On Wednesday night (Oct 22) the Cambridge GLBT Commission, the Mayor's office, and the Welcoming Families unit of the public schools hosted a GLBT Town Meeting in City Hall. We started off with short speeches - by Mayor Simmons (African American lesbian), by Sue Hyde (NLTGF honcho and an activist in GLBT happenings in Cambridge), and me (co-chair of the Commission). Then we broke up into 7 sessions each with a facilitator (one of the Commissioners) and listened to the participants speaking about what they think are the important GLBT issues in Cambridge. After the breakout sessions we reconvened and each facilitator presented a summary of what was talked about.

The next night was a regularly scheduled Commission meeting where we discussed some of the findings. Now come the hard part - how to get some of our recommendations turned into reality. This means working with the City Council, the City Manager, the School Committee, and the School Superintendent. One of our recommendations is to hire an Executive Director (the Ordinance that governs our Commission allows for one) so that they'll be more than just volunteers doing the work. Meanwhile work goes on. Tomorrow I'm meeting with the MIS and Public Information staff to get some web pages established on the city web site to be maintained by us. (I did this once before when I was a member of the Library 21 Committee (planning for a major library expansion which is now underway). And there's lots more...