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July 18, 2008

GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE 5

Dancing on the square

A thousand gay square dancers had a real good time in Cleveland

by Anthony Glassman

Cleveland-While the skies were ablaze with color celebrating the birth of the nation, the real fireworks were going on inside the Renaissance Cleveland Hotel on Public Square, where a thousand people were reveling at the 25th anniversary International Association of Gay Square Dance Clubs convention.

With the moniker "Touch a Quarter Century," the event brought in almost 900 people from across the United States, as well a solid contingent from Canada and a few from Japan, Denmark and Taiwan.

Those representing the United States over the Independence Day weekend came from 25 states.

The convention filled the nearly 500room Renaissance Cleveland, with the overflow staying at the Marriott at Key Center across the square.

Similarly, the events spilled out of the hotel's ballrooms and into the streets, with a Sunday "Two-Stepping on the Square" taking place outside in Public Square, trips to Cedar Point, Amish country, viewing the dragon boat races on the Cuyahoga River and karaoke, as well as dozens of dances for various groups attending the convention.

Even after a week of recovering, co-chair Earl Melvin was still a little dazed at the scope and scale of the feat he and the other

committee members pulled off.

"I am still numb and overwhelmed at what a big task this convention was," he confided.

He joked that his favorite part of the event was "when it was over," but then noted, "There were so many parts of the convention that I enjoyed. One of my favorites would be meeting new friends and seeing all of our old friends. Every convention becomes one big happy family reunion every year."

It was the first time since 2002 that the IAGSDC convention was held in the eastern half of the continent, and the first since 2000 that it was in the eastern half of the United States the 2002 gathering was in Toronto.

The event was presented by the Cleveland City Country Dancers, the area's only LGBT square dance organization, and Silver Squares, which was created solely for the purpose of organizing the convention and will be dissolved by the end of the year, according to Melvin.

"This convention has been a labor of love for CCCD for five years," Melvin noted. "Stan [Kawecki], Michael [Spayd] and I began preparing the bid five years ago. We presented our bid in 2004 at the Phoenix convention, 'Remake the Heat Wave.'

Kawecki and Spayd were the other two co-chairs of "Touch a Quarter Century."

"We won the bid to have the convention

Weekend helps activists sharpen election skills

BRIAN DEWITT

Betsy Gotta of New York City, top left, calls the "Don't Stop Plus" dance during the convention.

for the 25th annual IAGSDC here in Cleveland, and the rest is now history," he said.

He pointed also to the efforts of the other volunteers as one of the main reasons the event went off so well, praising the decorations of Kenny Hartwig and Frank Smith, Nancy Hughes' efforts on the country western dance, John R. Johnson's work with merchandising and registration and Brian Keating's work as the liaison to the Gay Callers' Association.

He also expressed his gratitude to Mark McLoney's work organizing the fun badge

tour, Jeff McPeak's efforts with the newsletter, Tom Voss' coordination of the hotel setup and women's space organizer Deb Sarver, along with 60 volunteers who, Melvin noted, weren't even part of the organization. Instead, they were friends and family members who pitched in to pull off a convention that people in other cities thought Cleveland was too small a club to handle.

Next year, the convention will be held in Washington, D.C., followed by Chicago in 2010, Atlanta in 2011 and Vancouver, British Columbia in 2012.

Joy B. Savren

Attorney at Law

Divorce & Dissolution Custody & Support · Personal Injury ~ Accidents

Wills Probate of Estates ~ Real Estate

Activists brainstorm about blogs at Camp Equality. From left, they are Ashton McRae, Michelle Whitehead, HRC field organizer Charlie Mumford, Tina Bayne, HRC Cincinnati volunteer coordinator Andrew Winters and Debra Johnson.

by Eric Resnick

Cincinnati-While many people were out basking in the sun, 26 activists and organizers spent last weekend indoors, sharpening their political skills for the upcoming election.

"Camp Equality," sponsored by the Human Rights Campaign with state and local groups, gave seminars on message development, blogging, building field plans, relations with the press and voter targeting, among other topics.

"This is a key opportunity for us to get people involved and learn how they can make a difference in the election process," said Equality Cincinnati board vice president Dan Drent.

The July 12-13 event at the University of Cincinnati was the first of 13 trainings that will be held around the country in the next two months. The other Ohio one is in Columbus this weekend, July 19-20.

HRC is the lead sponsor of the events and designer of the curriculum, in partnership with state and local progressive organizations.

Their Ohio partners include Equality Ohio, Equality Cincinnati, the Kentucky Fairness Alliance, the West Virginia Alliance for Equality, Progress Ohio, America Votes Ohio, the Ohio Democratic Women's Caucus, Ohio Young Democrats, the Democratic Party

GLBT Caucus, the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, and Ohioans for Healthy Families.

Camp Equality builds on HRC's Campaign College, which brings 40 college students to Washington, D.C. every summer for campaign training, then moves that model out to the country, training individuals in their own communities and providing them with information about opportunities to engage in competitive political campaigns.

By doing this, HRC hopes more people will join the political process as activists to support candidates committed to equality.

"We are excited to be a part of this opportunity to engage the GLBT community and supporters here in Greater Cincinnati to become more active in this exciting election year," said Drent.

"We already know that Ohio is a key state in this year's presidential election, along with two highly contested U.S. House races," he continued. "We have started to see changes in the normal voting trends here over the past several elections, and we need to continue to work to make sure our voices are heard and work for change."

In Cleveland for their April dinner, HRC president Joe Solmonese pledged that his group would have a major presence in the battleground state of Ohio to support the Democratic presidential nominee and at least two congressional races in the state.

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