LGBT Voices in Action is a FABULOUS new opportunity for LGB people and Trans people who live, or work, or study, or socialise in the South West.

LGBT Voices in Action is a confidential community consultation and survey project. It's going to help us all to make LGB and Trans voices heard about the issues that really matter to us—as individuals, and as communities.

We are looking for: Everybody! We encourage women, men, trans people and non-trans people, older people, younger people, people from all ethnic and racial heritages and backgrounds,  people with and without disabilities, people of a wide range of faiths, beliefs and unbeliefs... and yes, we welcome LGBT people who don't encounter problems, aren't active in LGBT community life, or don't feel they have experienced discrimination or prejudice. We want... everybody!

All LGB people are invited and welcome, and All Trans people are invited and welcome!

We promise that Voices In Action surveys will:

• be interesting
• be worth while
• be about things that matter
• make a difference.

After each survey we promise to feed back to all Voices in Action supporters about the dfference that their voices have made.

Topics

LGBT Voices in Action surveys will be about important things, and you will have your say in deciding what's important. Some of the topics we've got in mind for possible surveys are:

• GP and hospital services. Mental health care. Do we find barriers to accessing NHS services?
• Workplaces. How good are local employers at creating prejudice-free environments?
  
• Housing and benefits. How well do the DWP and JobCentres deliver equal services to LGBT people?
• Other topics we've got in mind are: Schools and Colleges — Policing, Crime and Safety — Residential and Domiciliary Care  — Children's Services — Shops — Clubs and Fitness Centres — and others!

Let us know in your first survey what YOU think our future priorities should be.

How do I join Voices in Action and Help Make Change Happen?

Go to lgbt.voicesinaction.com, and register! It's a simple process:

1. Register your e-mail address, choose a user-name and password, and tell us the year in which you were born (to analyse the survey responses, we need to know respondents' age-ranges)
2. You'll get an e-mail back from the site, with a link. Copy and paste the link, go back to the site and authorise your registration.
3. Go to Open Surveys, and fill in your first survey. This is a one-off survey About You, so we have key information and don't have to keep asking the same stuff in every future survey.

And early in April you'll get an email inviting you to log in and complete the first new community survey. (And it's going to be an amazing BIG FAB COMMUNITY SURVEY: we've been working on it since November... and there will be PRIZES!)

LGBT Voices In Action is Confidential

As always, Intercom will protect your data and hold it in strictest confidence. We promise not to connect your survey-responses with your e-mail address, so even within Intercom we shall not know who has said what. (The only exception would be if we find evidence of abuse of the site.)

Voices in Action is a project of the Intercom Trust through the South West LGBT Collective.

Lloyds TSB Foundations has generously provided the devleopment funding for this project, and we warmly thank them for their faith and patience.

We also thank Tom Faull of Pure Glow Media in Bournemouth for his hard work designing the site with us, and making sure it is user-friendly and fit for purpose.

Michael, Paul and the Voices In Action team at Intercom, March 2013.