Road To Creating Change Houston 2014 Diary-Changes

I posted my initial Creating Change 2014 Diary back in May not long after we had our initial interest meeting with the goal in this ongoing series of posts being to give you readers a ringside seat what it's like to be part of the planning for one of the largest LGBT conventions in the nation.

It will be taking place in my hometown January 29-February 2 for the first time ever.  It's also my first Creating Change I'll be in the house for since 1999 and I can't wait.      

We have Host Committee meetings scheduled on the first Tuesday of every month at the Montrose Center in which we get together and review the overall progress of organizing Creating Change 2014 Houston style.

At the host committee meetings the 15 different subcommittees report on how they are progressing in organizing their respective portions of the CC14 conference.  We get updates from the Host Committee chairs about things CC National wants and needs us to know and what they are doing to support us on the various subcommittees so we're all on the same unified organizational page.  It also gives those of us on the various planning subcommittees an opportunity to ask questions directed at the convention co-chairs and get a big picture sense of where we are on our CC14 organizing journey at that particular point in time. 

The remaining Host Committee meetings in addition to the rapidly approaching August 6 one are scheduled for September 3, October 1, November 12, December 3, and January 7.  So if there are any of you peeps in the Houston area still wanting to do your part to help put CC14 together, there's still time for you to join us. 

The November 12 meeting is on the second Tuesday because we have a Houston city election happening on November 5 in which we'll be busy trying to ensure that Mayor Annise D. Parker will be speaking to you peeps as we roll out the rainbow carpet for you in January.   

We're bursting at the seams proud of the fact that since 2009 Houston has the distinction of being the largest city in the US to have elected an openly gay mayor.  If things break right, Mayor Parker will not only be standing in front of you CC14 attendees for her third term, we TBLG Houstonians hope we'll have another distinction to brag about in terms of being the largest city to elect an openly trans city councilmember  

 
We've held our June 4 and July 2 Host Committee meetings since my last diary post with the next one scheduled for August 6.  The 15 subcommittees are starting to solidify in terms of their leadership ranks, membership, getting zeroed in on their tasks now that Pride Month is over and all the organizing that revolves around that event is done.  We've gone through the initial brainstorming phase of our CC14 planning and are discussing and fleshing those ideas out.in the various subcommittees

We even have a website and Facebook page to keep you abreast of what's happening and did some get the word out 'CC14 is coming' events during Houston Pride. 

How much organizing is done around Houston Pride we got an unexpected taste of when we discovered our June 4 Host Committee meeting at the Montrose Center was scheduled for the same day as one the Houston Pride Committee was having.  The room we normally hold our committee meeting in was double booked and we got bumped to another smaller one around to corner on the same floor.   

It was an interesting dilemma because some of our CC14 folks were also committed to representing at that meeting the various community organizations planning to take part in Pride.  It set up the situation where many of them, including my committee chair Melissa were rushing back and forth down the hall in order to attend both. 

As the POC Hospitality committee admin I was taking notes during this meeting anyway and was not only keeping her updated as to what was transpiring in our host committee meeting, but was prepared to give our committee report if she happened to be out of the room when Bryan or Christina called on us to do our report which is exactly what happened.

Speaking of the POC Hospitality committee, that chaotic June 4 Host Committee meeting also exposed the major weakness in us trying to trying to hold our POC Hospitality committee meetings just before the main Host Committee meeting.  Good idea, just didn't work, so we decided to find a different night and spot in order to conduct our business which turned out to be a Cafe Express location on Kirby Drive.  It's not far from the Montrose gayborhood and the Southwest Freeway.  It's fairly quiet, has food and drinks in case we get hungry and is centrally located enough for all of us on the committee in this ginormously spread out city to get to. 

Our committee also increased in size to 10 members and I got elevated to become the vice chair of it.  I'm handling both the vice chair responsibilities and the admin duties for now, but when we have that next meeting I'll need to hand that job off to someone else.  

The name of the POC Hospitality committee also changed to the Racial Diversity Committee.  Augie Augustine, our supervising co-chair pointed out to CC National last month in response to some complaints about it that the term 'person of color' gets erroneously interpreted to mean only Black people.  In some quarters, especially in the South there's a negative connotation to it.   I don't have a problem with the POC term, but others did to the point where a name change was suggested to either the "Diversity" Committee or "Multicultural" Committee.

