Pridefully Speaking

The hilarious and ground-breaking comedian, Suzanne Westenhoefer, is bringing her “Totally Inappropriate” tour to Talbott Street on Wednesday, May 12th,  AND it is a benefit for Indy Pride!

That’s right, the first openly gay comedian ever to appear on television is coming to town, and you can purchase tickets online at the Indy Pride website or at the Talbott Street box office.  Tickets are $18 in advance and $23 at the door.

Seating is general admission, and since everyone must be seated for the show, the doors are opening at 6:30.  It will be a show that cannot be missed!  A giant thank you to Talbott Street Cares for making this all possible!

For more information on Suzanne, visit her website: http://suzannew.com/

I hope everyone had a fantastic holiday season.  It has been a busy time around here, and I am just now refreshing the website for 2009.

Some Important Updates:

Indy Pride Community Calendar: The calendar has been updated through October 31st of this year.  If you see anything missing, please shoot me an at webmaster@indyprideinc.com.

Circle City IN Pride Committees:  Committees are currently forming and hard at work on organizing Circle City IN Pride 2009.  As you can imagine, it is a herculean effort getting this off the ground, and we need all the help we can get to make this one even better than last years.  Be sure to check out the list of committees to see which one is the best fit for you!

Those are the biggest, but there are also additions on the Board, Pictures, and Upcoming Events (including Laugh Out Loud) pages.  So, be sure to check those out, too.

Upcoming Events:

January 10th – IndySlugger’s Benefit at Greg’s – Come out and support the IndySluggers softball team as they raise money to travel to their first tournament of the year in sunny Tampa, FL. There will be a beer bar and 50/50 raffle.

January 14th – Indy Pride Board of Directors Meeting

January 15th – Indy Pride Membership Mixer at Agio.  Free Appetizers!  Door Prizes! Everyone is welcome!

My New Years resolution is to update this blog more often, and we’ll se how far that goes.

Nick,
Webmaster & Indy Pride Board Member

Even with the downtime for the holiday, December is shaping up to be very  busy.

As always, for more information, check out the Indy Pride Community Calendar:

Monday, December 1
World AIDS Day – 20th Anniversary Celebration<
Place:  St. Luke’s United Methodist Church
Time:  6:00-7:00 p.m.

Tuesday, December 2
Pride Bag Lady Bus Tour Photo Party
Place:  Cosmos
Time:  7:00 – 9:00 p.m.

December 4
Pride Night At the Phoenix Theatre: On Thin Ice
Place:  Phoenix Theatre
Showtime:  <7:00 p.m.
Tickets:  $15.00

Sunday, December 7
Holiday Diva Show
Place:  Talbott Street
Doors Open:  7:00 p.m.
Showtime:  8:00 p.m
Bring a wrapped gift

Indy Pride would like to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!

Don’t forget to check out the November issue of Pride Press!

Friday, November 7 (Tonight)!

Please join the Indianapolis LGBT Film Festival at Greg’s on Friday evening (November 7) for a special promotional and fundraising event for the 8th annual Indianapolis LGBT Film Festival! You can get a sneak peak at some of our films and buy a beer or glass of wine from our Film Fest Bar.  We’ll even have the yummy popcorn machine going! All proceeds benefit the Indianapolis LGBT Film Festival! There will also be an opportunity to win cash and prizes with our 50/50 raffle and Pull Tabs.  The event kicks off around 9:30 PM – come out and have some fun and support a great cause!

Wednesday, November 12

Indy Pride Board Meeting – 7:00 p.m.

Indy Pride Office

Thursday, November 13

Indy Pride Membership Mixer – 6:00 -8:00 p.m.

Agio Restaurant

Friday – Sunday, November 14-16

Indianapolis LGBT Film Festival – For details visit:  www.indylgbtfilmfest.com/

IUPUI Campus Center

Join Indy Pride for the Opening Night Mixer – 7:30 p.m. – Cash bar, Drink Specials, Hors D’Oeuvres – FUN!

Opening Night Films:  Fair Enough, Casting Pearls and Save Me starring Chad Allen and Robert Gant (Queer As Folk).  Robert Gant will be attending the Opening Night Event.

Full Festival Pass:  $75.00

Thursday, November 20

Time Warp 1940 – Doors open at 7:00 p.m.; Entertainment Beings:  8:00 p.m.

Featuring the Pride of Indy Jazz Band & Brenda Williams
Tickets:  $12.00 in advance; $15.00 at the door

Saturday, November 22

Transgender Day of Remembrance Vigil – 3:00 – 5:00 p.m.

Fellowship Hall of Central Christian Church – 701 N. Delaware Street

Saturday, November 22

Indy Pride Community Thanksgiving – 6:00 – 8:00 p.m.

Co-Sponsor:  Indiana Black Pride

Jesus MCC located at 2950 East 55^th Place (near 56^th & Keystone Avenue)
Turkey will be provided.  Those who are able are asked to bring a side dish or dessert to share!

Indy Pride Scholarship Recipients will be recognized.  Following the dinner, there will be a performance by the Jesus MCC Gospel Choir.

This past Saturday was Indiana AIDS Walk, and I am happy to report that Team Indy Pride/Talbott Street raised a grand total of $5,659.50! We ended up coming in second to the mega huge Team GMCI (Greg’s, Metro, The Club, and English Ivy’s), but since it was all for a good cause, we’re not going to be too down about it.  I want to give a shout out to everyone who donated and helped us beat our goal!

