The assemblies were a completely new democratic structure voted in place in Feb 2005. Following the elections for Union Council in March 2005 & minority representatives (assembly chairs) been elected, the task of taking the idea of an infomal/non-committal democratic process encouraging students to get involved in the union and turning it into a reality was left to the assembly chairs & their mentors (it's important to note that the LGBT assembly was overlooked in this & weren't given a mentor).

As part of undertaking the daunting task of making something out of nothing, all assembly chairs were asked to write an action plan stating what they hoped to achieve for their assembly by the end of the year. My action plan has been on the forum all year, just to recap, it was:

By the end of the first year it is hoped that the assembly will...
- have enough members to run
- have gained publicity
- wrote motions and taken them to Union Council
- ran campaigns
- established links with other assemblies & LUU and worked together with them
- have forged good links with the NUS LGBT Committee and other assemblies
- made significant changes within LUU

In addition, the LGBT assembly chose to focus on four main issues, these were:
- Challenging homophobia/biphobia
- Hate Crime reporting
- LGBT Health
- Gender rights & issues and challenging transphobia.

====So just how well has the assembly done?=====
In all honesty, the turnout to the first assembly meeting was a fantastic 16 people. After that the assembly meetings struggled to get the minimum amount of 10 members (union set standards) to meetings and the meetings weren't productive, so they got scrapped in favour of a system where people who wanted to get involved could contact the assembly n do what they wanted, unfortunately hardly anyone gave a toss. Its also due to a lack of interest/effort from people that no campaigns were ran. After 2 or 3 of us put in a riduculous amount of effort in2 running Queer Week (march 2005), it was recognised that trying to run a campaign with just a couple of people was a knackering nightmare, so that was put on a backburner.

Enough of the failings tho, seems that they are the only 2. The on target things are; motions have been wrote and taken to Union Council, links with the other assemblies, LUU & NUS have been established and are good, the aim of making significant changes within LUU has been achieved and the assembly has gained publicity.

This now takes us onto 2 the bonus stuff, which wasn't even thought up as a possiblity! Forging strong links with the Student Advice Centre which have been beneficial for LGBT students, forging good links with various University Services (accomodation, central student admin, equality & diversity), talking to the universities Vice-Chancellor to effect change within the University for the benefit of LGBT students, successfully dealing with lecturers who had made discriminatory comments and most of all, the changing of attitudes, which has seen Leeds become more tolerant and inclusive of LGBT students. All of this in one year is amazing!

In addition the LGBT Assembly is officially THE most productive, high profile & influential assembly within LUU and the University! Woohooo!!! To be able to say this after 2/3 of us have spent all year running ourselves into the ground to get things going & keep it up, with very little support, is just AWESOME! I'm well proud!

Thats the action plan stuff covered. So I'll move onto the four main issues and whats been done around them...

===Challenging Homophobia/Biphobia===
Battling it out with Leeds Student Newspaper to put an end to the offensive/discriminatory articles they were printing on an almost weekly basis and winning, was a major achievement for this issue. The booklet which was wrote and sent round all of campus also did a hell of alot to challenge ignorance of LGBT issues and saw attitudes towards LGBT students change as well as sparking off all the positive changes that have occured this year. Other things that the assembly has done around this issue are, a radio interview with LSRfm.com about bisexuality in women and dealing with complaints about lecturers making discriminatory comments.

===Hate Crime Reporting===
Well there's been a pretty poster made, which is on display outside the LGBT office. By working with the Student Advice Centre, the assembly managed to arrange getting 2 assembly and 2 society committee members trained in Hate Crime Reporting. This will take place over easter & if there's enough request for it a workshop to train others will be ran.

===LGBT Health===
Well it was fun and games trying to get the Union Exec to order dental dams for safer sex between women, but again, the relationship the assembly has with Student Advice Centre helped the assembly to get dental dams ordered into the union (LGBT office womens officer drawer). There are also going to be further developments over easter in this area, due to Assembly representatives been asked to go and speak at a parliamentary lobby where LGBT sexual health is featured heavily on the agenda.

===Gender rights & issues and challenging transphobia===
Again battling against the paper about articles offensive to Trans people is just a part of what the assembly has done about this issue. Working with the Universities equality & diversity committee, the assembly has been able to find out what Trans students are entitled to and the issue of staying in university accomodation/studying at Leeds University and are in a position to work with Equality & Diversity to provide training to relevant depts/university services if needed. The assembly has also worked closely with central student administration to find out how Trans students would be able to change personal details and their gender on university records, as well as push for this to be included in the taught students handbook, so that trans students can access the information easily.

Overall the summary is, bluddy hard work & hard/stressful work so far, full of obstacles to overcome, but fantastic results from sticking at it! F*** yeah!! Once again, a massive thanks is due to those who have been involved with the assembly and helped with everything this year. This is really something to be proud of, all the little bits have turned in2 a mountain of achievement!

Everyone else, this is what I've been doing with the support of a few others to represent you all year. Hope its enough so far (still got 1 term to go) and I hope you're happy with whats been achieved, especially in relation to the original aims.

Nic x

-- Edited by Polo fiend at 13:06, 2006-03-28