes volunteers from all campuses, Murdoch, UWA, Curtin and ECU who form and organising committee to facilitate cross campus queer processes. Among the list of things that CCQNWA organises are The Genderfuck Ball, A Quiz Night, Queer Collaborations, Cross Campus Queer Games, Queer Camp, Fair Day and the Pride Parade. These events happen every year thanks to the organizing committee and the co-convenors who ensure that these things happen successfully.

It’s that time of year when people are finishing their final exams, and save for a few parties, the ‘queer school year’ is over and so is the term of office for CCQN’s 2011 Convenors. I hope you have enjoyed your year and engaged with us as much as possible and are feeling good about 2012. So it’s time to change the guard and we will be having elections to see who will be organizing CCQN in 2012.

Here is a little bit of a job description/criteria for those parties interested in applying.

* Facilitate and organise discussion using a collective decision making process to set actions in motion.
* Work closely with campus representatives and offer support and resources to them
* Be present and represent CCQN on occasions such as O-Days and community events.
* Keep in touch with the collective by organising regular meetings.
* Ensure fundraisers and other annual events take place (pending support from collectives)
* Employ measures to benefit queer students through representation and advocacy with student councils.
* Keep people informed via email, facebook or twitter and let people know what is going on.

That’s just a few points, what you really want to do can be different, innovative or minimalist. If you have a keen interest in community organising and running campaigns then this will be valuable experience for your future career. Let’s face it, university isn’t just about studying, it’s about learning and being a Convenor of CCQN is a great opportunity to do that!

For casual enquiries and expressions of interest, please send an email at CCQN@gmail.com or contact Michael or myself on Facebook. We will be having the first election shortly, and we will be saying thank you and goodbye to Michael who has done amazing things for us all this year and is moving on. The next election will take place early in February next year. In the interim I will be able to help the newly elected convenor learn the ropes and answer questions.

The first elections is happening and the Facebook event will be here momentarily. Watch this space!

Not only is it an amazing experience to be a part of the annual Pride Parade, marching with a community group such as CCQNWA, it is also just thing to get you in the mood for experiencing some of the festive after parties, held at Queer Venues around Perth.  So what is happening after the parade on November 19?  Check it out!

This is one of the two parties endorsed by Pride WA, the official organisers of the parade and festival during Pride Month (including Fair Day, etc).  More than just supporting the community, this lovely event will be graced by legendary Drag Kings of Perth, who are all former or current members of CCQNWA, returning from their exciting and popular performance at Fair Day earlier in October.  The details are as follows -

19th November 2011

Harry’s Bar (73 Francis Street)

9.30pm 2pm,

Tickets: $20 (Pride members) $25 or $30 at the door

Tickets available via: http://pridewa.asn.au/pridewainc/2011/10/%E2%80%98her%E2%80%99-parade-after-party/

The other party endorsed by Pride WA this year is the Connections After Party, which is being called Digital Arcade.  Connections always puts on an awesome night and if you can’t make it to Harry’s Bar, then this is a pretty good alternative.  As always connections donates a large portion of the proceeds back to the community, so you’ll not only be having a great time, but supporting Pride WA in the process.

Connections Nightclub

Saturday November 19th

Tickets $45 (pride members) $50

Tickets available online at

http://pridewa.asn.au/pridewainc/2011/10/pride-parade-after-party-at-connections/

As always, The Court Hotel is throwing a big street party to celebrate the Pride Parade.  Despite using the Pride branding and promoting the parade, this event is not officially a Pride Calendar event, which means the Court is mostly cashing in your Queer dollars.  It’s a great party though – CCQN held a community forum earlier in the year condemning the Court for their lack of contribution to the organisation that puts together a wonderful festival each year.

The Court Hotel

19th November

More details: http://www.thecourt.com.au/streetparty.html

]]> http://ccqn.net/blog/pride-parade-after-parties-101/feed/ 0 http://ccqn.net/blog/be-a-part-of-ccqns-pride-march/ http://ccqn.net/blog/be-a-part-of-ccqns-pride-march/#comments Tue, 25 Oct 2011 23:17:40 +0000 Adele Knowles http://ccqn.net/?p=1776

Coming up on the horizon is the annual Pride Parade through the streets of Northbridge.  CCQNWA has had an ongoing presence in the previous years as a prominent member of the Perth Queer Community.  Each year volunteers from various collectives get together and build a float which is loaded onto a motorcade and slowly taken through the bright Northbridge lights with a contingent of and out and proud students representing the Cross Campus Queer Network of WA.  It’s that time of year and it’s happening now!  We’d love you to get involved in anyway you can contribute – Our float will be whatever you make it, the theme this year given to us by Pride WA is ‘For Our Community’.

We want to get an estimate of how many people are interested in contributing to the Parade campaign this year, so I’ve set up a Facebook poll on the CCQNWA group page – https://www.facebook.com/groups/6706854685/- if you could take just a minute to complete it, that information will help us get some idea of what we will be undertaking for the Parade, which happens on the 19th on November.  There is still plenty of time, and you can always change your mind, but please be honest so we can make the most of this campaign.

