The 2013 Outgames in Antwerp, Belgium, have responded to Team San Francisco, welcoming everyone with open arms, including their attackers, to their event. Geert Tengrootenhuysen, LGBT communication for the city of Antwerp, sent me this email today:
I wish to emphasize that Antwerp chose to organize the World Outgames because we strongly believe in its potential social, cultural and economic benefits. I regret that whatever happened in the past has left the gay sports community divided. However, as the host of the World Outgames 2013, Antwerp will be welcoming everyone without exceptions. That includes Team San Francisco, whom I hope will reconsider their position and join us for what will be an amazing event, whatever name it may carry.
Tengrootenhuysen also said that he was surprised there is such lingering animosity, “especially because it has been announced that these organizations will be merging again in 2018.”
Earlier this week, Team San Francisco issued a press release condemning the Outgames in Antwerp.
on Jun 4th, 2010 at 2:38 PM
Thanks..
“Tengrootenhuysen also said that he was surprised there is such lingering animosity, “especially because it has been announced that these organizations will be merging again in 2018.””
Spinning it so negatively against TEAMSF with words like boycott, condeming, etc.. does not cut it. I find them offensive and dishonest. Please read a proper translation of the press release and stop playing victim politics.
This previous ‘merger’ statement is categorically NOT TRUE no matter how many times people say it. The FGG has NOT agreed to this statement ‘merger’ as true, and I challenge them to come forward and say this is true.
It is this continued dishonesty that is casuing this silly division. The Manchester declaration was withdrawn with hours of its being posted from all web sites as innacurate. Why do some insist it still holds true?
The definition of 1QE has yet to be fleshed out.
on Jun 4th, 2010 at 3:02 PM
“we believe staging another World Outgames is simply not in the best interests of LGBT athletes”
How is that not a condemnation?
on Jun 4th, 2010 at 6:18 PM
Is there a credible reason why we (all of us) can not get along?
If not, perhaps we’d all be better off by going out of our way and do whatever it takes to get along.
This planet may be large, but it’s a small world we live in.
on Jun 4th, 2010 at 8:04 PM
To point to past events, their costs, their results, and the overall experience, and then take a logical position, is -NOT- condemnation or boycott. Rather it is showing leadership, GOOD BUSINESS, and service to constituents.
When registrants are trying to decide where and how to spend -thousands of dollars-, it is incumbent on LEADERS to advise based upon facts not ‘feelings’.
To take a position driven by idealism and a lack of data, is silly, and does a disservice to contituents.
To take NO POSITION is just kumbaya and cowardly.
Somebody has to point out that emperor has no clothes.
When we are all ready to dissect the Copenhagen WOGS report issued by the city of Copenhagen like adult business leaders, then we will have a rational debate.
For many smaller sport afficienados, WOGS is a disastrous choice. When do some of you start looking at the facts and get over the biases?
In this age of very powerful LGBT sports groups like IGLA and IGLFA, the smaller sports become the sole responsibility of the city teams like the TEAMSFs.
Whether it be Martial Arts, Wrestling, or Figure Skating (to name a few), the message is quite clear.
If I were wanting to compete in one of the smaller sports, trying to decide between Antwerp 2013 and Cleveland 2014, I would be -very- happy if someone had some reliable past data to evaluate!
Instead, TEAMSF is being lectured by academic idealistic kumbayas for offering sound advice based upon real data.
Other city teams and sports teams look to TEAMSF all the time as a rolemodel for one of the most established collection of LGBT sports.
TEAMSF has an 1100 data base of past constituents ever since emails were kept. It has consistently been 10%-15% of any GayGames registration. It has a lot of data on the various events.
It also has a responsibility to advise constituents how to make decisions. Perhaps for some larger sports it does not make a difference, but if you are billing yourself as a WOGS (W=WORLD), and you cannot have the GayGames rangeof diverse and competitive registration of LGBT sports, then be a Continental or EuroGames, and lower the expectations & costs. It solves the problem for everyone.
