24 + OUT IN THE MOUNTAINS - SEPTEMBER 1999 Community Compass is a service of OITM. GLBT organizations from around the state are invited to provide brief — 200 words or less — descriptions of recent or upcoming activities and events. Send your submissions to us by email at editor@vtpride.org by the l5th of the month. V BURLINGTON R.U.1.2? COMMUNITY CENTER ARCHIVE PROJECT Are you a pack rat? Are you saving magazines, newspapers, party announcements, photos, political buttons, bumper stick- ers, ticket stubs, and other neces- sary documents in some comer? Got stufi‘ reflecting the history of Verrnont’s GLBT community? If so, the R.U.1.2? Community Center Archive Project wants you to bring it out of the closet and put it on display! The Archive Project will serve as an educational resource and collective memory of events and trends in our GLBT history. We need all sorts of materials. We’d be most excited aboutlanything dating back to the Reagan admin- istration or earlier, but value and accept donations of all material. We currently have very little storage space, so we ask that you begin by starting a box of your own. As the Center expands from an idea into an actual building, we will begin to store and display our collection. The mounted collection is cur- rently displayed at our monthly cofleehouses, and we are in need of_ more donations, specifically on Gay/Bi/Trans history. So if you have a small stack of papers, a few buttons or photos you’d like to donate, please let us know ASAP so we can create a new installation for the next cofi‘ee- house . _ I To donate materials or get information, contact Cathy Resmer at (802) 865-0569 or cresmer@juno.com. V CI-IAMPLAIN VALLEY UNITARIAN . UNIVERSALIST SOCIETY CVUUS in Middlebury will host a Decision Day Openhouse beginning at 7pm on whatever Friday the Vermont Supreme Faith Matters continued from page twenty God doesn’t intervene and stop human suffering. I find people who believe this about God tend to grieve their losses with grace and humility rather than arrogance and indignation. These are just a few of the many connections between faith matters and grief matters. Knowing that they are connected is part of what makes them both matter so much. Many wounds run deep and forever, but this does not mean we have to live out of them forever. Grieving is a process that turns victims into survivors, that heals our wounds into. wisdom, and matures our faith in God into comforting strength. Grieving may be painful, but so is the alternative. If we are going to hurt, why not feel and deal with the pain that leads to healing and wholeness? V Rev. Christine Leslie is founder and director of Triangle Ministries, A Center for Lesbian & Gay Spiritual Development near Burlington. She can be reached at (802) 860-7106 or email at revcsl@aoI. com F stall in ion 3 exchange messages 1 We’ve set up three e-mail listservs to keep you up to date x with everything from the local gossip to national issues. L VTPride Net: an e-mail discussion list. LGBT folks from i across Vermont — and the people who love them — can now If you’d rather get your chatter in one neat package instead ‘ of individual messages, check out VTPride N et-d i gest. Instead of getting each e-mail separately, you’ll get one long message that contains all the day’s postings. I For those who aren’t up for.chatter but want to keep up with major newsevent notices and paper deadlines (of course), there’s VTPrideNet-announce. There's no discussion on this list — just announcements as events warrant. ' Court announces its decision on same-gender marriage. If the court decision is posi- tive, we will be hosting an open celebration of a very joyous day in history. If the decision is nega- tive or remanded, the openhouse is “on” anyway, as a place to gather to express ourselves and support each other in light of the decision. All are warmly invited, what- ever the decision. Bring some munchies to share if you are so inspired, or just come. Please spread the word! CVUUS is located at 6 Cross Street, on the comer of Cross and Water streets, Middlebury. For more information, please call 388-8080. Hope to see you there! V OUTRIGHT VERMONT We are redesigning our library. Thanks to a generous donation by James Monstream and Sharon Stolberg, we have two beautiful bookshelves to house our collection of over 1,500 volumes. Sue Wilson has been working on a new classifi- cation system for our library, and Marge Coahran has developed a computer program to organize all that raw data into nifiy user- friendly search functions. Our collection is packed with romance, action/adventure, mur- der mystery, science fiction, fan- tasy, coming-of-age chronicles, poetry and short stories, as well as non-fiction on law, homopho- bia and heterosexism, relation- ships, coming out, and gender identity. In addition, we have a growing collection in the Cliff on with the Vermont omuite To subscribe to any of the lists, send e-mail to OR subscribe vtpridenet-announce subscribe vtpridenet subscribe vtpridenet-digest Rivers Memorial Reference Library, set up to honor Cliff’s dedicated work with Outright Vermont. A variety of youth service providers, teachers, human‘ ser- vice professionals, parents, and youth use both libraries. Any community member may come in and browse; if you’re not sure where to start, we can recom- mend reading lists, and you can borrow books for up to four weeks. Which reminds me: those of you who have already used our library, please remember 9, to return your books so others may enjoy them! Much of what we have in the library today was donated, and we cannot afford to replace them all. Our heartfelt appreciation goes to those who have donated collections over the years. Currently, .we are looking for books on bisexual and transgen- der issues, especially those geared toward youth 22 and under. If you would like to donate, please contact Outright at 865-9677. Happy reading! V RHOMBUS GALLERY Rhombus Gallery is a queer- friendly not-for-profit volunteer- run art gallery/performance space whose mission is to provide a forum for experimental and non- commercial art in Burlington. It is the home of the Burlington Coffeehouse, an acoustic music venue run by Jeff Miller that brings in talented local musicians as well as per- fonners from all over the country. The Coffeehouse series happens on Saturdays (and sometimes Thursdays or Fridays), with an open mike every Tuesday. The Rhombus Gallery Literary Series hosts poetry and short fiction readings on Wednesdays, and the monthly majordomo@queernet.org ' in the body of your e-mail, you should include one of the following lines to specify the list you want to join: If you need assistance, email us at oitm@together.net loin the virtual unmiommunilv today! ues Burlington (Poetry) Slam on the first Friday of every month. Rhombus also hosts the R.U.l .2? GLBT Community Center potlucks on the second Monday of every month, and often pro- vides a stage for local play- wrights who wish to produce experimental theatre. In addition to its arts program- ming, The Rhombus Gallery also serves as_ the home base of the Minimal Press, Burlington’s world-famous guerilla publishing collective and literary vending service. ~ For up-to-date information on Rhombus events, to get involved as a volunteer, or to learn more about Rhombus Gallery, please contact .len Bell or Marc Awodey at 865-3144, or Cathy Resmer at 865-0569 or cresmer@juno.com. V VERMONT FREEDOM TO MARRY TASK FORCE It’s fair season, and the Task Force is there! A By the end of September we will have taken our booth on the road to the Addison County, Orleans County, Champlain Valley, and Deerfield Valley fairs. So far the reception has been great, and many fairgoers have been grateful to see us (especial- ly afier passing by our opposi- tion’s spread). In addition, the Task Force sponsored a forum in Montpelier,’ following an interfaith worship service, and co-sponsored a panel discussion in Burlington on the eve of the Westboro Baptists’ visit. ‘ In late July, we mailed our our first-ever fundraising appeal. It was a great letter — please let us know if you didn’t get it so we can put you on the mailing list and send it off to you. There’s so much to do!! Please, call us at 388-2366 and volunteer! V ——— - —— —— — —---~ ———-net