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BiWorld International NewsThe 20th February will be the first time to celebrate our somewhat different party. It will not be something made by Bi's for Bi's, it will be a party organized by the Cologne Bi Group for all who care to come. Gays, Lesbians, Heterosexuals, Transsexuals, Bisexuals - and their friends - everybody is welcome to join us and enjoy the multifariousness, which also goes for the music. From then on, the disco will take place every third Friday of the month at 10 p.m. in the Gay & Lesbian Center ("SCHULZ") at 18, Kartäuserwall, Cologne.
In Germany, our national organization is BINE, which stands for BIsexuelles NEtzwerk.
There is a national meeting for non-BINE members (30 persons) staged by the Cologne bi-group from 3-6 October in Rotenburg an der Fulda (near Kassel).
There will be a further national meeting for BINE-members (50 persons) from 15-17 November in Butzbach (near Frankfurt am Main). The present BINE steering committee of 3 people is set to resign and we hope to find new volunteers to take on the job; possibly the IBIS-organising committee in Berlin will act as a helping hand.
Through IBIS and our permanent presence in the media (talk-shows, TV and radio features etc.) the German bisexual movement has grown to an extent where our old organizational forms may not be suitable anymore. The network has some 800 addresses nationwide of bisexual individuals and the sheer cost of mailing invitations for a gathering of 30 people at maximum seems out of proportion.
For the last five years or so we have had national work meetings of 20 to 30 activists (sponsored by Deutsche AIDS-Hilfe); national bisexual meetings of up to 50 people; and we took part in the national gay and lesbian pride marches.
With the apparent growth of interest in bisexuality and the know-how acquired through IBIS, we might be able to hold large national conferences for an unlimited number of people (following the British example), but at the same time we would like to uphold our tradition of small and cozy meetings since they facilitate making contact on a personal level (especially given the fact that Germans as a rule are not particularly extroverts).
The quarterly bisexual journal BIJOU has just published its 8th issue largely on the 4th international bisexual symposium in Berlin. The journal goes into its third year now but still has difficulties in finding enough authors at times. E-mail contact via Thomas Grossmann, pe5a034@rrz.uni-hamburg.
The monthly bisexual disco BISCO in Berlin, which was absolutely packed with IBIS-participants on the second night of the symposium has been going strong for more than half a year now with an average attendance of a 50 to 100 people.This coming fall, however, it will have to change its location.
One of the IBIS offsprings was a one page report in one of the leading Swiss newspapers (Tagesanzeiger Zurich). As a result we received a handful of letters from Switzerland and there are signs that a Swiss bisexual network might be evolving slowly.
Postfach 610214
D-10923 Berlin
Germany
E-mail address below.
101550.1706@compuserve.com
Robin Cackett