“Bringing together lesbians, gay men & bisexuals in queer community”

What is Celebrate! ?

Celebrate! began in 1994 when a group of lesbians and gay men who wanted to explore and celebrate their similarities and differences decided to hold an event at a community in Scotland.

It has continued to grow, and in 1997 Celebrate! held its first general meeting to become an independent not-for-profit organisation.

In 2001 Celebrate! held its 8th weeklong residential community event, where lesbians and gay men got together to continue the process of building a joint community, getting to know each other, and generally having fun.

Celebrate! 2002 at Laurieston Hall is already in the planning stages and hopefully will prove to be just as successful and attract more people wanting to make new friends and build lesbian, gay, bisexual community.

As well as this annual residential community/holiday event, at Laurieston Hall in SW Scotland, Celebrate are now planning to run a few shorter ‘taster’ weekend events with differing themes starting with a weekend in April 2002 at Featherstone Castle in Northumberland.

Celebrate! pays to use venues where people can get together, have fun, meet new people & generally try to further the aims of Celebrate and the LGB community

What people do at an event depends greatly on the structure of the event and the people who attend.

At the Laurieston Hall event anyone can suggest what things they want to do in groups. People have run various different workshops or spent time together walking, swimming in the Loch, playing games or using the private sauna.

Some workshops people have run or suggested in the past have been:

Signing for the deaf.
Discussion groups about sexuality & our differences/similarities.
Discussion groups about differing ability.
Dancing.
Singing.
Creative writing.
Mask making.
Meditation.
Swimming.
Drawing/Painting.
Walking.
Wrestling.
Dressing up.
Relaxation.
Games and playing.

You name it, Celebrate does it!

Often towards the end of the week a cabaret is held where everyone (who wants to) is invited to do a turn. It could be anything, a song, a dance, poetry reading, comedy sketch, juggling act, whatever takes your fancy. Or some might just choose to be appreciative members of the audience and offer support for the budding entertainers.

Nothing is compulsory, especially at the Laurieston event, but there is usually one get together at the beginning of the week to get to know each others names & so that the residents can tell us about the venue & safety issues etc. plus a get together at the end of the week to feed back on how the week has been for us all and say goodbye. If everyone who can, at least comes to these two meetings, then the overall sense of community is greatly enhanced.

Celebrate are hoping in the future to expand its activities to hold weekend events and events where children can be catered for.

Please contact Celebrate! If you'd like to join the mailing list to receive the newsletter. 
(We ask for a small donation of £1 or £2 to cover the expense of producing this newsletter which can be sent to the contact address -postal orders or cheques only please - made payable to 'Celebrate!')

Celebrates Aims:

Celebrating Community	Celebrating Creativity	Celebrating Diversity
To bring together and welcome all people who identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual, to build community and encourage understandings; to seek ways in which we can live co-operatively, support each other and achieve trust an intimacy.	To create a queer safe space for lesbians, gay men and bisexuals to feel able to take some risks and explore personal potential; to experience community and co-operation, different ideas and different ways of living.	To make celebrate! as widely accessible as possible; to challenge sexism and heterosexism; to challenge prejudices over race, religion, colour, age, class, impairment, HIV status or transgender; to be inclusive, respect difference and celebrate diversity.

Who is Celebrate! For?

Celebrate! is for lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and people who identify with those groups, who want to spend time together celebrating community, diversity and creativity.

The main things expected of anyone attending Celebrate! events is a general acknowledgement of the aims of the organisation and a willingness to respect the safety and differing needs of others also attending the events.

Some events may be more themed or require a greater level of commitment and participation, while others may be more aimed at creating a holiday community atmosphere, where most of the time people will be encouraged to do their own thing, and opt in and out as they wish.

The pre-booking information for each event should clearly indicate what will be expected of those wishing to attend.

The Organisation

Celebrate! is a not for profit organisation. In the early days some events were underwritten by the Edward Carpenter Community and Celebrate have received grants from the ECC Trust and the lotteries commission to help further it’s aims.

Any surplus money from our events is used to further the aims of Celebrate! by making the event cheaper and more accessible. All the organisers and helpers are volunteers who also pay towards the cost of the week.