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This is the text to be sent to teachers, organizers of GSA orgs in theirs schools, inviting them to invite us to come.
Elderberries is a group of gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans, and two-spirited Nova Scotians aged fifty-plus, along with family members, friends, and supporters.
From the beginning of an organized LGBT community in Halifax in the 1970s, we have maintained a Speakers' Bureau which is available to talk to schools or community groups about LGBT life in general, and about our experiences living and coming out as LGBT persons in the less open-minded society of thirty to sixty years ago.
Our presentations are free of charge, and travel costs are covered by a [SPONSORING ORGANIZATION - PRIDE OR ELDERBERRIES]. Offers of coffee and tea will be gratefully accepted, however.
possible graphic: link to photo of 1981 request
possible graphic: Elderberries at a school: link to 2016 photo of us
It’s possible for us to operate within a 1-hour time slot if necessary, but 1.5 hours or 2 hours works much better.
First, pick a time when you’d like us there preferably provding at least two weeks'notice. It’s much easier for you to pick a date and check with us rather than asking when we’re available. We are mostly retired, so our hours tend to be flexible. Email your suggested date & time to AtlanticCanadaElderberries@gmail.com and we’ll try to get back to you promptly.
If you need to know exactly who’s going to be actually showing up, we can tell you a few days in advance.
A couple days before, ask your students to submit questions. We much prefer to get them on recipe/index cards, and this lets your students submit them more or less anonymously. Don’t worry about offending us: we were over getting offended before you were born.
You don’t have to send the questions to us ahead of time, but if you have a specific topic you’d like us to address, please let us know if you can.
Our Speakers' Bureau team is usually a group of two to four. You can introduce the group (we can supply a text if you want), give us the cards with the questions, and hand things over to us.
We’ll introduce ourselves individually, sort the deck of questions, and use about 3/4 of the time answering them. After that we’ll open the floor - that is, ask the students for questions, either fresh or followup.
Then there are thanks all round and we head home.
If you plan to have the students evaluate the session, we would be glad to hear of any feedback you receive.
