Gay Camberwell

First, I am most excited to announce that our fame has spread to the heady heights of the South London Press. Oh yes indeed, dear readers, gaycamberwell.com features proudly on page 29 of that fine publication, so do pick up a copy, or click the PDF link below. The South London Press must be feeling particularly gay this week because Dax, LGBT community development worker for Southwark Council, also features, on page 33.

Click the link below to download the pdf and see the article:

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Last night I went along to Creative Camberwell's first social networking event, which aimed to discuss how Camberwell could further develop as a "creative hub"... and indeed, did it want to? The event was impressively well attended: when I turned up 15 minutes before the debate I could barely squeeze through the door of the gallery where all the arty types and interested locals had gathered and were sipping wine, nibbling canapes and networking vigorously.

I squeezed in, procured some wine, and rather wished I wasn't there alone. Fortunately the tone of the evening was friendly, and soon I had met Naomi, the organiser of the event, and been befriended by Dora Dixon-Fyle, a councillor for Camberwell Green Council, who was very enthusiastic about gaycamberwell.com. Then the event started.

People who had been involved in making Hoxton and Lewisham more creative spoke first, which I think made most of us think "hmmm we don't want to be creative like Hoxton; we want to be creative like Camberwell!" and then Mark from the Sun and Doves gave an inspiring talk about how we can improve Camberwell's image and make it a better place to live. Cooltan Arts also did a talk about empowering the community. The Synergy Centre manager made a particularly good case for working with disadvantaged children through arts. The questions and comments flowed afterwards, and  the audience seemed most enthusiastic about helping Camberwell evolve naturally into a more creative place for ALL residents, not just artists. It was all very positive.

I hadn't planned to speak, but suddenly put up my hand to discuss how improvements can best happen through action from many different strands of the community, and that the creation of gaycamberwell.com is part of that. Having been given the microphone, I rather regretted this decision (indeed I fear the audience could hear my heartbeat louder than my words!) but I described the website and survived the trauma. While some people looked rather bemused about gaycamberwell.com, most seemed very positive and came up to chat afterwards. Particularly the lovely Winston from The Castle, who came up to discuss holding events in his pub, which would be fantastic.

Speaking of which, Gay Camberwell is meeting with Red Star next week to discuss bringing back Gay Sundays, and gay events that could be held in the bar. Any ideas or comments? Let us know!

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