When WOGS can give accurate registration figues in a timely fashion to possible registrants trying to decide where to go, I might have a different opinion. But that was never the case in the past, and I personally cannot risk my reputation recommending something I feel is too risky. I also have an obligation to the Boards I serve on to supply data and policy recommendations. I tried to support Copenhagen, and they lied to me (I did not know there were only 6 wrestlers until 3 weeks out!). Is honesty and data too much to ask?
on Jun 4th, 2010 at 11:10 PM
honesty and data???? WOGS??? get serious!!!
on Jun 4th, 2010 at 11:26 PM
I still think the use of the racist term WOG is clueless and hilarious Pardon my sledgehammer wit
on Jun 5th, 2010 at 10:53 AM
Reading Gene’s commentary is always humerous and always one sided.
Gene talks about honest communication? Well please share with the world how many of the GaG (Gay Games) have made money, and the trail of unpaid vendors that GAG has left through the years. The total loss of money and unpaid vendors from GAG foar outreaches any from the OutGames.
I have said it before that no thanks to the board of the FGG did Chicago break even. DEDICATED Chicagoans raised the money so that the GaG could atleast state they broke even….no profit.
So Gene keep twisting the words and continue the cover up of real losses by FGG and GAG
on Jun 5th, 2010 at 11:01 AM
PS Have ANY of the GAGs or FOGG ever published and made available to the general public as CHP2009 did, a detailed candid report? NO!
Unlike the FOGG atleast GLISA and CHP2009 are not afraid to be open and tranparent to the world with little of the backroom politics of the FGG “leaders”.
FOGG = Federation of Gay Games
on Jun 5th, 2010 at 1:01 PM
Fred..
Thank you for being amused.
You over simplify and frankly you are misinformed about everything concerning Chicago 2006 breaking even…. I was on the Board and the Host Relations Committee. So please tell us where you got your mis-information.
I am not defending the FGG. This entire thread is about TEAMSF making an executive decision. I am one of the BIG FANS of the Copenhagen Report, and wish more people would actually READ it. This CHP2009 as you refer to it, was one of the documents we used in the TEAMSF decisions!.
Please Fred, make it public to all, or I will…. it is chock full of exactly the statements I am.
on Jun 5th, 2010 at 2:03 PM
Gene: You are a hoot and I feel sorry for your selective memory. As to the CHP2009 report it has been available on their web site for months, so no one needs to “make it public”.
I subscribe to Gay Chicago and many other periodicals in my marketing work, and can cite the press articles by Chicagoans regarding the efforts to help GAG break even.
SO I CHALLENGE YOU TO PUBLISH THE STATISTICS (attendance and losses) to back up your statements about FOGG and GAG as to the accuracy of their numbers pre and post event versus what you THINK are the GLISA statistics.
Lets stick to the real issue: Your continuel marginalizing of the positive effect that GLISA has had on changing FOGG and bringing to the fore front the importance of the bringing together the sport,cultural, and human rights movements world wide.
So enough of the fog from FOGG and lets see the true story. Remember the FOGG conference call regarding Sydney and the potential of cancelling the GAG’s. Some of us don’t use “selective memory” or “selective statistics”.
Many of us are attempting to bring the world wide GLBT community together by promoting a joint event in 2018. Get on board (put your ego aside) with todays generation and support Kurt and Emy’s work with GLISA toward a joint event in 2018.
The challenge has been issued.
on Jun 5th, 2010 at 9:40 PM
Hey Fred… Get real…
This is not the forum to dredge up that old debate, and it is irrelevent to the TEAMSF issue at hand. Here is a PDF of that 92 page CopenHagen Secretariat Report:
http://lgbtsportsfuture.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/finalstatusreportjuly2009.pdf
Here are the pertinent quotes from it the next series of posts that convinced TEAMSF to support Cleveland 2014 and not Antwerp 2013.
….Several applications for funds from the EU have been rejected, as the EU did not want to accept the legal company form or the wording in the articles of World OutGames 2009 ApS as being a non-profit organization.