The name change was approved by CC National, and now we're running with it because that uncertainty about the committee name did have us in a slight promotional holding pattern.   Now that we know it's officially the Racial Diversity Committee, we can continue to move forward on our outreach plans, programming, and get laser beam focused on getting our budget submitted with our next meeting scheduled for July 31.

Remember when I told y'all that the Creating Change all time fundraising record of $25,000 was in serious danger?  Fundraising has been handling their business since May and already hit that target.   We 're shooting to have 4000 people in attendance at this event with at least 500 of that record number of people from Texas.

The call has also gone out for Creating Change 2014 Workshop proposals.  Submission deadline is September 30 and you can click this link for more info about how to do so if you're interested. . 

The Houston Creating Change 2014 team realizes the clock is ticking and January will be here before we know it.   We're still focused on our overarching goal of making Creating Change 2014 a memorable, Houston flavored experience that reflects the diversity of our wonderful city and LGBT community and I hope you join me and our team at the Hilton Americas Hotel for it. 

We have a lot of work still to do to make that vision a reality. 

Road To Creating Change Houston 2014 Diary

Ever wondered what it was like or what goes on to not only plan a convention, but make them run smoothly?   Well, it takes a lot of work from dozens of committed people to plan it in the year before the event date and hundreds of volunteers during the event to make it happen.

In the world of large conventions, especially in the GLBT community, one of the largest is Creating Change.   I think you've read in these electronic pages how excited and thrilled I am along with the Houston LGBT community to have the premiere TBLG conference coming to Houston in 2014 for the first time on our end of I-45. 

Some little city on the northern end of I-45 has held it twice.  Gratuitous civic rivalry shade thrown at Dallas over, back to post.

I'm excited that many of you will be coming to my hometown and the Hilton Americas Hotel because it'll be the first Creating Change I've been able to attend since 1999.  That's way too long. 

I've been to several interest meetings since the rumors started flying that we were going to possibly get Creating Change last June.   But now the reality is sinking in that we are a mere nine months away from the January 29-February 2 dates we have scheduled for it. 

At 7 PM CDT in the Montrose Center the work began to organize the massive task of putting together Creating Change 2014, Houston style.

Our co-chairs for the 2014 event have already been selected.  They are Bryan Hlavinka, Christina Gorczynski, Augie Augustine and Lou Weaver.  They are not only the faces of our convention,  they have the task of overseeing the 15 subcommittees that are going to do the nuts and bolts work of helping to assemble CC14.

Those subcommittees are Development and Fundraising, Local Promotion and Outreach, Volunteers, Programming, Youth Support, Elders Support, Disability Hospitality, Bisexual Hospitality, Community Housing, Local Hospitality and Information, 12-Step Recovery, Spiritual Needs, People of Color Hospitality, Transgender Hospitality, and Media/Public Relations.  

The four subcommittees I was interested in were People of Color Hospitality, Transgender Hospitality, Media/Public Relations, and Programming.  

However out of the four that appealed to me, I could only pick one to focus my primary efforts on.  I was concerned about what would happen when my fall speaking schedule cranked up.  I didn't want to spread myself too thin or take leadership in one and my speaking schedule started pulling me all over the country to the point that the subcommittee's work would suffer.   So I decided to focus on People of Color Hospitality and I'd offer my help to the others I was interested in if it was wanted or needed.  

Of course, Media and Programming filled up fast along with.Transgender Hospitality.   I decided to join People of Color Hospitality as the one I'd focus my efforts on and signed up for that one.   

After a few minutes I met the people who I would be spending the next several months ensuring that our piece of Creating Change 2014 is well organized and run.   We're responsible for ensuring the People of Color Hospitality suite would have the Houston flavor we're all seeking to project to the world when y'all come here and ensuring that it and CC14 reflects our diverse community. 

After we selected our chair (Melissa) and co-chair (Ryan) (nope, was too slow on the draw so I'm the admin for it) we didn't waste any time trading contact information, setting up a meeting date and agreeing to a time that fits all our schedules for our subcommittee meetings.   We got started bouncing initial ideas and visions off each other as to the collective result we wanted to achieve.

The same thing was happening with the other 14 subcommittees the people in attendance at last night's meeting were committing themselves to in that room and the one next door. 

You can follow our efforts on Twitter @CC14Houston, we have a Facebook and Google groups set up. And yeah people, the $25,000 record fundraising target for a Creating Change is in serious danger of falling.  We ain't playing about obliterating that record.   We're also shooting for 4000 conference attendees for CC14.

