Following my involvement in the 2009 Queer Up North festival, and especially SINK OR SWIM, I was delighted to have a chance to volunteer to help out for the 2010 events, helping with programme and flyer distribution, badge making, stewarding, etc. I also got to perform in a poetry event, take part in a controversial Exam, (some after-effects of which I was unhappy about as will be seen shortly) and got to see the amazing Justin Bond in performance.
VOLUNTEERING
In the build up to, and first few days of the festival I was invited to help prepare programme packs, posters, flyers and leaflets for individual events, and distribute them round the bars, shops and cafes of the Northern Quarter and the Village. I did this on about four occasions, sometimes assisted by other volunteers, sometimes alone. It was always fun. On one expedition, I watched a workman actually stealing lead off a Dale Street warehouse roof, dropping it to the ground, without watching for anyone passing below. When he came down to pick up his booty, his backpack was so weighted with lead that he could barely lift it and walk. I was tempted to call the police myself but just watched him in fascination and disbelief instead. Such is life.
The Office for Queer Up North is at the Green Fish building on Oldham Street. I would make several visits to here to pick up leaflets, badges, etc. The staff were always friendly and welcoming. I was promised a tee-shirt for volunteering but various circumstances conspired to prevent me collecting one, though I am assured one is to be posted to me soon, for which I am grateful.
ROAD MOVIE (TECH
REHEARSAL) LIBRARY THEATRE WEDNESDAY 19TH MAY 2010
My first assignment after the festival commenced proved to be a non-starter for me. Personally, but gave me a rare look behind the scenes of a major theatre production. I was assigned to be a gopher for Road Movie, a Starving Artists production about a road trip through an AIDS ravaged US by Mark Pinkosh, giving a tour de force one man performance mostly in monologue with lots of visual lighting effects and back projection work. The rehearsal I watched was mostly to test the technical apparatus ready for the first of four performances. Te show had been on at a previous QUN festival, and was returning by popular demand.
It was obvious from my arrival that the library staff and QUN's small team there had no idea what to do with me and I was surplus to requirements. After an hour or so, they asked me to pop back to the QUN office to be reassigned. I hear the show itself was to be very well received.
Back at Green Fish, I counted badges for distribution at events, helped design, cut and laminate a VIP pass card for guests at the Spiegletent events, and went out on my last leaflet distribution trip.
The following night saw my first participant activity as one of many performers at the open mic poetry event, Freed Up. This is actually a monthly show I perform in frequently, and Dominic Berry & Steve O’Connor runs it superbly. The theme for the QUN event was Adventure and proved to be a tremendous occasion as always.
THE EXAM – ULTIMATE HOLDING COMPANY – MAXWELL HALL, SALFORD UNIVERSITY - SUNDAY 23RD MAY
This started off well, but proved sadly to be the least pleasing of the QUN events, ending in a personal controversy that is still ongoing, regarding documents being kept deliberately from the people involved until August 24th 2010. – A move that serves no valid or legitimate purpose.
Publicity for this event seemed intriguing and gave few clues to what would happen, 100 people, first come first served, had a chance to take place in a unique exam. Publicity stills made it look scientific. In fact, it was to prove mock academic. We arrived to find that we were to be given a full three hour formal GCSE exam, involving questions on English, maths, history, economics, geography, media studies, etc. There were maps, calculators, rulers, etc – no talking, cheating, eating, drinking allowed, pens to be raised and put down when ordered. The toughest section for me personally was a series of audio clip related questions on Polari, a gay slang language akin to Esperanto, used in some gay communities to protect themselves from homophobes, and sometimes used humorously in comedy routines to this day. We had to translate words from English to Polari and vice-versa.
The questions were tough, and unlike any real GCSE no one had any time for revision or pre-test reading. The examiners sat mostly staring at us from the stage, which was disconcerting. The extent to which they nevertheless keep claiming it is like a real GCSE paper is deceptive and misleading – what we endured was nothing like a GCSE and cannot produce qualifications to match any recognized genuine academic certification.
