SPN at Pride Edinburgh

We invite members, allies and students to join us for the Pride Edinburgh March on Saturday 25 June!
The SPN marching troupe will be meeting at 11:30 on the day at Levels Café on Holyrood Road. Speeches start at 12:30 and the march moves off at 13:00.

If you can’t make it to Levels beforehand but still want to join in, just look for our marching banner – it will be 3 metres wide and looks like the image above!

For a quiet space after marching:

Members are invited to meet at the Informatics Forum from 14:00 – 17:00. Join us for refreshments and a marching troupe debrief! Please note that this private space is being facilitated for University of Edinburgh staff and students only. Entry will be via Robbie on the march, through the side entrance and building sign-in. Call/TXT/iMessage/WhatsApp (07905517428) or even teams message Robert (Robbie) Court to access later in the afternoon.

Note: We will keep this post up to date throughout the day and I’ll try and share our location during the march. 

Live updates:

Live location: https://maps.app.goo.gl/d8d45uCRVSKGdAi67

14:00 we’re meeting by the rino head / gift shop by informatics

12:40 were by the traffic lights

10:20 myself and the banner are now in levels cafe having breakfast so feel free if you want to be fashionably early.

8:44 Prepping for meeting at levels cafe. The refreshments are all ready at the informatics forum at the end of the Parade route. The banner has poles this year so wind permitting should be above the crowd. [fingers crossed].

During Pride Month in particular, we’re glad to highlight opportunities for our members and allies to focus on LGBT+ inclusion in their work.

Don’t forget that we can seize these opportunities all year round, not just in June!

Check out the following recommendations for designing an inclusive survey, kindly provided by Ariadne Cass-Maran, Senior Content Designer with Website and Communications.

Language changes and evolves all the time. Any list you offer people, especially a global community as we have at the University of Edinburgh, will inevitably age over time, or leave someone out. It helps to consider inclusive data-gathering as an evolving thing.

There’s a lot of talk at the moment about blanket terms being used in inclusive language guides to try to cover everyone. However, we should be careful not to use a neutral term that might imply different things to different people. We should also be aware that there are circumstances when people prefer to see their identity represented.

So if you’re designing a form or survey, here are some recommendations:

• Be clear on what quantitative and qualitative data you want to gather.
• When providing a list, include the identities you want to know about, and include ‘prefer not to say’ as an option.
• In addition to your list for participants to select an identity, provide a free text box to give the option for people to provide their identity if they don’t see it in the list provided. The reason for this is that there are always unknowns and unknown unknowns. By providing a list, you give people the opportunity to see themselves represented, but you also risk leaving an identity out. Provide the opportunity for people to tell you about themselves.
• If you want to ask people about their gender, including cis and trans genders, to understand self-identification and the intricacies of societal definitions, a free text box will allow participants to provide more nuanced information about an identity they selected.

Ariadne’s work has informed an inclusive language guide for the University community. Explore the Inclusive Language Guide

Check out Advance HE’s guidance on collection of diversity monitoring data. Advance HE guidance on data gathering

Dear University of Edinburgh Staff Pride Network,

I am contacting you to say thank you for everything you have done over the past year to celebrate, support and promote the LGBTQ+ community.

As was stated during the awards ceremony, 2022 was probably the toughest year to select finalists and winners with over 1000 nominations being received and over 36000 votes being cast, all from the public. Although it was commiserations on the night his hopefully shows the amazing impact which you and your organisation is having within the community and how your actions have caused an individual to nominate you this year.

We strongly hope that you continue your amazing work and impact so that we will see you again at the Proud Scotland Awards 2023.

During the evening, you will be aware that we raised money to help support the delivery of Pride Edinburgh, https://prideedinburgh.co.uk/, and Glasgow’s Pride Mardi Gla, https://glapride.com/, and hope that we will see you showing your Pride, at either or both of the marches and events.

Again, from myself as the Chair of the Judging panel, congratulations on being a finalist in 2022 and thank you for being amazing!

Stuart McPhail

Chair | Proud Scotland Awards

https://proudscotlandawards.com/ 

Happy Pride Month 2022!