For those of you in the Houston area who missed last night's meeting, it's not too late for you to join in the fun of planning this event.  The next meeting is happening on June 4 at the Montrose Center starting at 6:30 PM CDT and we have them scheduled through January 2014.   You can also get in contact with the co-chairs and they can plug you into one of the committees they oversee.

And I'll be keeping y'all posted through my window on the process.

Creating Change 2014 Is Finally Houston Bound!

The curtain has closed on another wildly successful Creating Change Conference in the ATL, and now the hosting torch for this premier community event is being passed to my hometown for 2014.

I can tell you right now the Houston rainbow community and yours truly are ecstatic that it is coming here. We are immensely proud of our world class international city which is the largest in Texas and with 2.2 million citizens residing here the fourth largest in the nation.   We're looking forward to having you 3500 plus peeps who attended the 2013 edition of Creating Change join us here in H-town from January 29-February 2, 2014. 

I mentioned in the post I wrote not long after I attended a local interest meeting for it last June, Mayor Parker, the Convention and Visitor's Bureau and our local TBLG community really wanted this event, especially since that little burg 262 miles up I-45 from us has hosted it twice

Yeah, there's no let up in the civic competition between Houston and our state's third largest city, and I can say with certainty that we Houstonians are determined to exceed what Dallas did in 2010. 

What a lot of people don't realize is that Houston has a long and proud progressive history.and the Lone Star imprint on GLBT history has a Houston flavor as well.  

'The Houston GLBT Political Caucus that was founded in 1975 is the oldest such GLBT political organization in the South. The Lawrence v Texas Supreme Court case that took down US sodomy laws had its origins here.  

We have groundbreaking GL leaders such as Ray Hill, the late Rep.Barbara Jordan and Mayor Annise Parker who call our 628 square miles of southeast Texas soil home.  

Transgender history also has a Houston flavor to it as well thanks to a major assist by 'The Godmother of the Trans Civil Rights Movement' in Judge Phyllis Frye.  

There are three living IFGE Trinity Award winners (Phyllis Frye, Vanessa Edwards Foster and moi) that reside inside the Houston city limits.  A fourth Trinity was won by the late Brenda Thomas. 

Some of the early trans community leadership was epicentered in Houston or cut their early activist teeth here like blogger and trans historian Katrina Rose.

We Houston transpeople also have a propensity for starting conferences that fulfill trans community needs of the moment.  ICTLEP was started here by Phyllis in 1992 and now we have the Texas Transgender Non Discrimination Summit that Josephine started in 2009. 

The leadership tradition Judge Frye, Jackie Thorne, Jane Ellen Fairfax and Sarah DePalma started continues with Vanessa Edwards Foster, Lou Weaver, Josephine Tittsworth, Jenifer Rene Pool, Cristan Williams and some award winning African-American blogger y'all might have heard about    

When it comes to the female illusionist and pageant world, Houston is a hotbed for that as well. 

1999 Miss Continental titleholder Tommie Ross, 2012 Miss Gay US of A Lawanda Jackson  Hot Chocolate, the late Naomi Sims, the late Michael Andrews, Shawnna Brooks and Chevelle Brooks are either from here or honed their skills in this area before moving on to fame, fortune and titles elsewhere.  In the development pipeline are more talented people in our Montrose gayborhood clubs who keep that proud tradition going. 

And yes, been a while (1999) since I've attended a Creating Change.  Various schedule conflicts and challenges have kept me from attending my second one.  Many of you let me know last weekend how much you missed me in the ATL and the feeling was mutual.  

Now Creating Change its finally coming to my hometown for the first time ever and I couldn't be happier about it.  
 

I and the Houston GLBT community are chomping at the bit for next January to roll around.  We're ready to roll out the pink carpet for you folks who want to experience some of our world famous Texas hospitality and help facilitate a Creating Change that will help you build your activist organizing skills, friendships, and knowledge base at the same time.

And oh yeah, when you get here, make sure you sample some Blue Bell ice cream before you leave.

President Obama's Message To Creating Change 2013

President Obama sent his taped greetings to the 3500 attendees of Creating Change down in the ATL.

 

NBJC And TPOCC Are In The Creating Change ATL House!

For those of you in the ATL attending Creating Change 2013, my family members at the National Black Justice Coalition and the Trans Persons Of Color Coalition are part of the over 3500 people in the Hilton Atlanta house taking part in this 25th annual gathering nd skills building conference. 

NBJC and TPOCC staff and leadership are there to present some exciting seminars and panel discussions that will take place on Friday and Saturday.   If you wish to see and participate in the events sponsored by these stellar organizations, you can head to the host hotel which is located at 255 Courtland Street NE  Atlanta, GA 30303 and register for Creating Change. .

