Current Section
Monthly Women's Column - October 2012
An update on Women's Outreach
With the many changes this year has brought to our club, we want to explore how Women’s Outreach has evolved recently and where our sights are set for taking outreach within and beyond SF FrontRunners.
We set out with a list of parameters as we sought to refresh our Women’s Outreach (and newcomer outreach) efforts:
-Create a team of outreach contacts to not only increase ideas flowing in, but reduce the amount of weight and work on each contact.
-Welcome everyone within the club to be an outreach contact, regardless of gender.
-Foster an environment that is inviting to Women that welcomes and celebrates women in the club while trying to avoid “sorting” or marginalizing anyone.
-Increase the scope of efforts for Women’s Outreach.
-Increase participation and visibility of women within the club.
-Create an open, respectful, and constructive dialogue among outreach contacts, newcomers, and members about ideas and changes for Women’s Outreach.
With these parameters in mind, we move onward and outward with our Women’s Outreach efforts. It is fitting that our team of Women’s Outreach contacts is comprised of newcomers and existing members alike, because we can incorporate existing ideas and efforts with new, fresh input from more recent members. Our team is currently comprised of Danielle Riendeau, Megan Schlegel, Judith Kahan, and Brian Ray.
Some tasks and goals that we have been working towards include:
-Renewing and/or beginning advertising on websites such as Craigslist, Meetup.com, Dykealicious, and Betty’s List.
-The creation of the SF FrontRunner Women twitter page (A special thanks to Danielle), which you can follow here (link).
-Continuation of the monthly Women’s Column, that offers insight and ideas from women, men, and sponsors in and around the club.
-Continued search for more club sponsors that offer services to women, such as See Jane Run.
-Increasing efforts within the club to make women members more visible, such as club material (posters, event items, website images), club runs and events (regular runs, bar night venues, movie night hosts, fundraiser participants), and our Women tab on the website.
-Evolving the Monthly Women’s run into Newcomers and Women’s Outreach Day, which is more inviting and open to visitors and existing members.
We are happy to share that efforts are already paying off. Our Women FrontRunners Twitter account is growing a healthy group of followers. We also successfully held our most recent dive bar night at Lexington, an awesome lesbian bar. We have more of a constant presence of women at our Tuesday and Saturday runs. We even had an awesome female SFFR member serve jell-o shots at our recent JOCK fundraiser. Finally, our combined online efforts have made our club significantly more visible to people searching for LGBT clubs in the Bay Area.
Our outreach efforts will steadily grow, and can really experience boosts when all SFFR members help spread the word. Even if you have invited people in the past or told friends about the club, consider if there is something new that these friends and acquaintances might enjoy if they came back and visited again. Outreach is a lifeline for our club, as it pumps newcomers into our club and introduces them to such an amazing environment. Not only do they benefit from our group, but we become more enriched and diverse through them.
All of this is promising and feels like a great step in the right direction. Our efforts continue and we welcome help and input from everyone as we move forward. Think how you can help and what sort of impact you can make.
Stay tuned for more news from Women’s Outreach!
