Editing 2020 NSRAP Report

For the period 2019-04 to 2020-03 In that time we hosted 13 Second Sunday Salons with on average 13 people each. All of the SSSs involve a pot luck; at the moment the Elderberries supplies coffee, tea, scones and jam, and members bring a huge variety of sweets and savouries. Each event had a different topic which are listed at the bottom. We have board meetings on the Tuesday evening following the Second Sunday Salon. At our February 9, 2020 Annual General Meeting we elected: Allison Brewer & Barend Kamperman as co-chairs; Anita Martinez: Treasurer / Social media; Dan MacKay: Secretary / Membership / Social Media / Ex officio. Lynn Murphy: Ex Ex Officio; and Mike Sangster, Pauline Fedrick and Richard Crooks as Boardmembers. Richard has since resigned; Pauline does our Phone Tree to notify non-email members; Barend is newsletter editor. Our registration with the Registry of Joint Stock Companies is up-to-date, as are the bank account signatories. Frequently attending members and boardmembers Scott MacNeil & Ann Gorman passed away in the last year. We have 275 emails on our mailing list; six people who we phone; our Meetup group has 329 members; our Facebook group has 420 followers. Elderberries members did several interactive Gay/Straight Alliance presentations in that time, at Dalhousie and at high schools, using a storytelling + Ask Me Anything format where the students submit questions on cards. During Pride Week we again hosted the Storytelling Salon at the Unitarian Universalist Church. The storytellers’ topic was dealing with homophobia and included very engaging life stories from a trans person, stories of trips to the March on Washington. Several Elderberries are associated with the LGBT seniors housing society which will be called SAILS, headed by Dr Jacqueline Gahagan. 2020 is the Elderberries 10th anniversary and we’ll be celebrating possibly by planting a very queer elderberry tree -- grown by queer New Brunswick botanist Hal Hines, and now growing at early LGBT activist Anne Bishop’s house -- in Halifax somewhere. A group in Cape Breton is discussing creating an equivalent there and has asked if they can share the Elderberries name; we said yes. After March 2020 we switched to hosting events on line via Zoom. These were so successful that we have changed to twice a month for them. We did a poll asking when people would like to have a second meeting and they overwhelmingly voted for the same time - Sunday 2:00 - 4:00pm Now give us some money. EVENTS: 2019 * APRIL 14: Food & program sponsored by prideHealth: Health Questions, Answers, & Discussion * MAY 12: Mother's Day: Stories about Mother Figures In Your Life * JUNE 9: Raymond Taavel's Birthday. Picnic in Raymond Taavel Park. $80 BBQ supplies, $50 rental of tables & chairs. 15 elderberries... 2 street people; a couple drop-ins, 1 from the Raymond Taavel Park group, 20 altogether. * JULY 22: Pride Salon * AUGUST 11: BBQ in Point Pleasant Park. Rain Date: Aug 18 * SEPTEMBER 9: Cancelled - Hurricane Donair * OCTOBER 13: 1) Dan: Archives Project. 2) Vote on Future Meeting Topics * October 27: Celebration of Life for Scott MacNeil * NOVEMBER 10: Double Reading: Jackie Dumas, Anne Bishop. * DECEMBER 8: 1) Publish the "New Years Resolution" notes in 2019-01-13 Meeting 2) Maybe 3-4 people from the Gay Men's Choir leading us in carols. 3) White Elephant Gift Exchange. 2020 * January 12: "What is your favourite movie, and why?" * February 9: Annual General Meeting + Carolyn Gesner tells some stories about her time up north at the Churchill Polar Bear Research station * March 8: Your Greatest Fear! – 30 –

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