Week of October 11, 2010

From Anne:

We found a home!! The new location, at 1151 S. Huron, is a perfect fit for us! After the board members approved the location, Kate signed the lease and we are moving in this week. Christopher Leach, who is a board member at The Center, also has a business selling office furniture, so I got to go on a shopping trip with Monica and Kate to pick out new furniture.  Then the movers  came to help us with the desks and the chairs….and I remembered how much for fun it is to pick furniture out, than it is to move it <grin>. 

From Cinda:

Monday turned out to be a medical day for me.  I dropped in to the Health Center on campus for MMR immunizations since I can't find my records.  Wednesday I got a flu shot.  Note to self, NEVER get two shots in the same week.  I was sick all day Thursday, but had to be in class anyway.  Ick.  Worst part was missing the Gender Center board meeting that Thursday night... grumble...

Tuesday I headed over to Panera to wait for Miranda, had a croissant and from fruit and looked around the Gender Center web page.  When forty minutes had passed I finally checked my e-mail and saw that she wasn't going to be able to make the meeting.  We rescheduled for Wednesday next week, at the new Gender Center center.  I headed home and read another chapter in Lev.

I started on the first draft of my learning plan.  This took a lot longer than I expected, in part because I'm not sure exactly what will be happening in open hours at the Gender Center, because we haven't had open hours yet!  I'm trying to figure out ways to guess broadly and have it make sense in the plan.  I'm glad Karen will look this over as I have a hunch I'll need to reword things.

Week of October 4, 2010

From Anne:

Cinda, Karen and I met with Courtney, the Transgender Advocate from the Center for lunch this week. She has a lot of good ideas for ways to grow our programming while co-oping with other organizations around town that serve the LGBT population. For a new agency, it’s important to not only build clientele, but also good relationships with other organizations around town. There is a LOT of cross over in clients, staff and board members with the Gender Identity Center, The Center and One Colorado. Looking forward to building relationships with other folks in this community.

 
From Cinda:

Started off Monday with a meeting with Courtney, Karen and Anne.  We met a DNote from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and had a great conversation about what The Center is doing with regard to transgender issues.  Collaboration and cooperation were key concepts that we all embraced.  With luck we will be involved with some of The Center's activities, which will give me a broader view into transgender community and the issues that are important.

 

Tuesday I had planned to meet with a longtime member of the community at 10 in the morning, but at 7:30-ish Jody came running into my room with the announcement:  Come quick!  The sink is backing up and I can't keep up!  We bailed for about an hour before we could get a maintenance man to come look.  He went though the apartment building, banging on doors and telling folks above us to stop using the water.  Jody and I continued to bail.  Then a call to the plumber, but he won't be here for a couple of hours.  At least we could stop bailing around 10 since everyone had been told to stop using the water.  When the plumber arrived it turned into a major production with sink being removed so he had access to the wall and the pipe behind it…  It was a mess all day, but at least he was able to get it fixed.  The following day they brought in folks to replace the drywall, the sink and clean the carpets since we couldn't keep all the water from overflowing!  It was an adventure.

Read another chanter in Lev.  It's still taking a good chunk of time to get through each, but boy does she do a great job laying out the history and the various approaches.  This really is an invaluable text.  I created Word forms for volunteer and drop-in person sign in sheets.  Received contact information from Kate and I e-mailed Kim and Miranda.  Miranda and I have a meeting scheduled for next Tuesday to find out about the Gender Center web page.

Week of September 27, 2010

From Anne:

I spent a LOT of time this week getting to know the market for small business real estate in Denver. I have been looking for properties that meet the requirements of the Gender Identity Center; a reasonable price, enough room for support groups and our new drop in hours, centrally located, in a safe area, access to public transportation, and ADA compliant buildings. Whew! The real challenge has been finding property managers and landlords who are supportive of our mission and clientele. I’ve been very surprised at a broker’s initial willingness to talk with me, and then how quickly their attitudes change after hearing who we are and what we do. How frustrating it must be for our clients to deal with discrimination on a daily basis….

From Cinda:

Read another chapter in Lev.  This is a great text, but it's taking me about 2-3 hours to read through her chapters, which are dense with information.  I have e-mails out to several folks.  I'm waiting to hear back from them to get appointments set up next week.  If it works for her, Anne and I will see one wonderful lady on Tuesday at 10 a.m.  I'm still looking at other similar organizations online and not finding as much volunteer activity as I would have expected.

Week of September 20, 2010

From Anne (second year intern from DU):

Karen and I got to spend some time talking this week about the goals for this year. We discussed my role in finding a new space for the Gender Identity Center as well as a clinical track to add to the Gold Rush Conference coming in February 2011. In the past, the Gold Rush has been a conference comprised of workshops geared toward the Transgender population that discussed mostly medical issues, surgery, hormones and other services. This year, we would like to add an additional track for helping professions, such as social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists and counselors, who would like to learn more about clinical care for the Transgender population.  We discussed a number of different topics that would be important for professionals working with our population to have competencies in. Karen’s idea is to co-op practicing professionals in the area, who are experts in this field, and having each of them run a one hour workshop for a total of two days of education. I will be working with DORA to see if we will be able to offer the professionals who attend the clinical track continuing education units. I will also be working on marketing this event to clinicians and students in Denver and outlying areas.

From Cinda (first year intern from DU):

          Monday started out at the Denver Zoo.  Karen and Anne and I had the chance to walk through the zoo and get to know one another as well as ask questions and just chat.  It was an enjoyable morning.  We headed into the grill to grab lunch and sat for a couple of hours, talking.  Then it was back out to see the baby tigers - too cute!  We didn't wrap up until nearly 3 in the afternoon, but I have to say I enjoyed the entire day.

Tuesday Karen and I met to look over my education plan, as well as discuss what, exactly, I'm be doing this quarter.  I was able to ask questions that have come up for me reading the Lev text, as well as others that emerged out of the conversation.  I really appreciated the chance to get my questions answered.  I came away with a list of things to do.

Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday I started in on the list.  First was a quick look at various blog-hosting spots.  I was looking for ones with minimal or no ads, easy to use, and easy to edit.  Blogspot fit the bill.  I set up an account to play around and I think this will work just fine for us.  Now I need to ask some questions about what we want on the homepage.  I also looked at a few websites for organizations that utilize volunteers in ways that we envision and checked out their info.  I think I have some good guidelines to work from for creating a policy and forms, which I hope I can do this week.  Still waiting for contact information from some of the Gender Center board, I'm shooting Kate an e-mail on that next.

I'm finding the Lev book to be a really great learning source and I'm trying to get a chapter done each week.  I'm also starting to see how to tie the skills class into my work at the GIC, which is really nice.  That class is definitely the most immediate applicable.