What do you do as administrator?
The job include volunteer co-ordination, events planning, liaising with the community, and liaising with our volunteer board. But a lot of it is seeing how the Pride Centre can get involved and support the rest of the LBGT community. I’m the person who is ready to help out when a client or someone else from the community comes in.
Pride Week aside, what are some of the more recent goings-on in the LBGT community?
There was a big event at the end of May called the Imperial Sovereign Court of the Wild Rose, which is a group of drag queens who fundraise. They just had their coronation ball. They have a royal court structure, so they have an empress and emperor and a prince and a princess, and they vote new people every year. Otherwise, there are always groups meeting: we have several trans groups, two cross-dressing groups, a bears group, a group called Team Edmonton that does all sorts of physical activity, and groups that meet at the centre, like PFLAG, AA, and CA, and the youth group. So even when there aren’t big events, there is something going on every day of the week.
What service does the centre provide?
The centre is basically a community space for people to come to. In the queer community it’s really important to have safe places, because it’s not always safe to walk down the street in Edmonton, and this is a place where you can come and be out—just be yourself and still be safe. Beyond that we have a drop-in centre; people can use computers, watch TV, we have a library and video library which people can sign up to use. We have a drop-in space downstairs where people can play videogames and eat snacks; and a clothing bank. We also have a seniors drop-in specifically for people over the age of 55.
I noticed on the Pride Centre’s website that you also used to co-ordinate The Youth Theatre Project. What happened to it?
It’s still ongoing; we just took a break for the summer. When you have youth that are really involved in theatre, come summer in Edmonton they start getting involved in the Fringe and Nextfest. But what it is is a group of youth that came together and started discussing issues of bullying that they had faced or homophobia in the community, either from bosses or parents or peers, and they created a series of skits based on those experiences. It’s an anti-bullying project that goes into agencies and schools to educate youth about those issues. So you have youth educating youth about issues through theatre.
