IDAHOT, Sun 17th May 2015

Woking Town Centre

Surrey Heritage joined Surrey’s LGBT support helpline, Outline, for a town centre event to raise awareness of International day against Homophobia and Transphobia on Sun 17th May. Other SCC services present were Surrey Libraries, Fostering, Youth Services Twister group (Tandridge), and Surrey Adult Learning. South East Coast Ambulance representatives were there, along with the Surrey Police LAGLOs (Lesbian & Gay Liaison Officers).

There was a steady flow of visitors to the Heritage stand, which displayed material relating to LGBT in the First World War, featuring JR Ackerley, Dame Ethel Smyth, Sir Noel Coward and EM Forster. We also promoted the new HLF Surrey in the Great War project and our LGBT community pages on the Exploring Surrey’s Past (ESP) website. We were visited by all the other stall holders - about 25 in all, and we spoke to about another 25 people and gave out leaflets.

Everyone was really enthused and great to chat to and there was a lovely buzz. There was a lot of interest in ESP and we may even have inspired a couple of volunteers for the new Surrey in the Great War project ACR. Outline were thrilled we were there. There were 2 the talks at the Lightbox in the afternoon, including Ian Cole from Virgin Care and Tavis King, an adult education tutor and LGBT psychologist.

SCC Chairman, David Munro, visited in the afternoon and chatted to Heritage team members Phil Cooper and Di Stiff. There was a good positive response from passers-by and we met a wide range of people, including some who had seen us at the Epsom Mental Health Week LGBT talk last year. Local celebrity and Trans winner, , who is also a Woking resident and Outline committee member, endorsed the day and chatted with us. Surrey Heritage’s presence at the event reinforced our commitment to the local LGBT community. Images above: Di Stiff, Surrey Heritage’s Collections Development Archivist, with SCC Chairman, David Munro; and with Outline’s Nadia Almada.

A few other views of the day:

Gary Shield & Sue Applegate from Libraries

Tim Coward with the Outline stand

The LAGLO (Lesbian and Gay Liaison Officers) team

Di Stiff, Collections Development Archivist

Surrey Heritage