COOL SUMMER

Many thanks to everyone who came out for Cool Summer: Our House to Yours! We had a great crowd and raised about $800 for Ronald McDonald House Charities of Cincinnati, though I forgot to take any pictures! :-) That will help off set the stay of a family at the House for 36 days!

Many thanks to my partners in crime, Julie of WineMeDineMeCincinnati.com, Katy of KatesRandomMusings.com, Monika and Shannan of CincinnatiWomenBloggers.com. Also, many thanks to Below Zero Lounge for being such a fabulous host, and thanks to Lancome for setting up and doing free makeup consultations! And, of course, thanks to M2B Designs for her amazing graphic!

I think by the end of the night the overall reaction was: success!

Also, congratulations to the Ensemble Theatre Company and STOP AIDS for a hugely successful Big Hair Bingo, with pictures brought to you by Cincinnati NAMjA!

Of course, after the party and the time at Blue Bar with Cincinnati Guerrilla Queer Bar, I found myself sick with god knows what... so much so that I just woke up about an hour ago. Sigh. We're going to chalk it up to the relief from stress.

Equality Ohio Fundraiser

Equality Ohio hosted a little fundraiser at Below Zero this evening, and I had the distinct pleasure of hanging with my dears Erin Upchurch (of Equality Ohio), Cameron Tolle (of Impact Cincinnati), and Rusty Lockett (of Church of our Savior and the Gay and Lesbian Community Center), all pictured above. I did the single most shocking thing you would ever expect from me ... that is, gasp, signed up to be an Equality Ohio member. (Yes, Lynne, it's true.) Thanks to Erin we have a mini update on the Equal Housing and Employment Act (EHEA -- HB176), which would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity/expression in Ohio.

The Ohio legislature is on recess right now, but we have received assurances that there will be a vote before this session ends. As it stands, we've not had a lot of leadership emerge in the Ohio Senate on the issue, so there is a lot of lobbying to do over there, too. Law in Ohio, though, seems to read that the House can pass a bill this session and then go to the Senate next session, so we don't have to start the process over again. Equality Ohio is asking people to continue to contact their State Representatives throughout the summer to keep the pressure on them until a vote comes up in late September or early October. For information on how to contact your local representative, go here.

Other events of note this weekend:

• COOL SUMMER Coktail Hour-- Brought to you by this blog, WineMeDineMeCincinnati.com, KatesRandomMusings.com, and CincinnatiWomenBloggers.com. It's a fundraiser tomorrow (July 17th) from 7pm-10pm at Below Zero Lounge. Promises to be a great time! (Facebook page)
• Big Hair Bingo -- "Honey, this isn't your grandma's bingo." Gay bingo comes to Cincinnati tomorrow night at 7:30pm at the Ensemble Theatre Company (1127 Vine Street), benefiting STOP AIDS and the theatre. (Facebook Page)

Hope to see you out this weekend folks!

CincyPride 2010 + Apologies

Been busy these last two days with nothing of value. HA! But, before I headed off to work for the night, it was made official today that the Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Greater Cincinnati will no longer be organizing Cincinnati Pride (as announced here) and has passed the torch onto the Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber recently had huge success organizing EQUINOX to rave reviews. I wonder what it will be like for them, organizing two huge events within a month of each other?

From the Rainbow Cincinnati post:

This afternoon, Bill Abney, President of the Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Greater Cincinnati announced that the organization will not organize Pride 2010.

The announcement came at the Pride Appreciation volunteer party hosted by the Community Center and the Bar Monet of Willard Street in Covington, KY.

Concurrent with this news, Nigel Cotterill, President of the Greater Cincinnati Gay Chamber of Commerce says his organization will organize the event for Cincinnati in 2010. Their Vice President, George Crawford will have charge of the event. George was chair of the successful Equinox celebration held just last weekend.

Nigel Cotterill will be forwarding a "release" of additional details in the next few days.

The Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Greater Cincinnati had been the organizer for the past five years.

Also: don't forget the Cincinnati Drag Races tomorrow on Main Street, or next week's COOL SUMMER Cocktail Hour for Ronald McDonald House on Friday the 17th from 7p-10p at Below Zero Lounge.