There is also an organising committee which will help facilitate busy bees and make sure we run on budget etc.  If you are interested in being on the organising committee for the 2011 parade, please email ccqnwa@gmail.com.

In other news, there will be an election meeting very soon after all Universities have completed their exams which will decide who will convene CCQNWA next year.  Since I (Adele) began a bit later in the year, a second election will be held at the beginning of next year for the second convenor position.  This means I can help facilitate the handover and help the incoming convenor discover what we have done in 2011 and what their responsibilities will be.  If you have any questions about elections and the possibility of nominating, please send us an email – ccqnwa@gmail.com.

We are finally having another meeting of the Cross Campus Queer Network, now that Pride weeks have come and gone at the various campuses there are some new items on the agenda that need to be discussed. This meeting will be happening at Curtin University in the Queer Room via the Student Guild. The meeting will be taking place on the 25th October at 6pm until 8pm – Please attend if you can!  We need to get volunteers for the float and to help us figure out what we are doing.  In case you don’t know the theme for the parade it is ‘For Our Community’.

Below is a list of items we need to address at this upcoming meeting.

* Organizing our float for the Parade on the 19th of November, subsequent busy bees and getting collectives involved

* Liv Hopkins, NUS National Queer Officer is visiting and wants to catch up with everyone.

* An end of year, post exams event

* Nominations for CCQN convenors for next year and discussion on handover

* Updates and contacts for newly elected Campus Queer officers

* Funding proposal AQSN

* Date for the next meeting, which will include elections.

Any other items that anyone would like to add to the agenda. Please feel free to contact us so that it can be added for the night.

Long time, no post.  Sorry for the delay, but we’ve been working through some administrative obstacles on the website, including renewing the domain and getting back into the swing of things in semester 2.  So far we’ve had Queer Collaborations, Queer Camp, an Equal Love Rally, Pride Week at Murdoch, Fair Day and are currently in the middle of Pride Week at UWA.  It is October now, so we are getting towards the end of the year, but that doesn’t mean we are going to slow down!

Tonight the UWA Queer Collective is having a Bingay night at the Queens.  The details are here https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=227436077311224.  If it isn’t too late, why not come down and check it out?  Tomorrow they will be having a movie night, featuring the United States of Tara!

Then our third fabulous week of Pride kicks off at Curtin University thanks to Nick who’s been busy ‘shufflin’ and getting 5 days of fun organised for everyone… Here is the link to the Facebook details… http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=123619031075556.  Look out for a movie night, a games night, a bake sale, a bbq and another movie night!  So no excuses for being bored, if you don’t have exams, why not head over and support Pride month.

Think you can relax? I doubt it!  Why not get dressed up and head over to the Masquerade Ball http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=137850759620833 at the Murdoch University Tavern happening on Thursday 20th of October.  Tickets are $15 available online or via the Murdoch Queer department.  If you’ve got any further questions, you can email us ccqnwa@gmail.com.

There is also a protest happening on October 28 to protest the Commonwealth Heads of Government.  This protest is to get the attention of the world, as the leaders of the Commonwealth nations gather to have chats.  It would be a good show of solidarity of people chose to support this event which the Equal Love organisation is endorsing.  Here is the link http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=142258262529866&ref=ts.

You might get a chance to breathe, but start thinking about ideas for the Pride Parade, which is happening early Novemeber, the theme is For Our Community – we will again be building a float for this year’s parade and would love to have as many people involved as possible.  Just email us if you have an idea, or talk to one of the Queer Officers out and about on campus.

It’s nice to be back on the internets after a few delays, I look forward to keeping everyone in touch!  That’s all for now!

Reposted from http://changethink.wordpress.com/2011/08/15/qc-social-media/

Many of today’s conferences work to actively utilise social media and online spaces for the engagement of participants – before, during and even after a conference. Mediums such as Twitter or Facebook can be used to share updates in the lead up to a conference, to engage new and current participants, and to allow discussion at the conference to be accessible to all – whether they are attending other sessions, or not able to attend at all. This also means that the information shared and networks developed at a conference extend and last beyond the physical duration of the conference itself.

The use of social media at student conferences in Australia has long been a sideline issue – used by audience members to complain and moan, but not critically assessed and used as an engagement option for conference participants. This is a shame – as members of the generation leading the uptake, use and innovation of social media, it should seem natural that these young people take social media use at conferences as a given. As an ex student hack, and a person with a long standing interest in the role technology can play in participation and engagement, it was a pleasant surprise to see an active attempt to incorporate social media into the 2011 Queer Collaborations Conference.

Organised by the Western Australian Cross Campus Queer Network in July 2011 (a network of University Student Queer / Sexuality & Gender collectives), the conference brought together students of diverse sexuality and gender from around Australia to discuss academic, social and political issues related to gender and sexuality in Australia. And even though I passed up my yearly ritual of attending the conference a few years ago, I was pleasantly surprised this year to find I was able to observe and engage in the discussions and issues raised during the conference via social media.

