I want to BiCon this year at Nottingham Trent University, my 29th BiCon.
I’m from Nottingham and have lived there a number of times so I know it quite well even with some layout changes and major changes to some buildings or what they are used for. Weirdest for me was the orthodox synagogue now being a university meeting hall – I was interviewed for student research on polyamory and sexuality there a couple of years ago after its, erm, transition.
Being in the middle of town meant it was easier than in some more out of town venues to pop out for food or other supplies, eat out, get food delivered etc. I’m glad a took an hour or two to wander around, take photographs, buy many comics from Page 45 and sit with a good hot chocolate and read Left Lion.
I was glad to be thinking of anti-racism just before the event (BiCon attendees agreed mandatory training a couple of years ago)
We travelled by car and brought a lot of kitchen stuff, veg etc. and had time to cook and eat well.
I was facilitating one workshop, on the tech team helping with a few hybrid sessions, on the listening team and backup safeguarding lead if the team member doing that was unavailable. I also lent a bit of audiovisual kit for hybrid sessions.
The venue was spacious which felt calming to me and I was getting good ventilation readings on my CO2 monitor. While it took me a full 1/2 hour of calm breathing when I learned before registering that masks were not mandatory there was space for social distancing, people needed to show a negative lateral flow test and red lanyards reminded people that some of us expected to be able to space from others.
It felt like a smaller BiCon than some, hybrid is still a new mode for us and the demographic felt slightly older. I wonder if the calmer atmosphere I felt was in some ways down to more people having more internal coping mechanisms and strategies and more of a support network.
I had some good chats with old friends, and a little interaction with folks I didn’t know already. I got to quite a few workshop sessions and had a reasonable amount of sleep.
Thursday was social time and organising then some sleep after happy pizza eating with volunteers and friends.
Friday I went to the welcome then Trans-Inclusive Feminism which wasn’t new to me but a good prompt to think with others.
The Health Shop is an NHS sexual health / drug project in the city I used to use when I lived there and I’ve liked some of their other projects they have presented about in the past such a how information on steroids was passed around in gyms. They had a busy drop in sexual health testing space so I went and did that.
In the afternoon I did the tech for and enjoyed “Emperors to Opera Singers: Bi+ Figures in History.”
Later I did tech for the online-only “But Is It Accessible?: Making Bi+ Friendly Groups and Events More Accessible” including dancing around the room to get the lights to turn back on.
After tea the open mic night was next door and really varied and of high quality and well organised.
Saturday was the BiCon decides session, formerly the Decision Making Plenary (DMP). This was polite and thoughtful and I felt the proposals were about identifying useful team, BiCon and community sustainability and options for who might do those things where the main debate was on who might do what. I reminded folks of the idea of a BiCon running structure to pass e.g. bank accounts, a company structure etc. on year to year.
I did tech again for “What Is Gender” which I enjoyed as another thinking with others and hearing of experiences session.
I also briefly visited the community stalls and was pleased to chat with Five Leaves bookshop, discover some writing on bi men I wasn’t aware of and chat about some furry art.
My session was:
“Healthier, happier bisexuals: Working out how Bisexuals have significantly worse health and happiness than others. We keep hearing this from research and personal stories. Let’s talk together about what might help: What could we do for ourselves individually or in community? What do we want others in our lives or in the wider world to do more or less of or do differently?”
I got around 30 in the room and 10 online I think and had a wide ranging conversation which I might write more notes on soon – though I was mainly facilitating rather than recording. My tech person was excellent running around the lecture theatre with microphone (for the room) and phone (for remote people).
After that I went into a small discussion on Bi+ Activism & Visibility in Organisations Outside The Bi+ Community. One take-away from that was that there are many of us bis but some of us also find ourselves as the only voice in organisations and perhaps more awareness raising for bi folks might help develop other voices.
We had cooking and eating and chatting time in our flat then I went to the ball – golden mirrored swim goggles and elbow length golden gloves adding to the space theme. Took a while to get into it but dancing lots with lovely people helped make it good.
Sunday I was up to do listening team and then went to Continuity at BiCon (I’m a member and used to be a director / trustee of the charity which takes care of BiCon money and reputation) then packed up then yayed quietly at the closing ceremony then took the group picture.
We stopped by the river for lunch and a car charge on the way home and were back at a reasonable time.
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