[the_educator]

So, I'm a student coming to Warwick in 2012 and I wanted to find out a bit about their LGBT society beforehand. Anyone with any experience/friends who've been who could tell me about it, would be useful. How many people get involved. what sorts of things do they do and whats the best way to meet people and get involved. I'm a bit nervous about getting in with this crowd when I arrive and I want to do it right.

[Lukeyyyo]

I'm interested in this too, any answers out there?

[Adamn]

Warwick pride is a pretty large community. I'm not personally a member, mainly because I don't have enough time lol, but one of my friends is women's rep and loves it.

It's a really friendly group of a people, I'm not overly sure how to get involved but they should have a stall at the societies fair in the first week, and should let you know. Normally they have a welcoming tea/coffee session, but they have socials weekly to Coventry's gay bar (Rainbows) and they often go to the Nightingale in Birmingham.

Don't be nervous, there will be loads of people like you, and it's a really welcoming group. Also when you get all your uni details and everything, sign into the societies site and join Warwick Pride, that way you'll get all the society's emails and you'll know when socials and meetings are

Here's their site:
http://home.warwickpride.org/

Sign up to their forum, maybe

[cscn]

I haven't really been attending many Warwick Pride events this year, but I'm definitely planning on it next year. It's really easy to get involved. They have weekly emails to people on their email mailing list, and there was a big social at the start of the year where you can meet people. The last two terms, they had socials just about every weekday (This term is exam period, so they have 2 events on this week), although some would be specific to certain groups, like the asexual social or international social. You can just drop in to attend it, or email them when they ask for volunteers for stuff like the glitterball or their culture and campai. I definitely going to plug for them; they represent the whole gay-bi-trans spectrum really well, and the reps are very passionate about what they do.

[georgia]

I've been at Warwick three years now, and every single person I have spoken to about Pride has had nothing but good things to say. I've got absolutely no first hand experience of it, but it seems like it would be relatively easy to get involved to whatever extend you want.

[WaterfrontWAR]

Ooh, finally a topic that I can get excitable about! (It's so lovely to see the nice things people have said!) Anyways, hi, i'm actually Pride's president this year so I should know things and be able to answer questions!
(First off, any questions you want to ask but don't want to post publically, feel free to email them to president@warwickpride.org and I promise to be prompt with replying!)

So, to start with how large is Pride? This year we've had about 170~180 members, I haven't checked the list recently.

What do we do?
Well, a bit of everything really - and you can get involved with as much or as little as you like.
We run weekly casual / non-night out socials once a week and clubbing socials once a week. Meals out at the end of every term, plus our lovely social sec occasionally organises other things (he seemed quite keen on going to laserquest last time we talked about it). We have an annual ball, annual three-day trip to National Student Pride in Brighton and other things as well.
We also run seperate socials for members from the minority groups to represent to meet each other and chat with their representative on the exec committee, these are at least once per term and should be happening in the first 4 weeks of term 1.
With regards to welcome events, we have a 'Welcome Buffet' at the beginning of term one and term 2 (at the end of week two, block it off in your diaries ) which is for all members, new, interested, returning and we even get some people who left a couple of years ago coming back to join the party. (n.b. We aren't heterophobic at any of our events, but we especially encourage people to bring new friends to the welcome buffets because it can sometimes be intimidating meeting such a large group of LGBTUA+ people for the first time)
We do Campaigning, running a week of events in term one for 'Pride Week' and more events throughout February for LGBT History Month. Recently we were celebrating the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia (IDAHoBiT) with a stall on the piazza, Equal Love petitions to sign and chalk bodies around campus to highlight the deaths caused through Homo/Bi/Transphobic abuse and attacks. Oh and next weekend we're going to be marching at Birmingham Pride with a group of other Midlands Universities
With regards to Welfare, we run workshops during pride week and LGBT History Month as well as periodic 'Coming Out' Workshops (for those who aren't out to xyz to talk through issues and reasoning and people to share stories of their experiences)

Best way to get involved?
It depends on how comfortable you are.
For example, At the societies fair (sometime in week 1 of term 1, you'll be given information by the union about it at some point) we will have a stall on both days, there will be a couple of people on that stall all day. That's a great time to get information because you get to come, chat to a couple of us and find out about what's happening and how you can get involved. I know quite a few people who, when they went to uni, wouldn't have felt comfortable doing this (myself included, I shied away from the stall.) You can also join the society there and then.
The other ways would be to either join via the Student Unions website and you'll automatically get our emails giving lots of information about absolutely everything.
Otherwise, emailing us at hello@warwickpride.org closer to the time and we'll be able to tell you what's happening around that time.
Finally, we have a scheme called the parenting scheme, where people who want a helping hand can sign up, get allocated two returning members to be their 'parents', usually we'll meet for coffee, have a chat for an hour or so, sometimes a few times, when the member wants to they then can either turn up at a social already knowing someone or turn up with them, which immediately gives some form of crutch or way in so to speak... (I've worded that terribly, so hopefully you all get the meaning behind it. Apologies, it's sleep deprivation and caffeine addiction getting the better of me)
so yeah... any other questions and i'll try to help out