When our time was up, some food and drink was provided and a token effort to provide results went up, with notes being made on a blackboard, though it was obvious to all that this was never going to be finished before the room was to be closed at 4pm. Meanwhile a display of books and materials, some rare, and some relating to questions we had answered, were put on display. Many were very interesting.
As throwing out time drew near a lady apologized to us from the stage for the results presentation not being completed in time, and verbally promised quite explicitly that our results and papers would be posted back to us within the next few weeks – this proved to be an extremely misleading claim. I was disappointed from the outset as I was going on to a party with friends and would have liked to have a copy of the Exam paper to show my friends. I wasn’t to know the ridiculous reasons for the papers not being sent out for six weeks to come, as I’ll show shortly.
Meanwhile the festival continued.
JUSTIN BOND – CLOSE TO YOU – THE SPIEGLETENT – THURSDAY
27TH MAY
I’ve been a big admirer of Justin Bond since I saw his performance in the erotica classic film, Shortbus. Here, on his second visit to a QUN event, Justin was performing songs from the classic Carpenters album, Close To You, accompanied by a ten piece orchestra, and pianist / vocalist Lance Horne, who was to sing the album’s one Richard Carpenter lead vocal number. Justin had been moved by Karen Carpenter’s voice and her tragedy as a girl who felt out of place and struggled to be accepted despite her beauty and talent. Justin first felt accepted as different when in tender moments of acceptance; his sister let him listen to her Carpenter’s albums.
Justin joked that having played Madison Gardens and the Sydney Opera House, he was now playing in a tent in a car park in Manchester. In fact the Spiegletent is a magnificent creation, a wooden seated ship’s deck like set, with canvas walls, and a ceiling with glitter balls and lovely atmospheric lighting.
Justin completed the Close To You album and encored with songs by stave Nicks and other singers before performing the ‘We All Get It In The End’ number from Shortbus.
My role was that of front of house staff, stamping hands of paid audience members who might want to pop out for a break during the show, so they wouldn’t have to re-pay to get in. After the show I helped distribute feedback forms, and collect them back in as the audience left. It was a lovely event all round.
MIND THE (GENDER PAY) GAP – THE MIDLAND HOTEL, SUNDAY 29TH MAY.
A debate I a very plush, posh setting was my last assignment as a QUN volunteer for 2010. My role was to show people the way to the lift and direct them to the lower ground floor lecture hall, where wine and nibbles were on offer to attendees. I should have been able to sort out feedback forms too, as I had at the Justin Bond event, but no feedback forms had been brought to the event for me to distribute.
The debate panel included Sheila Wild, EHRC Head of Inequality in Earnings, Kevin Jacques, an employment law lawyer, and Michelle Le Marinel, of the Unision Trade Union. They gave a presentation each and the floor was then opened to Questions and answers. What was clear from the outset was the good-natured discussion and little argument or disagreement. Also, the issues raised were immensely complicated. There was a sense that the work of the Equal Opportunities commission has largely failed, though most businesses seem to want to genuinely try to create more equality in the work force. As Kevin Jacques was pleased to admit, much of the trouble lies in law, especially where No Win No Fee lawyers are encouraging workers to take their bosses to industrial tribunals at no real cost to the employers but which bogs the companies down in endless litigation that can be costly (especially a during the economic hardship that ruins many businesses) and slows down the process of working towards equality itself. One example cited was how many people in different lines of work are doing pay comparisons and claiming for equal pay to people in a different industry. For example many cleaning ‘ladies’ have compared their duties to those of dustbin ‘men’ and taken court actions accordingly. As Michelle Le Marinel observed, Trade Unions have more expert lawyers and unions support members at no charge through tribunal proceedings, so the law-shark no win-no fee people are actually breaking management / union / worker relationships too.
At higher management levels women have more of a struggle to gain equality than among blue-collar staff.
A thoughtful, lively debate with little disagreement from any – a fitting end to a remarkable festival.
THE EXAM FALL-OUT July onwards
By the end of June, I was getting increasingly agitated and saddened not to see my Exam papers and results appear in the letterbox, and considered contacting QUN and, the UHC to find out what had happened to them. My worst fear was that they had been lost in the post and might prove irrecoverable for me. Many friends had been asking me about the exam and the results but I could only tell them that I had heard nothing myself either. Had the results and papers gone out on time, the would have helped publicise QUN while the festival was still ongoing. On July 7th I finally wrote e-mails to QUN and the UHC asking for explanations. They were only performing as QUN had commissioned them.