….The collaboration between GLISA as an organization and World OutGames as an event has been marked by very varying levels of quality. The responsibility for these at times strained relations falls of course in both camps. In the secretariat, the many staff changes in communications have been one of the factors contributing to unclear communication and expectations that have not been met. But correspondingly, GLISA as an organization has at no time lived up to the expectations we in Copenhagen have had of the brand owner. Expectations and requirements which were otherwise expressly stated in the contract between Wonderful Copenhagen and GLISA. It is therefore highly recommended that when the third World OutGames is held, a more detailed declaration of expectations be made between the local event organizer and GLISA.
on Jun 5th, 2010 at 9:42 PM
..and more…
…..Because due to the large financial loss, the Montreal office was forced to close earlier than
expected with the consequence that a manual and summary of their experiences were not written and passed on to GLISA and then Copenhagen. So the sports team’s best tool was paradoxically enough the report from the Gay Games in Sydney in 2002. But even with help from this report, the sports team had to use unnecessarily many resources to clarify the rules and procedures for the individual sports. (amazing chutzpah to steal from the GayGames!).
… As mentioned earlier, World OutGames is a young brand. A young brand owned by a very young – and therefore inexperienced organization not rich in resources: GLISA. The contract the City of Copenhagen had signed with GLISA included GLISA making their international sponsorship and media contacts available to the World OutGames secretariat in Copenhagen. The secretariat has never received this specialist and organizational support, primarily because it became apparent that GLISA did not have these contacts neither globally nor regionally.
on Jun 5th, 2010 at 9:43 PM
… and more…
…As previously mentioned, World OutGames has only been held once before, in Montreal in 2006. World OutGames as an event is therefore new, and prior experience of an international and mixed project (sport, culture, conference) is therefore not great. That goes for planning and holding the event, as well as budgeting and financial management. It was not enough that the overall objective for World OutGames was so vague at the start – neither were there any written success criteria or values for the event What is the overall concept for the event? If the secretariat had copied the concept which formed the basis of the first World OutGames in Montreal, we would be seeing an event where sport was the overwhelmingly dominant aspect. But in Copenhagen, as mentioned above, we chose to raise the priority and give the human rights dimension and the cultural meeting between the event and the city the same weighting as the sports activities. Anything else would have been wrong, if we were to meet the overall objectives for the event and the project’s fundamental values.
….But this decision has not been without consequences. Because by prioritizing the cultural program and the human rights conference as much as we have, the secretariat has firstly challenged GLISA, the owner of the World OutGames brand, and secondly the global LGBT sports community – because what we have done is not the way a large international LGBT sports event is “normally” run.
on Jun 5th, 2010 at 9:51 PM
… and more….
…No Danish ministry was willing to accredit the World OutGames organization as a non-profit organization The first issue is the absence of actual external objective evaluation and documentation of World OutGames.
Ok Fred, shall I continue? Will OutSports censor this or cut to a new thread? I am ready to post more, but this more than makes the case for a city Team like TEAMSF to make a reasonable decision.
What you seem to not understand is that it is neither GLISA nor the FGG that should be making this decision in a vacuum. It is a major decision that city teams and LGBT sports organizations should be making and have been making.
Also, there is no agreement at all about One Quadrennial Event (1QE), so it is premature and dishonest to quote Emy and Kurt as supporting anything.
IMHO, 1QE means the FGG runs GayGames in 2018, and there is no WOGS in 2017.
A LOT of other GayGames people feel the same way.
on Jun 6th, 2010 at 10:49 AM
Gene sounds like he’d be a blast at a party, as long as he gets to choose the party’s theme, guest list, music and venue.
on Jun 6th, 2010 at 12:13 PM
Dudes..
Is this the best response to ANY of the issues I have raised? Ad hoiminem attacks on how I party? You obviously do not know me at all.
I doubt any of you have ever had the long term volunteer responsibilities in an organization to be in a position to make tough recommendations to team mates.
Kumbaya is not the motivation for a business decision to tell athletes how to spend thousands of dollars. I find this logic very flawed.
After reading all of the above from the Copenahgen Report, and throw in that WOGS never gave out registration #s by sport in a timely fashion for athletes to make rational decisions, I still strongly maintain TEAMSF made the right decision and took the lead. I fully expect other sports groups and city teams to be making these same kinds of decisions whether publicly or privately (that is their responsibility & choice).
Limited funds, volunteers, and resources for uniforms and scholarships, etc… are serious issues for sports and city teams. Business decisions need to be made.
A lot of research and discussion went into this policy, and we at TEAMSF alerted the FGG ~4 months ago that this declaration was in the works. It certainly is no surprise to anyone, but judging by the misrepresentations of the 1QE and Manchester declarations, we all expected this kumbaya reaction from some.
