2026 Season Opener

‍Dear LGBTQ+ and Friends Community,

Hello to everyone and we are so looking forward to seeing you soon at Chautauqua! This newsletter details LGBTQ+ and Friends activities and events planned for the 2026 season.

‍Lecture by the Honorable Grace Hanlon

Wednesday, August 5 at 12:15 pm at Smith Wilkes Hall

The Honorable Grace Hanlon is a New York State Supreme Court Justice and Director of the Richard C. Failla LGBTQ Commission of the New York State Courts. She has offered to give a presentation on the state of the Supreme Court and the current state of legal affairs for LGBTQ+ people. We believe this to be a very timely and important lecture given the current political situation and many attacks on our community, particularly the trans community. Many thanks to Barbara Britton for organizing this event!

‍Special Studies Course: LGBTQ+ Literature and Culture: Out in Nature

Week 7, August 11 – 14 at 3:00 pm in the Alumni Hall Poetry Room

OK – so this looks so cool. From the Special Studies catalog course description: “From the poetry of Walt Whitman to Mary Oliver, to the essays and fiction of contemporary writers like Callum Angus, LGBTQ+ writers have drawn inspiration from nature and the natural world to express queer experience and to imagine queer futures. In this course we’ll explore this relationship through short fiction and poems from selected writers. Through discussion and some short, focused writing, we’ll draw upon the beautiful natural surroundings of Chautauqua to tease out how nature models queer transformations.” And it’s being taught by our very own Tim Francisco who teaches LGBTQ+ Literature at Youngstown State University. Thank you, Tim! I’ve already signed up. Note: you have to sign up through Special Studies at Chautauqua.

LGBTQ+ and Friends T-Shirts

Sydney Lozier has designed (and is organizing the selling of) some fun t-shirts as a fundraising and visibility idea for LGBTQ+ and Friends. You should be able to click through the following link to place an order. Size guide and all sizing options are available for selection there.

Order form: link (click on the little square on the picture of the shirt to see the great design on the back of the shirt)

Each shirt is $25.00. Payment for your full order must be submitted through the above link by no later than 6/1/26. Otherwise, your order may not be fulfilled. Sydney’s email address is sblozier@gmail.com if you have any questions about your order. All orders can be picked up at Spruce (located on the ground floor of the Colonnade) during the season. And all net proceeds from shirts will be donated to LGBTQ+ and Friends. Thank you, Sydney! And, also a great big thank you to Nick Giancola for making Spruce available for people to pick up their t-shirts! Do some shopping while you are there.

Gathering After Theater

So, this annual event is really, really fun. We all buy our own tickets to a specific theater performance and then after the show we gather to meet the cast and crew and share food and drink. Date and Time and Theater Performance are TBD but will go up on our website as soon as they are available.

Sunday Community Activity Fairs

Sundays (on Weeks 1, 4, and 5) from Noon to 1:45 in Bestor Plaza. Informational tables about the various Community Groups at Chautauqua are set up in Bestor Plaza on Sundays after church. We have a table (and a rather handsome banner) but we need volunteers to mind our table and answer questions about LGBTQ+ and Friends activities and events at Chautauqua. Bree Dietly is going to coordinate the volunteers, and she has asked for more volunteers this season. It’s a really nice hour and a half on a Sunday, and you only have to commit to one Sunday. If you would like to volunteer, please email Bree at bdietly@gmail.com. Many thanks to Bree for coordinating our volunteers! This is actually a very cool program and is especially beneficial and welcoming to first-time visitors to Chautauqua.

Sunday Night Meet and Greet Social Hour

We will be having our weekly Meet and Greet Social hour each Sunday from 6:30 pm to 9:30 pm on the porch of the Athenaeum Hotel. The hotel lobby bar will remain open until midnight, but our event ends at 9:30. This year (due to popular demand) we are also going to do a Meet and Greet Week 10, which is Sunday, Aug 30 from 6:30 pm to 9:30 pm at the Athenaeum. We are looking for hosts for all weeks this year. As host you will sponsor the cheese board that the hotel puts out. This year it could be as high as $400 plus tip so it might be a good idea to share hosting duties. As host you will welcome people to the porch, assist with name tags, help those who look a little lost find a connection and direct people to our website to sign up to be on our e-mail list if they are not already on it. Please contact Karen James at karenjames@me.com if you would like to host a Meet and Greet. Many thanks to Karen for managing this!

LGBTQ+ and Friends Discussion Group. Bring your lunch.

‍Our weekly discussion group will be held each Tuesday at 12:15 in the Dining Room of the Literary Arts Center, except for Week 2 when it will be held in the Literary Arts Center Ballroom. Catie Miller will facilitate. Big kudos to Catie for facilitating all these years. We appreciate you! The themes for 2026 are as follows:
‍
Week 1: Our Need for Women to Take Center Stage
Week 2: Resisting Manipulation and Fatigue: Going on a Media Diet
Week 3: Our Fragile Democracy: Authoritarian Alert
Week 4: Our Disposable Selves: The Challenge of Remaining Relevant
Week 5: Cultural Creatives: The Heart of Society
Week 6: Keeping Democracy Alive: Crisis from Within
Week 7: Power Corrupts; Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely: Learning from the Past
Week 8: We Are What We Eat, Sometimes
Week 9: Gathering and Community: We Need One Another

Brick

Update on the Brick. We spent all last summer hunting for the Brick. It’s an 8x8 brick that says “LGBTQ+ and Friends at Chautauqua.” We finally found out that they were behind and hadn’t put it in yet. So we will continue the search this summer. If you spot it, let us know! It’s supposed to be up near the Welcome Center. Many thanks to Terry Horner for facilitating this.

Website

Huge thanks to MJ Johnston and Barbara Britton for maintaining and enhancing our website! lgbtqchq.com. It is looking really great.

Financial Oversight Committee

As we continue to grow, we want to make sure that all of our financials are fully transparent and the accounts are in order. Many thanks to Karen James, Christopher Griffith, Terry Horner, Tim Holland, MJ Johnston, and DeDe Hughes for serving on the committee.

Fundraising

As things have gotten more expensive in general, our cost for using the Athenaeum Porch for our Sunday Meet and Greets has also gone up considerably. Not complaining, just saying. We definitely could use some help. LGBTQ+ and Friends at Chautauqua is totally self-funded and we appreciate any donations you can make to the group to help fund our continuing activities as well as our website maintenance costs. Donations to LGBTQ+ and Friends at Chautauqua are not tax-deductible. If you would like to donate, please make out your check to:
‍ ‍
LGBTQ+ and Friends
And then mail the check to:

Hughes/Britton
P.O. Box 1367
Chautauqua, NY 14722

Or you can Venmo us @lgbtq-chq

Thank you and see you all soon!

LGBTQ+ and Friends at Chautauqua