What was really distressing was the response from Joe Richardson from UHC, the man mainly responsible for creating the Exam. Mr. Richardson stated in writing that he and UHC were due shortly to issue myself and the other 99 exam subjects with a letter stating that their ficticious Exam board have decided to keep our results and papers to themselves until August 24th, four months after the papers were taken, because that is when schools issue students with the real GCSE results.
I was angered and disgusted by this given that we had been promised a more imminent issue of the results – an attempt having been started at the event itself. UHC seem hell bent on pretending to have the status of a genuine academic exam board, though they are merely an arts and theatre group. They want to prolong their hold over their exam subjects without consent long after the date we volunteered to take part in their event.
The material contained in the papers, which bear candidate’s names and addresses, carries views the candidates have on many aspects of queer thinking, and no one is informed of how securely the papers are being kept – Mr Richardson’s condescending, ‘lets be friends’ sales pitch tone was getting increasingly on my nerves – he wanted me to phone him to discuss the matter and became very indignant when I refused to discuss matters other than in writing. He asked me to be his Facebook friend so he could ‘poke me’ a reminder when the 24th of August comes round and denied that the participants had ever been promised their results would be sent out quickly, though this was plainly stated from the Exam hall stage by one of his own colleagues as we were abruptly ushered from the closing hall.
I find the desire by UHC to hold our papers back just self-serving, given that they plan to exploit the papers for their own publicity regardless of the wishes of myself or any other candidates. Not telling us up front that we were not to expect our papers returning to us until late August is simply dishonest. Had I been told this in the QUN literature relating to the event, I might well have not volunteered to take part in an exercise that has become an abuse of office – I agreed to and signed up to take part in a test on May 23rd – not a test that would run from then to August 24th like an out of control reality TV show. My request to be allowed to opt out of that stupid, pointless loop is being wilfully ignored by an extremely insensitive Mr Richardson. I am in effect, being held to activity I utterly and morally disagree with on every level. I feel like a hostage. It isn’t as if there is any gain for the examinees – the certificates are not real GCSE’s and therefore worthless academically – the only ones who can gain from any publicity on this are UHC and they seem prepared to exploit me to that aim in a way I did not agree to be exploited, and was never asked about at all for that matter. I feel duped, and therefore angry.
Mr Richardson feels proud of the fact that a candidate
(myself) feels emotional and stressed and anxious about the test taken. To
quote him, “"If everyone is agitated about
receiving their results that wouldn't be outside of the experience of doing a
GCSE paper. Also if people have that strong an emotional attachment to the
process then for me that would make the whole project a remarkable success.
" I find this comment offensive.
Real exam stress can kill. A good friend of mine at university committed
suicide over exam worries. Here, a theatre group with delusions of academic
authority is playing with people’s fears and feelings way beyond the date of
the event we agreed to work with them – it is utterly repulsive behaviour on
their part. I believe that myself and any candidate wishing to opt out of the
as yet officially unannounced wait until August 24th should be
allowed to do so and have their papers marked honestly and returned to them
immediately – it cannot in any way harm UHC or QUN publicity plans for
themselves for the GCSE day. I hope
that someone at … UHC comes to their senses and releases the papers to the
students properly and honestly, with or without pressure from QUN and the
candidates themselves. While I will be happy to volunteer for future QUN
activity I do not feel I will ever be able to trust any project run by or
involving UHC or Mr Richardson again.
My thanks for a wonderful festival to Emma Ryan, Ric Watts, Nikki Dupuy, the people involved in the various events and talks, etc, all at QUN, etc. Sadly, I find I have less gratitude for UHC other than for the volunteers who helped hand out papers, pens, etc and serve drinks. The ‘exam board’ seem to want to continue to mess with their volunteers long after their event came to an end, regardless of whether the volunteers want or consent to that or not. Such behaviour is unacceptable.
© Copyright. Arthur Chappell
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