What a weekend it was, the LEV Winter Hui at Leigh!

Thankfully the roof didn’t blow off, neither lifted by the storm outside or the brain storming inside our cosy retreat. The agenda for this hui focused on the how tos of funding the village and the group’s energy was very determined and dedicated to speeding up the process of making it happen.

Kerstin and Ricky led the brain storming which began by listing over fifty ideas – from the sublime to the very ridiculous! Next we narrowed them down to a number of most favoured options. Then to narrow down again we donned props of hats and scarves and took on roles as advocates and devil’s advocates to argue the merits and demerits of the ideas. That was a lot of fun! It got us on our feet, brought out some unexpected acting and comedian skills and revealed some surprise twists to what we were considering.

Two threads emerged form the above – Publicity and Direct Fund Raising, each of these interrelated categories having four things to work on right now. An item suggested on the publicity side is the LEV song. One line of the song goes “Outrageous elders free, free to be our lesbian selves”. Some of that outrageous energy emerged during play time on Saturday evening. We decided to make a video of us singing the song, maybe to be viewed on u-tube later, and the production certainly got more outrageous as we progressed through the “takes”! We will let you know the final outcome after viewing the edited version!

At the summing up and where-to-now session on Sunday morning it was decided that in order to move ahead at a faster pace, more than the monthly meetings are needed. Therefore LEV will be meeting twice a month from now on – the regular meeting from 3-6pm second Sunday of the month at the Women’s Centre will continue, with shorter Monday evening meetings held the fortnights in between at one of our homes. This will allow for general business to be covered and the threads of what we are all working on to be maintained, whilst leaving more free time at the longer meetings for important in depth discussions.

The storm outside began to calm down allowing us to head home through clearer skies on Sunday afternoon. Time had run out again but our enthusiasm was still running high. We wanted to get back to envisioning what we want the village to be – how it will look, feel, provide for us living there. We decided this will be one of the main focuses again for the next hui. In the meantime there is plenty of work to be done, and fun to be had, in on going publicity and fund raising.