This issue of forcing us to choose between WOGS and GGS within the span of 2 years is the problem, and it is the appropriate time for the stakeholders (not just FGG and GLISA!) to make their positions known instead of hiding behind kumbaya.
on Jun 6th, 2010 at 8:55 PM
I RESTATE MY CHALLENGE…get your head out of the fog in SF! You say don’t bring up the past yYET you keep talking about Montreal, so why shouldn’t others bring yup all the past GAG’s? (I did not read through all your ramblings, so there may be other points to support my bringing up past FOGG and GAG issues. lol
“Gene: You are a hoot and I feel sorry for your selective memory. As to the CHP2009 report it has been available on their web site for months, so no one needs to “make it public”.
I subscribe to Gay Chicago and many other periodicals in my marketing work, and can cite the press articles by Chicagoans regarding the efforts to help GAG break even.
SO I CHALLENGE YOU TO PUBLISH THE STATISTICS (attendance and losses) to back up your statements about FOGG and GAG as to the accuracy of their numbers pre and post event versus what you THINK are the GLISA statistics.
Lets stick to the real issue: Your continuel marginalizing of the positive effect that GLISA has had on changing FOGG and bringing to the fore front the importance of the bringing together the sport,cultural, and human rights movements world wide.
So enough of the fog from FOGG and lets see the true story. Remember the FOGG conference call regarding Sydney and the potential of cancelling the GAG’s. Some of us don’t use “selective memory” or “selective statistics”.
Many of us are attempting to bring the world wide GLBT community together by promoting a joint event in 2018. Get on board (put your ego aside) with todays generation and support Kurt and Emy’s work with GLISA toward a joint event in 2018.
The challenge has been issued.” AGAIN !!!!!!!!
on Jun 6th, 2010 at 9:33 PM
Fred..
Get real. Re-Argue 2002? I do not think so. I thought you wanted kumbaya! There is a whole OutSports thread on it if you really need to re-read it. I have nothing to add to it.
This is about TEAMSF doing its job. If you refuse to read the reasons, then move on and worry about Denver.
on Jun 8th, 2010 at 12:26 PM
You two need to get a room, or at least continue this disccussion in private…
on Jun 8th, 2010 at 3:34 PM
Fred, below are the statistics about Gay Games deficits that the Federation of Gay Games published in a letter to all Sydney Gay Games participants on 27 November 2003. The letter accompanied a link to a very long online document detailing circumstances surrounding the 2001 bidding process through the split by Montreal 2006 away from the FGG that November to put on their own event (Outgames I).
The letter and the longer document were publicly available on the FGG Web site for the last seven years in the News – Archives section. My understanding is that they are currently unavailable only because the FGG Web site was recently upgraded and some areas are still under redesign.
Indeed, these statistics were discussed at length on various Outsports message boards and various other LGBT media outlets from the moment of the split. Figures are approximate as reported by the host organizations to the press and the FGG at the time of each event.
Gay Games that ended with a financial deficit:
Vancouver 1990 – CAD 100,000
New York 1994 – USD 350,000
Amsterdam 1998 – NLG 3.5 million
Sydney 2002 – AUD 2 million
Outgames that ended with a financial deficit:
Montreal 2006 – CAD 5.3 million
Using historical currency exchange rates as reported on oanda.com for the calendar month during which each of those games was held, here is the approximate calculation in U.S. dollars:
Vancouver (.87375) = $87,375
New York: $350,000
Amsterdam (.49662) = $1,738,170
Sydney (.56168) = $1,123,360 TOTAL is $3,298,905
Montreal (.88749) = $4,703,697
So the answer is that Outgames I lost a total of the combined deficits of all Gay Games that lost money plus another USD 1,401,095.
The statistics above may be approximate, but at some point you have to believe what the host organizations and their local bankruptcy officials reported were reasonably true. A host organization (and its governing body) certainly would not have reported a deficit larger than necessary unless compelled to do so.
I am writing primarily to set the record straight about the statistics. I don’t think I would have used some of the language in the Team San Francisco press release myself, but I understand why the feelings about the Gay Games legacy run deeper there than anywhere else. If others want to put those feelings down, that’s up to you.
- Charlie Carson, New York (FGG board of directors 1994-2007)