Road To Creating Change Houston 2014 Diary-Handling Our Business

Fall is approaching and with the eagerly anticipated relief from our infamous summer heat and humidity comes cooler weather and the knowledge that January 29 will be here sooner than we thought. 

And it's time for another episode of my Creating Change Diary, in which I'm chronicling my observations and keeping track of what's happening as the Houston TBLG community prepares to host Creating Change here in 2014. 

We continue to conduct our monthly host committee meetings at the Montrose Center, in which the 15 subcommittee update everyone on their progress on the first Tuesday of every month.in organizing their piece of a conference in which our goal is to show off the diversity of the fourth largest city in the nation.

At our August 6 meeting, our co-chairs Lou and Christina conducted a Trans 101 Gender Sensitivity skit which highlighted to those of us in attendance for that meeting how to respectfully interact with the trans community and the do's and don't of those interactions.  

There was another committee that changed names like my now named Racial Diversity Committee did back in July.   The Bisexual Hospitality Committee became the Bi-Panfluid Hospitality Committee.   At the just conducted September 3 meeting the Transgender Host Committee's name was changed to the Trans* and Gender Diversity Hospitality Committee. 

I was also reminded just how many movers and shakers in our community are part of this effort when a stylishly dressed Christina conducted our September 3 Host Committee meeting before heading off to a fundraising gala for Mayor Annise Parker.   We are organizing this in the middle of a city election that is getting more active as we passed Labor Day.  We are doing everything we can to ensure that Mayor Parker will get her third term as H-town's leader.   I'm also hoping that Jenifer Rene Pool will be there in January as an openly trans member of our city council.  

The push in August and this month is not only to get our budgets for our various committees together and submit them to fundraising, but for our local community talent to submit our proposals for Creating Change workshops and seminars by September 30.   We're not kidding about having this event showcase our community.

In order to hit our goal of 4000 attendees, we have been showing up at local events and getting the word out that Creating Change is coming to town..  Our outreach teams are not only hitting college campuses, they will will be heading to pride events in Austin and Dallas to talk up Creating Change 2014.  In my capacity as the Racial Diversity Committee co-chair, yours truly has been spreading the words in her radio interviews and when I show up in the Bay Area for Trans H4CK I will be armed with Save the Date cards promoting our conference.

Speaking of the Racial Diversity Committee I co-chair, we're finalizing our budget numbers and have a September 13 meeting to do that, are discussing programming and how we want to decorate our suite.  Our Creating Change team will be doing a walkthrough of the Hilton Americas convention space in October to ensure that whatever accessibility issues that crop up are resolved.

We've even talked to the folks at Discovery Green, the park across the street from the Hilton Americas about having the ice rink open.  Yes, people, it does get cold enough at times in Houston for us to enjoy outdoor ice skating.  The bars in Montrose are also putting together a shuttle bus service from the hotel to the bar complex areas to give you a taste of our LGBT nightlife.

So yes, we can see our Houston flavored Creating Change conference starting to take shape.  But we still have a lot of work ahead of us    For those of you in the Houston area, still not too late for you to join us in this effort.  We have Host Committee meetings scheduled for October 1, November 12, December 3, and January 7 and would love to see you there.