Project News

• 2014, August 8
  On the occasion of the 20th Anniversary of the founding of the Rainbow Chorus Waterloo-Wellington in 1994, the Grand River Rainbow Historical Project is pleased to unveil a Retrospective Exhibition of posters, tickets, concert programmes, and newsletters associated with the Rainbow Chorus since its inception. The Retrospective may be viewed by going to the Rainbow Historical Project’s Digital Library. The retrospective consists of digital copies of two newsletters: Colours (1996-1997) and Raindrops (1999- ) and also digital copies of the posters, tickets, programmes, etc. for the concerts & dances at Rainbow Chorus Events. The Rainbow Chorus Waterloo-Wellington has become a cornerstone of our communities. Members of the Rainbow Chorus – Waterloo-Wellington, we are in your debt!
• 2013, March 8
  Just in time for the 2013 Rainbow Reels Queer Film Festival, March 14-17, the Grand River Rainbow Historical Project was pleased to unveil a Retrospective Exhibition of posters and festival guides associated with Rainbow Reels since its inception in 2001. The Retrospective is found at: Rainbow Reels Queer Film Festival (2001- ). We acknowledge the assistance of WPIRG, and, especially, Reena Reddy, in gaining access to print and electronic copies of the documents that we display in the Retrospective Exhibition, and in securing copyright permission to do so. We thank Michael Schmidt for supplying us with electronic versions of some of the documents. We thank also Ryan Connell for his assistance in transforming some of the more complex electronic documents into an appropriate format. The Rainbow Reels Queer Film Festival (http://www.rainbowreels.org/) has become an important tradition in our communities, using cinema to celebrate who we are. Many thanks to the folks who have brought us the Rainbow Reels Queer Film Festival over the years - you have enriched our communities!
• 2012, December 12
  After 5 months of work, we have completed digitizing materials from the Guelph Queer Equality Collection. The digitized materials fall into two broad groups. Firstly there is a collection of over 60 posters and brochures associated with events; these are found at GQE/GGLBE/GGLE/GGE/UGHA Events (1973- ). Secondly there is a collection of newsletters, beginning in 1971 with the Newsletter of the largely forgotten forerunner of the current group (which takes its official founding date as October 24 of 1973, not 1971). These newsletters are the following:
  1. University of Guelph Homophile Association Newsletter [UGHA] (1971, March)
  2. Gaily Planet [UGHA] (1974, October - November)
  3. Guelph Gay Equality Newsletter (1977, May - 1990, August) + Guelph Gay & Lesbian Equality Newsletter (1990, September - 1993, April) + Guelph Gay, Lesbian & Bisexual Equality Newsletter (1993, May - 1995, September)
  Taken together, these materials form a rich store of historical information on our communities in Guelph and surrounding area. The last Newsletter alone ran for a staggering 19 years! This may be a record for a queer newsletter in our fair country. There is much to read here about the social and cultural life in Wellington County and also Waterloo Region. The information about which bars and clubs were in existence at various times from 1977 to 1995 is invaluable, since there are very few other written sources for this kind of information. Does anyone remember 33 MAC or Club DV8? Or the sequence of clubs in Kitchener and Cambridge from 1980 until 1995? It's all here, Folks! Finally, our thanks to Allisa Scott (GQE 2012 Summer Co-ordinator) for her assistance in securing this copyright permission.
• 2012, October 26
  We learned that the AIDS Committee of Cambridge, Kitchener, Waterloo and Area (ACCKWA) had given us permission to digitize documents that have been published by them since their beginning in 1987. Thanks to Colby Marcellus, Executive Director of ACG, for his assistance in securing this permission!
• 2012, October 1
  Today, we were very pleased to open the mail and find a signed form indicating that the Rainbow Chorus of Waterloo-Wellington had given us permission to digitize documents that have been published by them since their beginning in 1994. Thanks to Art Martin of the Rainbow Chorus of Waterloo-Wellington for his assistance in securing this permission! Over the next several months we plan to digitize and mount copies of various publications, including concert posters and concert programmes, of this well-known and beloved choral group in the Waterloo-Wellington area.
• 2012, September 16
  Today, we started a new area entitled Digital Gallery. In addition to including links to the areas for posters and pictures for events, we also set up a section there entitled Paraphernalia. The latter currently contains only a link to an area for T-Shirts, which displays photographs of some t-shirts associated with our local community. We also have a small collection of buttons, fridge magnets and banners that we will be photographing and including in the Paraphernalia area.
• 2012, September 11
  Today we were excited to receive a parcel in the mail from Lisa Simkins, a prominent local-area activist during the 1980s and early 1990s (before she left the area). The parcel contained copies of over 30 different issues of the Pink Triangle Community Calendar (PTCC), which she created in September 1989, and edited and produced until the December 1991 issue, after which publication responsibility was assumed by GLLOW (Gay and Lesbian Liberation of Waterloo). GLLOW transformed the small publication (usually one or two folded sheets mostly giving information about upcoming events) into a larger monthly publication consisting of many pages. By the end of the summer of 1992, the increase in the number of pages of the PTCC had depleted the financial resources of GLLOW. From that point onward, the PTCC appeared only at irregular intervals. The parcel also contained a signed form granting copyright permission to us to digitize the run of the PTCC for which Lisa had been responsible. Since we already have copyright permission for all of the publications of GLOW, we now have copyright permission for the entire run. Thanks to Lisa Simkins for helping us obtain copyright permission for the complete set, and also for donating her set covering the first three years, which otherwise we would have had to digitize at the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives in Toronto.
