Jump to content

Table for AVEN/asexuality on pride fair in Berlin, Germany


xaida

Recommended Posts

Some of you already know it, but others should definitely know it, too: We from the German subforum to AVEN had a table on the largest pride fair of Europe - the Motzstrassenfest in the capital Berlin. The whole thing took place last weekend (15./16.7.06) and was hosted by our mayor, who happens to be gay, too. Each year 350 000 visitors from all over the world come to see the latest upcoming communities, clubs and activities of the queer scene and this year we can proudly present you pieces of evidence in form of pictures from our table:

street.jpg

This is the street the table was placed in.

booth2.jpg

Our table from wide angle. In the foreground you can see some members from AVENde.

booth1.jpg

A closer look on it from the left...

booth3.jpg

...and from the right

interview.jpg

The members in action :)

First to the pure facts:

When we had the idea to represent AVEN on the fair around four weeks ago, ten members from AVENde wanted to volunteer for this event. They came from all over Germany and one even from Austria. Everything we had back then were around 4000 pamphlets the way you have them. Within these four weeks we organized

1. information material in form of the FAQ and some texts from the Perspectives,

2. a large poster for an overview with pictures of AVENites with their kind permission: Poster as a *.doc file

3. around 30 pounds of candies and 200 buttons as give-aways

4. t-shirts for all the participating helpers

5. decoration and models (balloons, a model to illustrate different aspects of asexuality, a globe to show, where communities have grown all over the world, an empty poster as guest book for visitors to leave comments, spinnerets avatar as a poster for the background)

6. raise funds for all of this somehow

I think we all worked amazingly together, especially since some of us hadnt even met in real life beforehand.

First to the pure facts: We had shifts of four hours with four volunteers being at the table each time. But since our hard-working AVENites didnt want to leave the table, we were always more ;) We all had t-shirts on, most of them in the purple color AVEN is in, with slogans like "I want EVERYTHING but sex", "Im easily to satisfy - with chocolate", "That's what an asexual looks like" or spinneret's avatar. In front of the booth there were always two of us handing out pamphlets, and a later count showed that the bunch of us made to hand out around 3000 altogether. We were placed in a rather secluded street, which meant that we were just still capable of breathing. People attracted by the pamphlets then approached the table to find out what it is about. Our days were from 11 in the morning to midnight on saturday and 10 in the evening on sunday. We financed it all by private donations from forum members of AVENde and luckily some of us had shortly before participated in a documentation for the largest talk show of Germany (which is on this afternoon btw ;) ) and donated the main part of the money given for that. It took us around $350 US.

Now to the reactions of the visitors: most of them were sooo cute ;) Some read the front of the pamphlets, "Not everyone wants sex", hesitated, laughed, showed it to their friends and said "Hey, thats something for you". Some then came back to take a button or two and said: "We are going to be asexual, just for today ;)". Then there were visitors, who asked if that and that could also be considered asexual, for then, well, then they would feel the same... Some came back to take extra pamphlets for a friend they could imagine would be interested in it for personal reasons. Most of them of course declared, they would not have much use for that as they enjoyed sex, so we had to explain that maybe a friend or family member could be asexual and doesnt know yet. Some of them gave the pamphlet back, told they would completely support the request for more visibility and education on asexuality, tell their friends and want us to save the money for people, who dont know yet. However, some - though very few - judged after their first look and were very upset, that we obviously wanted to promote celibacy and how we wanted to cut lust for life in form of sex out on a fair like that and in general. I guess, the idea for promoting sexless life was much more probable to them than that there are actually people who do not feel any sexual attraction in the first place. But our neighboring tables solidarized very much with us then with something like "We all had to go through that".

It was also most great to get important contacts within the gay-lesbian scene, since all important coming-out helplines, queer communities and meeting places, councelling centers, political parties, etc. were represented. I offered them pamphlets, presentations about asexuality and AVEN, information material, introduced our regular meetups to them and so on. Then we got invited to introduce asexuality in seven different places within the next cycle of presentations and for something like welcome brunches to get to know each other. Apart from that we took part in three interviews and some more requests were made for the future.

But most of all it was just fun. To me it felt like stage diving - you just throw yourself in the crowd and get as much of your self spread out as possible ;) I think it brought the team closer together, too, and it was just a memorable experience, which we can hopefully repeat next year :)

Link to post
Share on other sites

That was amazing. Congratulations on a great show! You are all an inspiration.

Now I feel like we missed the boat last month with the New York pride parade. Well, maybe not-- from what I gathered, the NY parade has a rather different character. Namely, the character of thousands of people trying to get laid at the same time. Asexuals tend to keep a safe distance, I imagine.

I wanna go to Berlin.

Link to post
Share on other sites

aloha @all,

oh xaida - you have described our event last weekend very well and so detailed. while reading this i remember each szene and each reaction we catched that time. :D

yes i was there too and want to say: *yeah* we have reached sooooo many people met this gay-lesbian parade and got so many different and colored reactions to our "aven work". its so fantastic! i remember some people being very interested in asexuality and with them we had great dialogs about that topic and the meaning of the word asexuality and of course of possible consequences asexuality has on people seeing themselves as asexuals.

ok...some of our visitors started to laugh crazily after reading our pamphlets, because they couldn`t imagine that asexuality really exists in our world they are part of. :wink:

some of us gave some kinds of interviews to bring out asexuality in our german world.

for future i hope we will have a table again on that "funny" event next year and to bring together all asexuals living outside not knowing about their kind of asexuality yet.

hu: you wanna come to berlin? :) your welcome! you only have to tell us the time you will stay here :wink:

greetz from berlin to all of you :)

anaara

Link to post
Share on other sites

Great work, AVENde! How brave, and how inspirational. This is really an example that asexual communities across the world should follow. I'm proud that my avatar was there, and I wish I could've been, too. Maybe some year I'll make it, or be part of a similar display.

Link to post
Share on other sites

WOW! Amazing! Great work, hopefully we'll be able to replicate it before long in the US or UK (don't be so down on NY pride....)

Link to post
Share on other sites
Children of the sloth

Wow! that's really amazing. You did a great job over there. (the candy is a good idea. Lure the flies with honey.)

Link to post
Share on other sites

Danke shön, Genosse! Good to see you guys in action :D

(Hey, German asexuals are just as beautiful as the lovelies in our photo threads here!)

Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 2 weeks later...

hey you guys - thx very much for all of your given feedback :D. its always helpful for future events to know how the "own" work come across as. *hihi*

yeah..spinneret. ok you wasn`t in berlin physically. but with the power of your avatar your spirit had inspirered us all the time during our tasks at that weekend :wink:

see ya!

greetz of light from berlin

anaara

Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 10 months later...
Carsonspire

Cool ... aber asexuelles Radio?! Ihr habt asexuelles Radio?! Ich wusste gar nichts davon!

@English-speaking-AVENites: if you look in those photos, you'll see a banner advertisement for an asexual radio/podcast station.

@Genosse: what was the reasoning behind creating a separate page for media? Was it a question of having enough bandwidth or were there also philosophical issues to consider?

Just curious,

Carsonspire

Link to post
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...