Trade Take the lead: Leicester's lesbian, gay and bisexual community unites to celebrate World AIDS Day 2007
Trade Sexual Health's successful World AIDS Day 2007 campaign - Take the Lead: Get it on - concluded on Saturday 1st December with a city wide celebration of life.
Five bars, two saunas and two nightclubs got involved, with Bossa, the Dover Castle, Helsinki, the Rainbow and Dove, Streetlife, Celts, Sauna 31 and The Village all doing their bit to celebrate life and raise awareness of HIV and AIDS.
The campaign's flagship event took place on Saturday at Quebec on Belgrave Gate. The Retro Party Night saw the popular gay venue decked out as a seventies disco, complete with illuminated dance floor, mirror balls and classic dance floor tunes. Hundreds of party-goers in their finest retro party outfits joined Trade to mark World AIDS Day and sign a leadership pledge to stop AIDS. So far 180 pledge cards have been completed and posted onto the World AIDS Day website, thank you to everyone helping to support the fight against HIV and AIDS.
Trade would like to thank all venue owners, staff, customers, Snowline and Chic Hair design for raising £1403.42 for World AIDS Day.
Helping get the evening's messages across were two rather unusual Lollipop Ladies (Curious Cargo), patrolling the crowd to give hilarious but informative condom demonstrations (aided by some rubber gloves and a couple of courgettes!) and event host, local comedienne Elaine Pantling.
Trade's Operations Manager, Sal Khalifa said of the evening:
"The Retro Party Night was a wonderful way to bring the community together to raise awareness of HIV and AIDS. The Lollipop Ladies put a smile on everyone's faces but we also saw a serious side to the evening with many partygoers signing our leadership pledge. At a time when more gay and bisexual men are being diagnosed with HIV than ever before, it really is important that we take the lead in our own lives to help stop AIDS forever."
Elsewhere in the city, a ski holiday was raffled at the Rainbow and Dove bar on Charles Street. The holiday was donated by Snowline in Market Harborough.
Veronica Nall, Trade's Project Worker said:
"We are incredibly grateful to Snowline for donating the holiday and to all our venue partners across Leicester for their wonderful generosity and commitment to help make this year's World AIDS Day a truly remarkable event."
Celts sauna on Narborough Road, took the lead in promoting a World AIDS Day weekend. Over a period of two days, a sexual health information stall was set up and a raffle to raise funds for Trade.
Organised by Trade - the long-running sexual health charity for the lesbian, gay and bisexual community in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland - the Take the lead: Get it on campaign used the international World AIDS Day theme of leadership to encourage the public to help stop the spread of HIV by using condoms and talking about HIV with friends, families and sexual partners. Trade also raised money to support valuable one-to-one HIV prevention work with gay and bisexual men and recruited new volunteers to help join the fight against AIDS.
Trade's World AIDS Day events were preceded by a month-long programme of activities including a sexual health quiz night at the Rainbow and Dove and condom advice stalls in the Dover Castle and The Village. Streetlife hosted a Charity Glo Night on 24th November, raising funds and awareness for Trade.
Once again Trade would like to thank everyone for all their support.
