Lavender Winds Kite Club
History
In the summer of 1989, Mark and Brian discovered that they shared not only their love for one another, but a love for kites as well. After attending a year's worth of kite festivals in the Pacific Northwest as individuals, Mark and Brian got together with four other gay kitefliers to talk about forming a gay and lesbian kite club. Lavender Winds Kite Club (LWKC) was formed in September 1990 with six members in the Portland, Oregon / Vancouver, Washington area.
As part of our initial advertising campaign, we sent announcements to several kiting publications and two local kiting organizations. We were really lucky that David Gomberg was president and newsletter editor for the Associated Oregon Kiters (AOK) at the time. David made it a point to print our unedited announcement in the November 1990 issue of the AOK newsletter. We had no other success in advertising the fact that a lesbian and gay kite club was in existence, except for public service listings in two gay and lesbian publications in Oregon. In spite of the lack of publicity, LWKC continued to grow. We originally thought that only gays and lesbians would be interested in joining LWKC, but from the first year of existence to the present, we've had members and supporters who are neither lesbian nor gay. In February 1991, LWKC applied to become a chapter of the American Kitefliers Association. We were granted chapter status on March 20, 1991.
A gay and lesbian kite club? "So what?" some might say. Personally, I'm looking forward to the day when being lesbian or gay is no longer an issue - with anyone. In an ideal society, it wouldn't make any difference at all whether a person was gay, lesbian, or neither. Unfortunately, too often gays and lesbians can feel out of place in mainstream organizations where they may be compelled by the fear of violence or rejection to keep their sexual orientation hidden. We hope that LWKC can provide a safe and supportive atmosphere for those kiters, regardless of sexual orientation, who may feel out of place in larger kiting organizations. Although our membership is relatively small, we feel that LWKC represents a diverse cross-section of the kiting community. A group such as ours can help to encourage tolerance and promote understanding between sexual minorities and mainstream society as we unite in our love of kiting. Besides, if I do say so myself, we're an awful lot of fun to be around!
In 1993, we moved to the San Francisco Bay Area. Since none of our members in the Pacific Northwest wanted to take over the club, we decided to bring LWKC with us to California. During the last 4 years, we've held regular monthly flys, attended kiting activities in Northern California, and made an annual pilgrimage to Long Beach, WA for the Washington State International Kite Festival. Although most of our members live in the Bay Area, LWKC includes members from across the United States and Europe.
1997 was an especially good year for Lavender Winds Kite Club. Not only did we gain several new members, but we won some awards for our ever-growing ground display. In July, we attended the Berkeley Kite Festival where we won a trophy for best ground display. We also attended the Washington State International Kite Festival in Long Beach, WA during the 3rd week of August (the *whole* week!), where we won 2 first place ribbons and one 3rd place ribbon. We won 3rd place in the "Terrific Territories" competition, won first place in Tuesday's "Club Camp" competition (or was that "Campiest Club" instead?), and first place in the "Wind Art on a Pole" competition with our "garden of breeze blossoms." About a week later, we went to the Golden Gate Challenge in San Francisco, CA, and won the "Peoples Choice" trophy for our ground display.
To those of you who may be gay or lesbian, I'd like to invite you to check us out. By being a member of Lavender Winds Kite Club, you can help to promote the image of lesbians and gays just by being yourself. As a club, we can show others who may not know any gays and lesbians that we're just regular folks who love kites. And if you happen to be neither lesbian nor gay, you can show your support for your gay and lesbian friends and family members by joining us in our activities and letting others in the kiting community know that there's really no need to fear or hate lesbians and gays - they're people, too. Plus, you'll have a great time with some great people flying kites.