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By Ina Mae Murri, Affirmation's former General Coordinator Declarations of candidacy will be published in the November issue of Affinity. Candidates will also have an opportunity to speak at the Conference in October. They should be prepared to outline their vision and goals and to answer any questions. Please consider placing your name into candidacy. Affirmation benefits when we can choose among a variety of candidates who care about moving Affirmation forward. Please do not be deterred by the responsibility of the office. Affirmation does not depend on one person alone; as many executive directors in the past have found, there are many who help. To place your name into candidacy, please submit by October 8 a statement by email
to at AffirmationLDS
P.O. Box 6369 Long Beach, CA 90806 Attend Affirmation's Leadership Meeting It Will Be Held October 8, 2:00-4:00 in the Ramada Plaza by Olin Thomas The annual Affirmation leadership meeting will be held from 2:00-4:00pm on Friday, October 8, 2005 in the Union Square Room at the Ramada Plaza, where we are staying during Conference this year. All interested persons are invited to attend. A special invitation is extended to chapter directors, webmasters, newsletter editors, Affirmation area points of contacts, and others actively involved in Affirmation activities and areas of interests. The Executive Director will consider this meeting to be a meeting of the Council of Chapter Representatives, as organized under our current bylaws. In the interests of garnering the widest participation, the meeting will be limited to two hours and the agenda closely followed. A full agenda will be distributed at the meeting, but will include a vote on raising the annual dues for Affirmation membership from $20 to $25. Other topics will include possible future Conference locations and the direction of Affirmation in future years. We have a variety of core purposes, which can be fulfilled in a variety of ways. Come hear the strategic plan and contribute to it. The Executive Committee would also like to discuss a major new initiative in fund-raising for Affirmation and would like your input. Please plan on attending this meeting if you are interested in the governance of Affirmation. Affirmation Has a Book of Remembrance. Do You Have Yours? By Hugo Salinas October is family history month, and it is no secret that we as Mormons feel a special responsibility to preserve and celebrate our family history. The way I see it, this encompasses not only our biological family, but also our adoptive family (partners and friends) and our tribal family (Affirmation and the GLBT community at large). During the last three years I have spent hundreds of hours preparing and uploading pages and pictures that help preserve our gay Mormon family history on the Affirmation website. Following a suggestion by Queer author Connell O'Donovan, we have decided to call this area of the website "Our Book of Remembrance." We are committed to expand it without limit. Our gay Mormon legacy goes back to the 19th century. It includes patrician Mormon families, BYU professors, renowned activists, inspired poets, and yes--BYU Ambassadors as well. It features extraordinary stories of both failure and triumph, hopelessness and courage, doubt and resilience. Unlike the official LDS history, it is uncensored. It doesn't always have a happy ending. Precisely because of that, I find our gay Mormon legacy a thousand times more compelling that anything I've ever read in the Ensign. In the last four years I lost two close friends. The day after they died, I saw their relatives hijack their legacies, censor any reference to the fact that they were gay, and write obituaries that made me wonder if they even knew the deceased. Motivated by fear and ignorance, these actions threaten to rob us of a history that is legitimately ours. Please don't wait till you are 65 to start thinking about how you are going to preserve your own story and your own legacy. Start thinking about this matter today. Many gay and lesbian Mormons have sent me personal stories and photographs to be posted on the Affirmation website. I usually post such stories in an area called Personal Voices. I am waiting anxiously . If you wish to preserve personal papers or manuscripts--and I hope you do!--please consider donating them to the Special Collections of the Marriott Library at the University of Utah, where the Affirmation collection is preserved. Unlike the LDS Church archives, the University of Utah Library does not censor its collection. You can either start your own collection, or make a donation to the Affirmation collection. Please contact Stan Larson and make your donation today. As queer Mormons, you and I have a story that is unique. It has been hiding for too long; it too must come out of the closet. Let's take our gay Mormon legacy from under the bushel and let's place it on the candlestick, where it will give light to all that are in the house. Gay Mormon History: A Celebration
A Gift to Last: The Affirmation Collection at the University of Utah
J. Willard Marriott Library, 5th Floor 295 S 1500 E, Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0860 stan.larson  library.utah.edu(801) 581-8864 or (801) 581-8863 Two Ways to Make the Donation A donation to the Affirmation collection can be made in one of two ways. First, it can be made directly to the Affirmation: Gay and Lesbian Mormons Collection, Accession Number 1867. Talk with Stan Larson if you wish to protect your identity as a donor. The second way to make a donation is by starting a collection under your own name. If you describe the collection, or part of it, as relating to Affirmation: Gay and Lesbian Mormons, then the contents can be catalogued as such and the items can be retrieved, even if under a different accession number. This might be a preferred method of making a donation if the collection is large, if it has a particular scope (for instance, not strictly gay Mormon but just gay or just Mormon), or if includes unrelated items that have to do with other areas of your life. Get Reimbursed for Making a Donation! You can yourself estimate the value of your collection, and get a tax deduction of up to (but not including) $5,000 when you file your taxes in the fiscal year after you made the donation. If you believe your collection is worth more than $5,000, it will have to be appraised by an independent appraiser. Contact Stan Larson for details. If you live far away from Salt Lake City, you could get reimbursed for the cost of shipping the materials. Before sending the materials, you need to contact Stan Larson by email or by regular mail and give him a description of the contents and size of the collection. Stan Larson will tell you if they are interested in receiving the collection, and by what method (e.g., UPS, US Mail, etc.). After mailing the materials, you need to send Stan Larson the original shipping receipt--not a photocopy--to receive your reimbursement. What Kinds of Materials Are Included in the Collection?
The items will be archived exactly as they are received! Therefore we ask you to please organize your papers in folders, and label the folders. Try to include on the labels information that contextualizes the item or folder and clarifies its relevance for Affirmation. For instance, "Script for The Edge of Hollywood!" is of little historical value; it would be much better to label it, "Script for The Edge of Hollywood! Presented by the Los Angeles Chapter during the national conference, West Hollywood, California, 8 October 1988." Photographs: Please write the approximate date, the names of the people who appear, and a description of the event. Ideally, write the information on a separate sheet of paper with numbered items and number the pictures with a soft marker on the back; if you write descriptions on the back of the picture, make sure that you use a soft marker to avoid leaving marks on the front of the pictures. Cassettes, videos, diskettes, and CD ROMs: Please label the contents. For instance, a diskette could be labeled, "Email Correspondence between Executive Director and Chapter Directors, March 1994 - July 1996." Confidential Information If you have in your collection confidential information, such as old members directories or conference attendees directories, do not include them in your donation. Destroy any lists of members that you no longer use; if you are an Affirmation officer and have a list of members that you deem useful to another Affirmation officer, please send it to the Executive Committee. For more information, please review Affirmation's records and confidentiality guidelines. Affirmation: Gay and Lesbian Mormons P.O. Box 46022 Los Angeles, CA 90046 National Phone Line: (323) 255-7251 To see a directory of current Affirmation chapters, visit www.affirmation.org/chapters Executive Director: Olin Thomas AFFIRMATION GAY & LESBIAN MORMONS is a non-profit support group serving
Gay and Lesbian Mormons, their families and friends since 1977. AFFINITY
is the official publication of the Affirmation National Executive Committee.
About AFFINITY and E-AFFINITY AFFINITY is available both as an email text and as a web-based document. Although both versions are free of charge, we encourage you to become a dues-paying member and thus help us advance Affirmation's important mission. If you wish to receive a text version of AFFINITY by email, simply
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