Thoughts from the front of the back of my mind

The last few days have been busy but with lots of awesome activist stuff!

On Thursday I was out at miss_amaranth and bunnypip's Bisexual Meet & Greet, run as part of the Oxford Pride Festival. It was a great night, with 3 new faces and learning that there's a large (about 28) contingent of bisexuals in Oxford University, a member base well worth trying to tap into in the future. The night went well with lots of discussion and seeing anarchist_nomad and cheshcat was very nice.

Friday was a night in where I went to be quite early because the next morning I had to get up at ridiculous o'clock to be out the house for...

Oxford Pride!
Up nice and early and at Oxpens field for 9am, I decided to pitch in and help out. After checking with the Village Manager, (our own uberredfraggle, no less) where the bisexual_oxford stall was, I donned my Super-Bi cape (a Bi Pride flag tied around at the narrow end) and helped by sticking down the numbers of each stall. It gave me a chance to say "morning" to other early birds and watch as Pride got set up around me.

At about 9:30 bunnypip, L1 and L2 arrived in Peter II along with the Pride Pack (c/o sanjibabes and the bicon community). We quickly set all the flyers and sign up and by 10am we were ready to go. miss_amaranth turned up around this time and me and her decided to head into Oxford town to get nibbles for ourselves and some sweeties for the stalls.

When we returned it was a bit more waiting around before unfurling and tying up the banner (to all future pack holders, remember to have 4 pieces of somewhat sturdy string to hand) and heading off into Oxford town centre again. Everyone assembled at the parade start, I'd estimate about 200 in all were there. We got there very early so we were able to take a position nice and close to the front. Not too close because Unison had brought an enormous banner with them and we didn't want to be hidden behind it.

The banner is excellent and kudos to everyone involved. It's a lovely weight and a good strength means pulling it taught doesn't have any problems. Me and L1 easily carried it for the whole route holding it prominently enough to score a background shot in the Oxford Mail. You can also see bunnypip and miss_amaranth's Purple Brollys which were also fabby! I will be posting some links (not under [filter:links] because these will be very relevant) to pictures as/when I find them.

When we returned, all three of us took turns on the stall. miss_amaranth made an excellent front-of-stall person, drawing in lots of lovely new people to talk to and tell about the monthly meet (which is this week, FYI). We had lots of interest and even people who didn't stop to talk, leaflets were taken about BiCon and BCN. Me and miss_amaranth also used Pride as a golden opportunity to network heavily with the other organisations there, including groups like Mind and Oxford Friend (who we also gently enquired to about their heavy use of "Gay & Lesbian" only) and Terrence Higgins (who are really looking forward to running a workshop again at BiFest next year!). We were able to get lots of leaflets and information and we'll build a small pack to bring with us to the Socials in case they help anyone there.

We packed up about 5pm, as the numbers entering dwindled off and the rest of the community stalls were either empty or packing up. It was a great day and I'm really looking forward to next year.

Sunday was much more sedate. As a celebration of living in Eynsham for 1 year (the longest I have been in a single residence since 2006) and also in preparation for the celebrations next week, me and miss_amaranth deep cleaned the flat, top to bottom and side-to-side. It took a few hours but they were well worth it. I found a card game I didn't know I had, as well as some sweet video games I'd forgotten all about. Also, we now have a wonderfully shiny clean flat which is always nice.

To celebrate our 5 years, we went to the Spiceorama (which is now called something like the Kandahar House) where we had a lovely meal. The change of management has really improved the place (which was already excellent) so we're both very happy.

I was going to make this a post to bicon_oxford but I think this will live better on my own journal.

A Google for bisexual oxford puts Bisexual Oxford at number 5. Not bad for a placeholder page. My goal for the new year is make the site number 1 for:

• bisexual oxford
• bisexuals oxford
• oxford bisexual
• oxford bisexuals

and at least first page for:

• meeting bisexuals in oxford
• lgbt oxford
• oxford lgbt

Humorously enough one of our biggest competitors for the number 1 slot is Bisexual Underground, which happens "north of Oxford Street"...

That second list is going to be Hard. There's a lot of dating sites for the first one and the second are mostly swamped out by diversity sites from the University.

It'll be totally worth it though when someone comes to the meet because they found the website :)