• 2012, September 10
  We were very pleased to receive mail indicating that A.J. Mahari had given us permission to digitize the entire collection of The Voice, an important local publication that ran from 1998, October 9 to 2003, March in 52 issues. This is an extraordinarily rich source of information about our history; it will be an invaluable addition to our Digital Library, once we have completed the task of digitizing it. Thanks to A.J. Mahari, the Editor and Publisher of The Voice, for this permission!
• 2012, August 13
  We learned that the AIDS Committee of Guelph and Wellington County (ACG) had given us permission to digitize documents that have been published by them since their beginning in 1987. Thanks to Tom Hammond, Executive Director of ACG, for his assistance in securing this permission!
• 2012, July 26
  We learned that the Rainbow Reels Queer Film Festival had given us permission to digitize documents that have been published by them since their beginning in 2001. Thanks to Reena Reddy of the Waterloo Public Interest Research Group (WPIRG) for her assistance in securing this permission!
• 2012, July 11
  We learned that Guelph Queer Equality (GQE) had given us permission to digitize documents that had been published by the group under its various names back to 1973, and to mount them on our website. Thanks to Allisa Scott (GQE Summer Co-ordinator) for her assistance in securing this permission! This permission and the one from yesterday mean that we will be able to add considerably to the historical information about the community in Guelph on our website. But it will take some time before we have a substantial amount of these materials digitized.
• 2012, July 10
  We learned that Out On The Shelf (OOTS) had given us permission to digitize documents that had been published by them and their subsidiary Guelph Pride, and to mount them on our website. Thanks to Greg Duncan (an OOTS Volunteer) for his assistance in securing this permission!
• 2012, June 19
  Femme Fatale Creations and the Grand River Rainbow Historical Society were very pleased to learn that the Region of Waterloo Arts Fund had granted funding for the Rainbow Reflections video memory project.
• 2012, May 31
  After 6 weeks of work digitizing tri-Pride materials, a good collection of documents covering the events from 1995 to 2001 were published on the website at tri-Pride Celebrations. There is much more material still to be included in that area.
• 2012, April 17
  Work on digitizing the 11 issues of GLOW News (1982-1983) was completed.
• 2012, March 31
  Work on digitizing the 8 issues of Gemini II (1973-1974) was completed.
• 2012, February 29
  Work on digitizing the 3 issues of Gemini (1971) was completed.
• 2012, February 23
  Work on digitizing the 7 issues of OUT! (1978-1978) was completed.
• 2012, February 16
  The Grand River Rainbow Historical Society and Femme Fatale Creations began to announce the launch of a joint initiative called Rainbow Reflections to create video interviews of people sharing their memories of local rainbow history.
• 2012, February 9
  GLOW - The Queer and Questioning Community Centre gave us permission to digitize documents that had been published by the group under its various names back to 1971, and to mount them on our website. This was another big step forward!
• 2012, February 8, Afternoon
  We received a generous donation of historical documents from community activist Lyn McGinnis. Of particular note was a collection of 40 issues of The Voice, which was published from 1998, October 9 - 2003, February. Lyn had worked on the production of this important community magazine, the Editor and Publisher of which was A. J. Mahari.
• 2012, February 8, Evening
  At a meeting of the tri-Pride Association, the Grand River Rainbow Historical Project was given permission to digitize documents that had been published by the Association, and to mount them on our website. The Association also loaned us two large binders containing archival copies of some of their publications. This was a most eventful day!
• 2012, January 17
  On 2012, January 17, we began conversations with Justin Grundy (of tri-Pride Association) and Jeremy Steffler & Ali Scott (both of Waterloo Region Rainbow Coalition) about possible ways of showcasing local rainbow history. This culminated a week later in the idea of two separate programs: (1) the creation of a set of several poster-board displays, and (2) the creation of a collection of videos of local history interviews (the proposed name of this second program to be Rainbow Reflections).
• 2011, December 11
  Work on digitizing the 28 issues of Outlook Magazine (1995-1998) was completed, and the copies that had been borrowed were returned to Rick Lethbridge and Mark Jordan, its publishers and copyright holders.
• 2011, September 12
  Permission to scan and mount digitized copies of OUT! magazine (1978-1979) on the Project website was obtained from Joe Szalai and Wayne Bell of the former Kitchener-Waterloo Gay Media Collective, the publishers of the magazine.
• 2011, June 8
  We began an experiment to see how feasible it would be to go through issues of the University of Waterloo student newspaper, Imprint, and extract appropriate information from them. Unfortunately their online archive has a very poor interface; we were forced to guess what the URL might be for particular issues. Some issues were either not digitized, or were given URLs that do not conform to the pattern that they usually use. In any case, the results have been rewarding indeed. Before we started analyzing issues of the Imprint we had relatively little information from the 1980s, except for the period 1982-1983, when GLOW News was being published. Now it appears that we will eventually have a lot of interesting information covering the University of Waterloo in the 1980s. There are, of course, other campus newspapers, as well as city newspapers, that we will be able to mine over the next few years.
• 2011, May 4
  Permission to scan and mount digitized copies of Outlook magazine (1995-1998) on the Project website was obtained from Rick Lethbridge and Mark Jordan, its publishers and copyright holders. Work on digitization began shortly afterward.
• 2011, May 3
  The domain name grandriver-rainbowhistory.ca was acquired for the Grand River Rainbow Historical Project.
• 2011, March 14
  The Grand River Rainbow Historical Project was begun on 2011, March 14, with the goal of documenting the history of the various rainbow communities in the Grand River region of Southwestern Ontario.