Rainbow UCT

If you haven’t already visited our fabulous O-week stall (positioned to the left of Jammie Hall, against the building opposite the Arts Block) then come visit! We’ll be there for our third and last day of O-week society sign up from 9:00 - 15:30. We will also be on the Med Campus tomorrow from 12:00 - 14:00.

If you miss O-week or don’t want to be seen at the gay stall, don’t despair! You can still join RainbowUCT, just scurry on up to the 5th floor of the Steve Biko building and fill out a society sign-up form there (Cash or account).

Should you not want “RainbowUCT” to appear on your student account (That is all that appears, not something like “RainbowUCT: the society of gay and lesbian debauchery ” :P) Then just email us at uct.rainbow@gmail.com and we can make arrangements.

If you sign up by any other way then at O-week, please let us know so that we can add you to the emailing list, so that you don’t miss any of our fabulous functions!

We will try to be as accommodating as possible, so if you have any queries or require information please don’t hesitate to email us!

:David
Chairperson

Last semester, a brave young media student, Mandy, started attending Rainbow events and documenting them for an assignment. Here’s the finished product - a fabulous article which richly deserved the distinction it earned her. Mandy did ask me to add, that the article could not possibly have turned out half as well, if it weren’t for the fabulous subject matter. Well done Rainbow members!

Link to the article: SteppingIntoTheCloset.doc

We’re back!

They say the pot of gold is to be found at the end of the rainbow and the second half of our year certainly looks set to be even better than the first!

Don’t miss our first Monday discussion group on the first Monday of term (30 July) at 5pm in Arts 116 where we’ll talk about all our plans for the semester and vote on whether we really want that sex-toys party after all.

Some of the highlights of the term ahead:

• The launch of our own Bowling League (the only sport you can play while drinking)
• Another fabulous party
• Judge Edwin Cameron’s visit on Aug 13th
• Our very own cell-group with the Student Y (hear more abt this on Monday!)
• More guest speakers for the discussion group
• Gender violence awareness week (5 August)
• Better movies, much better (We promised we’d kick off with TransAmerica this semester)
• Intervarsity gay events with our friends at Stellenbosch.

So make sure to be there on Monday at 5pm, we’ll also update you on news from all the other gay-soc’s around the country that attended the LGBTI Youth Leaders Lekgotla with us in Joburg during the vac (you won’t believe what they get up to in the Free State!).
Look forward to hearing what you all got up to in the holidays!

Steve

Hey guys,

17 May is World Anti-Homophobia Day and to mark the ocassion we’re releasing a report on the fabulous campaign we did a few weeks back, hope you find it interesting reading (and it has pretty pictures too), as always your comments are much appreciated.

Most of all I’d like to say a big THANK-YOU to everyone who helped put the project together, you guys were amazing!

(The links to the reports. You will need Acrobat Reader and Microsoft PowerPoint to read them.)
Link: BringingHomophobiaOutOfTheCloset.pdf
Link: PersecutionPresentation.ppt

Keep well,
Steve

How many months of skin contact are beneficial? How many of our members prefer to swallow? And exactly how much pleasure does Senzo derive from prunes?

The answers to all these questions were revealed on Sunday at RainbowUCT’s fabulous Groot Constantia wine tasting!

On the 22^nd of April seven RainbowUCT members dodged seemingly random traffic cones on a journey to develop their wine tasting pallets beyond the level of sophistication associated with Four Cousins.

We entered Groot Constantia as a group of apparently innocuous polite students, nodding our heads at interesting facts given to us on the tour of the cellar, in which Simon (a member who works there) explained the wine making process - one such fact being that the longer the red grape skin is in contact with the wine during the creation process, the darker the red of the final colour.

After the informative tour we proceeded to the most interesting room: the tasting room. We had the opportunity to taste eight different wines including a port and an absolutely orgasmic dessert wine. At first the smells and tastes of the different wines were indistinguishable and flavours were only realised as Simon suggested them. But after a while, creativity and alcohol kicked in and people were picking out a wide variety of weird aromas including Indian spices, sawdust, baked raisins (?!?) and prunes (at which Senzo was particularly delighted).