The organisers of the conference worked to include participants online via:

Updates in the leadup to the conference
Updates about the organising of the conference, including key speakers, registration information, and information about events – was posted on the event website, CCQN.net blog, and via Facebook and Twitter. This served to keep people engaged and looking forward to the conference, and provided shareable material to engage new participants.

The conference Facebook Account generated 388 likes, and was a valuable publications stream – allowing organisers to drop information about the conference (i.e. conference agendas) into the news feed of followers’ Facebook accounts.

Formal use of Twitter
The organisers used the hashtag #QC2011 to provide an ongoing Twitter stream where participants could get updates from the organising collective,  engage in live discussion throughout the conference, and via which live and online participants could share, discuss and debate content from the conference. The use of Twitter at conferences provides a valuable realtime discussion about session content that is simply not possible offline between sessions, and makes it accessible to all.

For their first formal foray into conference Twittering, the conference generated 535 Tweets – not bad for the first run. The most popular link was a meme about circular reasoning shared by @sbrotherhood (not surprising to any conference veteran).

QC Get’s Better
Finally, as any QC veteran will know, Queer Collaborations is a emotionally stressful and volatile conference, due to the wide range of personal and emotional experiences that are covered, debated and even attacked at the conference. A refreshing addition to this environment was an online video campaign started by organisers on the final days entitled “QC Get’s Better” – highlighting participant experiences and reassuring participants that QC does get better.

Overall, it was refreshing to see some active attempts to bring discussion and participation online, to make it more accessible and in depth than has previously seen at this conference. While these forays may seem like no brainers for some, they make all the difference in deepening conference engagement.

Comment on this post at http://changethink.wordpress.com/2011/08/15/qc-social-media/

Saturday August 13 was the 7th anniversary of the ban on same sex marriage. In 2004 Howard the Coward made it illegal for same sex people in love to have their relationships legally recognized by the law and thus began the ongoing actions against the law, which we have come to know as the Equal Love, Equal Marriage campaigns which happen a couple of times each year. The rallies are organised by Equal Love, a group who’s sole purpose is to see the unjust law removed and full equality awarded to queer peoples and non-binary relationships.

As it was in March earlier this year, the Cross Campus Queer Network was asked again if they would like to speak at the August rally, and we confirmed that someone would speak, which ended up being two people, Michael Pilkington and Adele Knowles. As representatives of the National Union of Students it seemed appropriate that we both speak to address what I consider to be the most critical age for queer people in asserting and discovering themselves as people of diverse sexuality and gender.

Other speakers on the day included Greens member Lynn McLarent, Isabelle Lake from the WA Gender Project, Labour MP Lisa Baker, Union Representative Carolyn Smith and performances from Kodi Pendant and MissDD Demerits.

Amidst the speaking and cheering from the crowd, a number of people broke the law and got married under the divine decree of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.

The highlight for me was the march itself, which took stopped traffic, for not one, but two laps of the usual protest circuit through Forest Chase and the Hay St Mall area. It was great to hear the chants from the crowd and supporters as united the march rallied support from onlookers, some of whom joined us in our protest, and most noticeably there were no naysayers / counter protesters to be seen!

Please enjoy the following videos of the speeches given by Adele and Michael at the rally!

Queer Camp is happening from August 5-7 at Forest Edge Waroona.  Queer camp is an event that happens almost every year and it is a great chance to take some time off and relax with other members of the collective to get to know each other a bit better.  Queer camp is a friendly and constructive space to participate in a number of activities, but for the most part it’s just a break from the every day life spent with the other people in the Cross Campus Queer Network.  The invitation is open to friends as well, so don’t be afraid to bring a mate or a partner along with you.

The cost of camp is $70 which is very affordable considering the new Carbon tax… And we’d love to have everyone along!  You can register and pay online via paypal here http://ccqn.net/queer-camp or just fill in forms ASAP when University resumes shortly.  There is always lots to do and this year includes the Cross Campus Queer Games, which should be fun as well.   There is also a Facebook Event http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=226728070673847&ref=ts.  Please remember the more the merrier!

This was meant to be uploaded to the website earlier, but due to computer troubles, there hasnt been an opportunity to make that happen. But here it is – Issue 3 of QT a Queer Collaborations special! I hope you take the time to read and enjoy this.

Remember QT is a volunteer content zine, supplemented with articles from the Perth Queer Community. If you’d like to contribute something send your piece to ccqnwa@gmail.com

QT Issue 3 – Queer Collaborations

We’re now less than a week away from the start of Queer Collaborations 2011 and to get you prepared for this massive week, we’ve uploaded our final version of the reader as it goes off to print – click here to check it out.

In the reader you’ll find all the basic information on caucuses, workshops, plenaries and discussion forums, as well as some a super useful glossary for some common and non-so-common terms, concepts and general Queer language.

This is also your first look at the final version of the QC2011 timetable – so you can get a head start to planning your week at conference.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the Organising Collective on ccqn.qc2011@gmail.com.

If you’re coming in from interstate, we wish you the safest travels. And to all of our registered delegates, we’ll be seeing you very soon!