Great Session, Super Team!

Posted Sat, 5 May 2012, 8:01am by Shawn Sheridan

Yesterday was OUTSPORT TORONTO's workshop at the Toronto District School Board's FUTURES 2012 conference. It was a 75-minute session with 28 participants from not just the TDSB, but Peel, Ottawa-Carlton, and even as far away as Alberta! The feedback from the participants at the end was very good! It went very well, and put OUTSPORT TORONTO and our member organisations 'out there' once again in a very positive way. As I watched the session unfold, I couldn't help but feel very proud of the team there that day, and everyone who participated in the hours of work to prepare for the session.

We opened the workshop with a video that OUTSPORT TORONTO produced, which will be up on our site shortly. After a quick introduction of the team there that day and OUTSPORT TORONTO itself, we had the participants stand if they fit into various categories, so we could get a sense of who was in the room. Some of the categories later in that list were challenging, such as, "Stand if you have used homophobic language." We were heartened by the honesty of the group, all of whom were totally on-board with our message. Steven Mock, Assistant Professor the the University of Waterloo presented some background data, after which we broke into case-study groups, guided by 'coaches' from the OUTSPORT TORONTO team. We then wrapped up with the very first "You Can Play" video, a personal message from Patrick Burke, and a Q&A session. Seventy-five minutes flew by really quickly!

I want to thank everyone who worked on this very important project, and in particular the teachers we had on the team, without whose insight and guidance to what was really happening now inside the school system we would never have been able to garner credibility. I am also grateful to the team that volunteered their time to make the introductory video "Then and Now", and Cave Painter Films that donated all its time to shoot and do all the post-production work for it. The video was amazing, and did exactly what we wanted it to do, and will provide an ongoing asset and resource for us all!

Finally, there was significant interest in the group of participants yesterday to engage OUTSPORT TORONTO further, from coming into schools to help with assemblies, phys-ed classes and sport coaching sessions, talks with teachers, and working with coaches, to help to Make it Better Now. If your organisation is interested in supporting that effort, I encourage you to contact James Scott, our Director for Membership and Member Services, at james.scott@OutSportToronto.org, or Julian DiBattista, Director of Community Outreach, at julian.dibattista@OutSportToronto.org, and let either one or both of them know. I expect we'll be getting calls soon!