This is the third Auckland Lesbian Elders Village Inc. AGM. The last AGM was held on 10 May 2009. For the remainder of last year and the beginning of this we have continued to work towards our vision of providing affordable accommodation options for older lesbian women. Regular meetings have been held each month at the Auckland Women’s Centre. Later in 2009, to hasten the project’s progress, we began supplementing these meetings with extra meetings, held a fortnight in between at individual houses. On average seven to eight women have attended meetings, with an average of five apologies being received each time. The largest number to attend a meeting was twelve at the 2010 Summer Hui and the smallest number was four at one
of the regular meetings. Overall membership currently stands at twenty-five and we have one associate member.

The main theme of this year’s work has been: How do we finance the project of building a Lesbian Elder’s Village?

• In June 2009, we agreed that we could not buy the land with our own funds. To make the accommodation affordable and accessible to all we will need to fund raise a major portion of the amount needed.
  
  
• At the Winter Hui in July 2009, after exploring and hopefully releasing some of our fears and resistance, we brain stormed a large number of fund raising ideas – from the sublime to the ridiculous to the maybe realistic and workable.
  
  
• We decided to work on:
  1. Publicity – creating a higher profile for LEV through more publicity.
  2. Fund Raising – Creating funds through seeking charitable investment.
  
  
• The hui ended with a rendering of the LEV song which was videoed and later put up on Youtube – our first publicity stunt!
  
• In the next meeting in July we asked ourselves the question “what needs doing to be able to ask for charitable investment?” We decided that we needed to:
  1. Have charitable status.
  2. Apply for grants for project development.
  3. Finish revamping the website.
  4. Do some detailed planning on; legal structure, accounting advice, our tenure model and create a business plan.
  
  
• The business plan became a Brochure. We worked on the brochure over the next months and it is now in the process of being completed ready to send out to prospective Charitable Investors.
  
  
• At our second meeting in July:
  1. We heard that our Grant Application to Pacific Sports and Community Trust was turned down due to too many applications in our area.
  2. We determined to make more grant applications and Raine decided to do a weekend course on fund raising being offered by the city council.
  3. We decided to go ahead with seeking a patroness to support our project and be quoted in the brochure and Arafelle took on the job of first writing to Helen Clark and then the Topp Twins. According to Maryanne Street, spoken to at the BGO, Helen did receive our letter and responded favorably but we have heard nothing from her. No response from the Topps yet either.
  4. To further our publicity we decided to start LEV accounts on Facebook and Twitter. These were created and are managed by Kara and Karen. They are growing in content and popularity.
  
  
• In August, Kara Crunched Numbers, creating two charts showing estimated cost of building the village. Making certain basis assumptions such as death rate, interest rate etc this shows how the village finances itself, develops in the long run and the costs for each woman either with or without a charitable investment or donor.. The charts can be found in the member’s area of the website.
  
  
• In October, Lesbian Elders Village Auckland Inc. was granted Charitable Status.
  
  
• November’s meeting, discussed the Provision of Care Facilities. We decided:
  1. We will not apply for official rest home status which would restrict our care options and most likely be too expensive.
  2. We will work on a co-care model that will include professional support for women who need specialized care. There is to be no obligation to take part in co-care.
  3. One of the funding ideas is to collect yearly contributions that will serve as an insurance system for use when the need arises.
  
  
• The meeting in which we discussed the Provision of Care Facilities in the Village ended with a message coming from Sue Guthrie asking for several of her close friends to come and say goodbye. Sue was one of the founding members of Auckland LEV Inc. and partner of Marg Curnow, our first chair. Marg resigned from the position of chair in January 2009 so that she could focus all her attention on supporting and caring for Sue during her final journey with cancer. Sue died at home on 11 November 2009 surrounded by friends and family. In the last months of her life she and Marg were supported by a group of close friends who were constantly there for them, doing whatever was needed. Sue was actively involved in planning her own death and funeral, wanting everything to be as natural as possible and to share it all. In many ways it felt like the ideal of how we all would like to end our days, what our quest for Community and the Village is all about. For me, mingled with the grief at losing Sue and close empathy for Marg, was a feeling of uplifting clarity – thank you Sue and Marg fo`Ar your great gifts of strength, love and sharing.
  
  
• In February 2010, LEV shared a stall with the Charlotte Museum at the Big Gay Out. With our experience of last year our focus was on Ageism. We organized some clipboards and lab coats and asked lesbians whether they showed the seven signs of aging. If they did they won one of our fabulous Fridge Magnets. We also performed our new LEV Song about the E Word (on Youtube and the website with words).
  
  
• At the Summer Hui on 28 February 2010 we looked at the present status of the project and asked the question – “What has to change with/in LEV so that you would engage more?” This led to an in depth discussion of where we are at now, our expectations, fears, frustrations, focus and hopes for the future. We all agreed on The Village still being the ideal of what we want. However, we vary in confidence and doubts about being able to achieve the dream.
  
  
• At the end of the Hui we divided into two focus groups (sub-committees). Over the next six months we will work on:
  1. Membership/Community
  – Building relationship/community
  – Studying research from other organizations
  – Sharing information with the wider community
  – LEV sponsored workshops, social events
  
  2. Fundraising
  – Aiming to be in a position financially to buy land
  – Brochure to be sent out to potential investors
  – Assess financial position and fund raising success at the Winter Hui.
  
  

Arafelle Oné
Chair

11 April 2010