Upcoming Events of Note:

Thursday, October 16

Indy Pride Membership Mixer – 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. at Agio Restaurant.  Everyone is welcome!  Members are encouraged to attend and bring potential new members.  Free appetizers!  Come & find out about future Pride events and how you can volunteer!

Saturday, October 18

Bearly Bowling Cookout: Bears vs Bowlers

Hope to see you at one (or all) of these!

Nick
Indy Pride Board Member & Webmaster

On September 19th, the Indy Pride Bag Ladies went on a mini-tour to Out Word Bound, a private residence, and Talbott Street to sign copies of their 15 month calendar (purchase one here), and at Talbott Street, they performed a group number to “We Are Family” during the first show of the Ladies of Legend.  Now, it is on YouTube!  Check it out:

Bringing you up to date on recent additions to the website:

• Indianapolis AIDS Walk & Ride – Join Team Indy Pride/Talbot Street – The AIDS Walk & Ride, which is organized by the Indiana AIDS Fund, raises money for the Gregory R. Powers Direct Emergency Financial Assistance (DEFA) program, which provides essential needs out of reach for persons with AIDS, such as food, clothing, rent, utilities and medications, and in 2007, $182,000 was raised to help the community.  As the economy turns worse, every single dollar you can spare will allow the DEFA fund to continue providing these much needed services.  Join Team Indy Pride/Talbott Street today at www.indianaaidswalk.org!
• October Pride Press is Ready for Download – The October Pride Press is available for download from the Pride Press section of the website.  Where else can you find out about Halle Pino’s Night on the Bayou, Board Elections, AND the history of poppers!  Thanks goes out to Gary Brackett for putting the Press together every month!
• GLBT History Month @ IUPUI – The Gay Straight Alliance at IUPUI is hosting many events throughout the month of October to celebrate GLBT History Month.  There is a calendar you can download on our Upcoming Events page, and eventually, these dates will make it onto the online Community Calendar, which you should check out if you haven’t already.
  

• We Launched! – Obviously, this is the most significant news of the week as far as Indy Pride’s online presence goes because if this were 4 days ago, you wouldn’t even have a blog to read.  A page for Team Indy Pride/Talbott Street for the Indianapolis AIDS Walk has been added, too.  While it is, of course, a friendly competition of like minded groups and individuals, we would love to come out on top (how’s that for a loaded gay euphemism) in this years race for donations.
• Ginger Fizz – While this isn’t exactly Pride news per se, if you were not at Talbott Street last night for the crowning of Miss Gay Indiana, then you missed out on a very talented group of ladies doing what they do best.  I know the top three Erica King, Holly Luyah, and Ginger Ale, and they all did not disappoint.  In the end, it was Ginger Ale who wore the giant crown, and she did a fabulous job.  The funny thing is that I didn’t even know she was performing until that night, so color me impressed that a relatively new drag queen is so polished and professional.  We’ll be hearing a lot from Ginger Ale in the future!  And I just want to give a shout out to Miss Holly Luyah.  While you may not have won this time, your pride and dedication to the community is bigger than any title.  Looking forward to seeing what you do on the Bag Lady Bus Tour, which brings me to…
• The 28th Annual Bag Lady Bus Tour – Have you registered yet?  We’re actually almost to October, the gay high holy month, and while there will be other parties and activities, the Bus Tour CANNOT be missed.  What could be more fun than getting on a bus with 200+ people in costume, riding around to restaurants and bars, AND raising money for a good cause?  That’s right…NOTHING.  So go get registered!

- Nick

In the technological world, a Beta Test is basically a hardware or software release to a limited number of people to see if there are any bugs.  In the case of the Indy Pride website, it is a bit of a misnomer, because the website, as it stands, is fully functional.  However, because yours truly, the webmaster/blogmaster, is an OCD-riddled perfectionist, I’ve been nebbishly tweaking the graphics and the navigation of the site for a couple months now, and for the sanity of all involved, I figured it was better to shove the site out the door now and fill in the blanks later.

There are quite a few blanks that need to be filled, and we will do that in the coming weeks.  You will find a few pages and sections with “Coming Soon” on it, and those are my top priority moving forward.  There will also be more integration with Facebook and MySpace in the hopes of tapping into their already robust web communities.  The final pieces of the puzzle have to do with e-commerce and community resources.  We currently use PayPal for purchases, which is fine, but it does not allow us to gather the registration information we might need for, say, the Bag Lady Bus Tour, which makes it a rather inconvenient process.  Finding the right service that is affordable for an organization our size is the key, and the key to the Community Resource Center will be putting into place a mechanism to easily organize and update the copious amounts of information that is out there.

Just like Indy Pride is working on the bringing the community together, IndyPrideInc.com is working to create a hub for community information that goes beyond the scope of just Indy Pride.

So, pardon our dust, this is an all volunteer effort, and we are working hard to make this site the best it can be.

-Nick

Indy Pride Board Member & Webmaster

Of everything that is being put into the brand new Indy Pride website, this blog is, by far, one of the most exciting aspects, because this will be easily updated and most importantly instantly commented upon by you, the user.

We are honestly still in the planning stages for where this blog will go, but in the mean time, check back often for the latest news from Indy Pride, the greater Indianapolis community, and beyond!

-Nick

Indy Pride Board Member & Webmaster