Dear Friends,
 WOW was really all we could say to each other all day and into the evening this past Saturday during Equality North Carolina's very first statewide conference & gala. In the end, registration reached 270 for the conference and 230 for the gala, and we were simply overwhelmed by the outpouring of support and enthusiasm we received.
It's hard to pin down what made the event so successful and inspiring, but on first blush, we think it came down to the following elements:
 1. First and foremost, we had a beautifully diverse crowd, a true rainbow of people. From the start, we wanted to make it possible for folks with lower incomes to be able to attend, and to provide special rates for college students. We also wanted to get real about race and ethnicity, and to integrate the transgender perspective through as many sessions as possible. In addition, we wanted to welcome big corporate sponsors as well as small nonprofit organizations. It was truly thrilling after so many months of work to see so many people: younger and older, black and white, urban and rural, in jeans and in suits, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and ally.
 2. Leaders from across the state really connected with each other, sharing ideas and finding ways to work together on the front lines here at the state and local level.
3. The event was content-driven, including the gala, and our fantastic speakers were content-focused. We wanted to provide our attendees with the latest information on the most important issues affecting the LGBT community, and we wanted our speakers to represent the full diversity of our state's wonderfully varied LGBT community. For next year we'll work to make the breakouts more interactive, and create more networking opportunities to cover additional topics such as aging and sexism.
 4. We had a number of elected officials and candidates on hand as speakers, including House Speaker Joe Hackney who presented our very first award for legislative leadership to Representative Rick Glazier for his groundbreaking work on our anti-bullying bill. Senator Janet Cowell, Representative Tricia Cotham, Representative Pricey Harrison, and Representative Deborah Ross joined us for our legislative panel, and our morning keynote Alabama Representative Patricia Todd wowed the audience with her story of how she got elected as an out lesbian in her conservative state.
5. We had almost seventy college students in attendance from across the state, from Asheville to Wilmington, whose ideas and energy added so much.
 We couldn't have pulled off this first-time event without the help of Duke University and our generous sponsors. The Duke Center for LGBT Life, Duke School of Law, Duke OUTlaw, and Nasher Museum of Art all bent over backwards to help us, and we are forever indebted to the organizational, individual and table sponsors listed at right.
We are particularly grateful to all the members of our Equality Council, the donors who give $600 or more per year to help us reach our ambitious goals. We couldn't have even imagined this event without their belief and continuing investment in our work.
Finally, we extend special thanks to Ivan Canada, Board Chair for the 2007 Equality Conference & Gala Committee, and Kay Flaminio, Staff Chair. The other dedicated members of the committee were Mark Covey, Ronna Dornsife, Andy Gerschutz, Janie Long, Ian Palmquist, Dan Rosenthal, Pam Spaulding, Josh Wynne, and Aaron Young. Kay Flaminio would like to extend extra special thanks to Josh for being such a wonderful volunteer staff member for Equality North Carolina.
If you attended the event, we hope you filled out all your evaluation forms and please feel free to email us with comments and suggestions for next year. If you didn't attend, please make plans for next year!
Thanks again to each and every one of our supporters for helping us make our dream a reality!
For Equality,
Ian & Kay
P.S. Stay tuned! We'll be posting photos and video of the event on our website soon...
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Business & Organizational Sponsors
Platinum Sponsors - Food Lion
- Freeman Foundation
- Replacements, Ltd.
Gold Sponsors - Duke Center for LGBT Life
- Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams
Silver Sponsors - Duke OutLaw
- Duke School of Law
- Haas McNeil & Associates, PA
- Human Rights Campaign
- Liberty Education Forum
Small Business Sponsors - Nations Alliance
- Open Source Leadership Strategies, Inc.
- Triangle Financial Advisers
Nonprofit Sponsors - Exodus Missionary Outreach Church
- NC Coalition Against Domestic Violence
- NC Institute for Equal Rights
- Planned Parenthood of Central North Carolina
- Triangle Gay Men's Chorus
- Triangle Out and Equal
- Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Raleigh Social Action Committee
Table Sponsors - Robert Dogens
- Equal Justice Under the Law
- HRC NC Steering Committee
- Mike Nelson in Loving Memory of Joe Herzenberg
- Jim Penny
- Skanska USA Building
- Jesse White
Individual Sponsors - Tim Alwran and Dennis Hayes
- Ken Badgett
- Coleman Billingsley
- Hunter Corn
- L.S. "Bo" Dean
- John Denning
- Daniel Ellison
- Stan Kimer and Rich Roark
- Colleen Kochanek
- aron Lucier
- Jack Nichols
- Ed Ridpath
- Cris Rivera and Beth Stringfield
- Kimball Sargent and Geoffrey Avery-Foy
- Joseph Daniel Smith
- Genia Smith and Becky Burks
- Josh Stein
- Anna Voytek and Chanda Fausphoul
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Champagne Brunch in Charlotte