We then embarked on a quest for a picnic spot. During this long and arduous exploration we scared families with our loud giggles and random jumping into bushes in an attempt to catch squirrels. We proceeded to eat cheese and crackers, drink even more wine and chat for an hour in the picturesque gardens of the wine estate.

We arrived as seven ignorant students, but left as seven - slightly intoxicated - wine connoisseurs bound together by a promise to one day meet again with more members and set out on another epic wine extravaganza.

:David VD

Have you seen the lesbian kiss… are you thinking what we’re thinking… is it time you learnt more about the birds and the birds?

If you’ve seen our poster campaign or found us by another route then welcome! Joining Rainbow is a relatively simple process. Just email us at uct.rainbow@gmail.com and give us your name and contact details. Then to formally sign up you need to fill out a form that’ll alow us to debit your account for the modest membership fee of R65. You can get the form from the SDSD Helpdesk on level 5 of the Biko Building (where the new food court is) or you can arrange to meet one of the committe and either get the form from us or pay cash if you dont want the “rainbow organisation” on your fee account. You can also just come along to one of our dicussion groups held every Monday at 5 in A116 and sign up there.

After a first term that saw us loud and proud on the plaza, and even louder and prouder at Pride then hosting a fab opening function, giving away tons of free movie tickets, going to a GAT party thats not going to be forgotten in a long time and launching our ever-popular discussion group, things are only going to get more hectic in the second term!

We’re going to be inviting guests to come to our discussion groups and share their experiences from adoption to legal issues. We’ll be doing a lot more social events with a wine tour, a trip to Theatre-sports and an OUTrageous fancydress party to the theme of Tarts and Vicars (on 5 May) and perhaps a return to the Gat party scene! On a serious note we’re also going to be involved in a lot more activism, with playing a prominent role in the march to save Zimbabwe on 21 April and our own campaign against Homophobia that we’ll be launching (email us if you want to get involved on the sub-committee for that). We also hope to be hosting some public lectures by well known South Africans. 

If you’re not already a member you’ll want to join us and if you are then make sure you take advantage of all we have to offer!

After the fabulous success of Eating Out 2: Sloppy Seconds that so many of our members saw at the OIA film festival last week we’ve decided to screen the original Eating Out as a way to wind down at the end of term on Friday. We’ll be in LS3A from 5pm and the movie will start at 5:30. If you’re in the mood for some absolutely hillarious one-liners strung together on next to no plot but plenty of beefcake then you won’t want to miss this one!

Monday 5 March will see the launch of our discussion group for 2007. Tim will be leading an informal discussion around a variety of topics of interest to the gay and lesbian community. We’ll start off on the 5th with a discussion about what it is that makes us gay: nature or nutture and then as the year progresses and we get to know each other a little better we’ll move on to more personal topics including sex, coming out, gays in the workplace, adoption, discrimination, homosexuality and religeon and many others. From time to time we’ll also be inviting guests to come and share their experiences with us.

Come and pour yourself a cup of coffee and join the discussion every Monday night in the Richard Luyt room from 5pm (just behind the Post Office on University Avenue - go up the stairs to the right of the post office and go in through the first set of glass doors on your left). We look forward to seeing you there.

Steve

Its a cultural experience to remember! For all the world it looks like any sakie-sakie dance in any school hall on the platteland except that this is Cape Town and the couples lang-arm dancing to these boere-lietjies are all guy-on-guy and girl-on-girl. Its a complete gay subversion of traditional Afrikaans culture and it couldn’t be more fun! Rainbow UCT will be making the short trek to Milnerton on Saturday 10 March and taking over one of the tressel tables on the side of the dancefloor to join in the fun. Bring your own drinks and we’ll provide some snacks and cups and don’t forget to strap on your veldskoene and hit the dancefloor.

This event is always a hit with our members so make sure that you RSVP to info@rainbowuct.org before 6 March to say that you’re coming. If you have a car and are able to give a few of your fellow Rainbow members a lift that would be great too.

more details to follow…