What a week! Part 1: The Aurora Group Annual Dinner

Well last week was hectic! And it all kicked off on June 23 at The Aurora Group’s Annual Dinner, An Evening of Titanic Proportions. It was Titanic-themed. No one sang Celine Dion. I nearly stormed the stage in protest.

For those who don’t know, I (aka Maeve) volunteer as a Board Director for The Aurora Group. We run large scale events for fundraise for GLBTQI causes, such as Twenty10 and the Gay & Lesbian Counselling Service.

The Annual Dinner, held at the Sydney Town Hall is always a blast, with great food and live entertainment. A highlight this year was the live auction. It’s thrilling to watch so much money going to good causes and I really enjoyed leaping around the room finding bidders. I was pretty drunk at this stage and actually started to bid on dinner with the DIVINE Tanya Plibersek and Annabel Crabb, but I pulled my head in when I remembered that little Edinburgh tour I am meant to be saving for.

Music-wise, I’m always a fan of Brendan Maclean, so enjoyed his performance with Nathan whats-his-name from Faker and Paul Mac. Man, that Maclean boy has come far. Who knew tweeting could make you so successful. Which reminds me, follow us at @lady_sings_it.

Tom Ballard’s keynote address (which you can read in full here) was great; I am glad we brought a gen y perspective to the crowd. Rebecca Reynolds from Twenty10 also spoke wonderfully.

All in all, it was a good night and a wonderful reminder about how important volunteering is for our community. Oh, and we totally raised over $51,000! (Read all about it here, on the Aurora website)

I made this fun list of things NOT to do at next year’s event:

• do not accost Sarah Hanson-Young
• do not wear high heels as you will lose your shoes on the dance floor
• your cleavage is not a place to store stolen sequins
• your nice bra is not for showing to all the gay men
• do not give or receive piggy backs with the aurora chair person; likewise, do not perform acrobatics with your uni pals
• do not steal gin from behind the bar
• the headline performer’s dressing room is not your own
• do not convince your mother to bid on a hunter valley weekender for all your friends.

And, because it was a queer event, here is a picture of me, two of my ex-girlfriends, a current girlfriend of one of them, two ex-girlfriends of one of them (not counting me) and one of one of their ex-girlfriends. Confused? Never mind, look how pretty we all are!