To celebrate, the Staff Pride Network is offering a limited number of t-shirts for free to network members.

We’ve got seven variations of the SPN logo available, representing a number of pride flags.

Check out the t-shirt designs (image file on SharePoint)

UPDATE 6 JUNE
Please note that the following logo variations are no longer available in June 2022 due to high demand:
Rainbow; Philadelphia; Bisexual
If you select one of the above variations, we will record this as an expression of interest for when we can next order a batch of t-shirts.

We hope to see you wearing your colours loud and proud on Saturday 25 June at the Pride Edinburgh march! We welcome you to join the Staff Pride Network marching troupe 😊

Complete this short form to request a t-shirt

Logo flag variation options available in June 2022:
Lesbian / Non-Binary / Trans / Intersex

We recognise that the sexualities and identities of all our network members are not represented by these flags – apologies that we can’t print more variations on this occasion!

With huge thanks to our colleague Gill Kidd who created this version of the t-shirt design! Logo designs are by Kael Onion Oakley.

• We have a limited number of t-shirts and size options, and will therefore respond to requests on a first-come-first served basis. Please expect to receive an email confirming the availability of your preferred t-shirt.
• If we run out of your preferred design and size, we can retain your details for when we can next order more t-shirts. We can’t guarantee that the next batch of t-shirts can be made available for free (sorry).
• We kindly ask that anyone who gets a t-shirt considers making a one-off donation of £5 – £15 (or whatever you can manage) to Pride Edinburgh. You can do so at the Pride Edinburgh march on Saturday 25 June – card machines will be available.
• If you are unable to attend the Pride Edinburgh march but would still like to make a donation, let us know via email.

Any questions about the t-shirts or the request form? Get in touch: staffpridenetwork@ed.ac.uk

Excerpt:

You can’t get rid of glitter. It doesn’t matter whether you sprinkle it like fairy dust or send it in a card; whether you glitter-bomb as a protest or decorate your face with it at a festival. It doesn’t matter how the glitter got there in the first place – you can’t get rid of glitter. (..)

As LGBTQ+ folk, we believe that God’s grace is always there in and around and woven through our lived experiences. We exist, whether folk like it or not, and so we are sprinkled liberally with God’s grace. We have noticed that resources for and by LGBTQ+ folk in a faith context often focus on suffering and sorrow. And don’t get us wrong, we know there is plenty of suffering to go around, and we have experienced more than our fair share of it.
And yet, we also want to do justice to God’s grace, and to the joy and euphoria that living our authentic lives as LGBTQ+ people brings. And so, whilst some of these resources contain raw glimpses of our pain, the overall tone that we are going for is one of hope, of joy, of love and, yes, of grace like glitter. We hope that these resources will help you to spread grace like glitter too, wherever and whoever you are. May it be so.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0Ar8Cw8Fi2RpHtaZoftwB4SHbjAnwLGy8kxyFHtfjTnzphjAuav8SnMPoxC3b2L4cl&id=100005037420123&m_entstream_source=timeline

spending time together, exploring their own identities and the Iona Community’s work for social justice.

There’s plenty of time to discover community over meals, to laugh and relax outdoors, to engage in creative activities, to explore this beautiful island with its white sandy beaches and profusion of wildlife, to read or write in the library – or simply be quiet in the peace of the church or the landscape

It would be really helpful to know if there are staff and students who’d like something like that next year – then we can plan to do it for sure. Please feel free to send the info around!

https://m.facebook.com/IonaCommunity/photos/a.10150226571841211/10159464633256211/?type=3&source=54 

Warmly,

Urzula

Rev Dr Urzula Glienecke

Associate Chaplain (she/her)

The University of Edinburgh

Chaplaincy Centre

1 Bristo Square

Edinburgh EH8  9AL

Office phone: 0131650 2598

Email: Urzula.Glienecke@ed.ac.uk 

Office days: Tuesday, Thursday 

WAH days: Monday, Wednesday, Friday

For the Listening Service, please contact Listening.Service@ed.ac.uk or call Security on 0131 650 2257 out of hours for emergencies.

For this and other information on the Chaplaincy, please visit our website at https://www.ed.ac.uk/chaplaincy.