You can also follow on Facebook and Twitter  ' Like" NBJC on Facebook to check out photos of NBJC at this year's Creating Change. Follow us on Twitter @NBJContheMove and the hash tags #NBJContheMove #CC13 for the NBJC live tweets and photos!

For TPOCC, you can also like them on Facebook, follow them on Twitter @TransPOCC and follow their hash tags #CC13 and #TPOCCatCC13.

A Morning With NBJC:
LGBT Emerging Leaders Briefing

Friday, January 25

9:00am - 10:30am

As an introduction to the work of the National Black Justice Coalition, this presentation is an opportunity for LGBT emerging leaders and stakeholders to meet, network and engage. Attendees will have the opportunity to interact with the NBJC staff and leadership, learn about NBJC's overall mission and strategy, and become acquainted with our specific programs for Black LGBT youth including the Emerging Leaders Council, the White House Policy Briefing for Black LGBT Emerging Leaders, and the NBJC Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCUs) LGBT-Equality Initiative.

National Mobilization Meeting for 50th Anniversary
of 1963 March Washington

Friday, January 25

3:00pm - 6:15pm 

Join the NBJC Bayard Rustin 2013 Commemoration Project as we mobilize and engage LGBTA campuses and communities to take part in 2013 year-long series of international events to mark the 50th anniversary year of the historic 1963 March on Washington for Jobs & Freedom, held August 28, 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC and coordinated by black gay activist Bayard Rustin. In addition to strategy brainstorming sessions in preparation for the anniversary, this workshop will include a 2013 master calendar of activities, a presentation of film clips of the 1963 March, a list of Bayard Rustin resources, and an organizing kit.

  

Presenter: Mandy Carter, National Coordinator

    NBJC Bayard Rustin 2013 Commemoration Project

 

Beyond 2012: Crafting an Agenda for the Black LGBT Community 

Saturday, January 26

10:45am - 12:15pm  

This past administration has made historic accomplishments as it pertains to the advancement of equality for LGBT people in this nation.

From the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, to the signing of the Affordable Care Act, and the President publicly expressing his support for same-sex marriage, it cannot be denied that there were significant political gains on behalf of the LGBT community. As we enter into a new presidential administration and congressional make-up, what are our political goals? What adjustments need to be made to our strategy and messaging? How do we maintain the political gains of the last administration?

 

Trans Women of Color: The Sisterhood

Saturday, January 26

3:00pm - 4:30pm

  

Trans women of color are targets for hate violence and murder on the streets in this country. While the violence happens worldwide the focus will be on the hate experienced in the United States. What can we do to prevent these hate attacks and murders? Please join us as we work together to come up with solutions and share ideas to prevent the hate violence within and from outside of the community.

Moderator: Kylar Broadus, Founder, Trans People of Color Coalition (TPOCC)

'The New Black' Documentary Screening

Saturday, January 26

4:45pm - 6:15pm

Excerpts from The New Black -- a forthcoming documentary that uncovers the complicated and often combative histories of the African-American and LGBT civil-rights movements -- will be screened at this year's Creating Change conference. Specifically, the film examines homophobia in the black community's institutional pillar - the black church and reveals the Christian right wing's strategy of exploiting this phenomenon in order to pursue an anti-gay political agenda.

   

Creating Change 2013 Starts Today In The ATL

In a few hours the 2013 edition of Creating Change will kick off in the ATL (and nope, won't be there for it.) at the Hilton Atlanta hotel.  

This latest edition of the conference will start later today and run until January 27.  If you are in the Atlanta metro area and can attend, I highly recommend you do so.

The 1999 Creating Change conference I attended in Oakland that year jump started my development as an activist. It was a great place to meet many of the people inside and outside the rainbow community human rights rights movement that I collaborated with for various projects over the years.


And it was a lot of fun, too. 

It's also one of those TBLG conferences in which you will see a cross section of people from 18-80 all in one spot.  Creating Change is so packed full of amazing seminars, workshops and panel discussions your toughest decision will be which ones to attend.

One workshop you may consider attending will be conducted by the National Black Justice Coalition, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary year . NBJC will be conducting two workshops on January 25 and 26. 

The ATL also has some amazing attractions away from the hotel to visit such as the MLK Center, the Carter Presidential Center, CNN headquarters, and the World of Coca-Cola just to name a few.

Wish the Task Force and the local organizing committee much success.