Re-Classified

Saturday, February 27, 1988
The Concert Hall

In 1988, GCDC organizers faced new challenges recruiting volunteers and continued to struggle with lesbian attendance at dances. The lack of volunteers meant that GCDC didn’t have the capacity to organise a float or an information table for Pride in 1988. However, the NDP Lesbian and Gay Caucus–a GCDC participating group–offered to share their table at Pride to promote the GCDC. In an effort to recruit volunteers, GCDC organized a “Volunteer Night” in September 1988, co-sponsored by the Gay Community Appeal, titled “A Carnival of Community.”

To appeal to lesbians, GCDC discussed recruiting women artists to create posters. In 1988, the male-dominated poster artwork was referred to by organisers as the “poster crisis” in GCDC meeting minutes. At a GCDC Meeting in June 1988, organiser Michael Robinson suggested  “that the GCDC actively seek poster submissions from women and that our poster policy be relaxed when judging submissions which appeal more to women than to men.” This motion failed to receive support, but a revised motion–“that the GCDC more actively seek poster submissions from women,” omitting a commitment to leniency in judging posters that appealed to women–was carried.

At this same meeting in June 1988, Michael Robinson also put forward two additional motions related to women’s participation: 

First, “that the GCDC actively works to inform the women’s community about the benefits of volunteering for our dances through advertisements and articles in the women’s community media.” This was specifically in reference to the policy that volunteers could have their ticket price refunded, since ticket prices were one reason that GCDC dances had low turnout from women. This motion was carried. 

Second, “that a committee be formed to hold a public forum for women to discuss ways that the GCDC dances could be more welcoming and appealing to women. That this committee be given a budget of $300 so that this forum can be well advertised, signed for the hearing impaired, and so that refreshments can be served. The forum should also be wheelchair accessible. The women on the committee are empowered to decide if the committee and the forum are women only. The money for this should be taken from the community outreach fund.” This motion, however, was withdrawn. A new motion, put forward by Dee Paul, proposed instead, “that we draft a questionnaire asking women, ‘What’s lacking at GCDC dances?’ so that it could be distributed at Pride Day and the dance.” This motion was carried. However, these questionnaires were misplaced at the Pride Day dance and the questionnaire was not distributed.