SPECTRUM News, Volunteers

Thank You, Dianne!

Dianne Roedding, a founding member of SPECTRUM’s Aging With Pride committee, recently stepped down from the committee after nine years of service. A retired public health nurse who lives in Kitchener, Dianne was integral in Aging With Pride’s success in helping to educate facilities who treat and house seniors on issues particular to our community. 


Aging With Pride was established in 2013 to address the needs of aging members of the 2SLGBTQ+ community. In 2017, Aging With Pride received a $25,000 New Horizons for Seniors grant from the government of Canada which enabled the committee to create and implement various programs with facilities in Waterloo Region. As part of this, Dianne visited and met with many senior centres and retirement communities and helped to deliver many of these programs. Some of these programs included educational presentations, hosting dinners, and even helping to host drag shows performed at local retirement homes.

Recently, Dianne represented SPECTRUM as a member of the RNAO Best Practice Guidelines Expert Panel to develop the RNAO Best Practice Guidelines for Promoting 2SLGBTQI+ Helath Equity. You can read that report here.


SPECTRUM would like to thank Dianne for her tireless service to her community. Not only as a member of SPECTRUM and Aging With Pride, but also in her career in public health nursing.

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Volunteers

International Volunteer Day 2021

International Volunteer Day takes place on December 5th each year. This year’s global message is “Together We Can Through Volunteering.”

This is certainly true in the case of SPECTRUM! We know that as many as 2,000 2SLGBTQ+ people participated in our programming (all virtually) in 2020-2021. During this time we were running 20 different groups and events each month, and all of these were facilitated by volunteers!

SPECTRUM is grateful for the dedicated support of our volunteers today, and every day! We couldn’t possibly have the impact we do on the lives of 2SLGBTQ+ people in our community without all of their hard work and dedication. 

As we head into 2022, we are looking forward to the possibility of once again offering more in-person programming, but we will also be offering hybrid programming in order to be as accessible as possible to the greatest number of people. Stay tuned for updates as we have them.

If you are interested in volunteering with SPECTRUM please check out our available positions on the Volunteer Action Centre site.

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SPECTRUM News, Volunteers

Anti-Conversion Therapy Steering Committee Volunteer Posting

SPECTRUM, Waterloo Region’s Rainbow Community Space, is helping to put together a steering committee of volunteers from the municipalities of Kitchener, Waterloo, and Cambridge to work for bylaws that would prohibit conversion therapy in our community.

Sexual orientation and gender identity and expression change efforts (SOGIECE) or conversion therapy (also known as reparative therapy or conversion practices) is any treatment, including individual talk therapy, behavioural or aversion therapy, group therapy treatments, medical or drug-induced treatments, which attempt to change, suppress or deny someone’s sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.

We believe this type of cruel abuse has no place in Canada.

Ideally, the steering committee will include 2-3 representatives from each municipality. The committee is expected to have its first meeting by mid-April 2021. Initially, committee members would be asked to attend 3-4 meetings per month.

Survivors and allies both are welcome to join these efforts. Survivors who would be willing to share their stories with our municipal councils in person or anonymously in writing are also encouraged to reach out to the steering committee. You can share as little or as much of your story as you are comfortable with.

If you would like to join this steering committee to help advance this work, or if you have questions, please email Mark Hartburg at mark_hartburg@yahoo.ca.

For more information about the nation-wide efforts to ban conversion therapy visit https://www.noconversioncanada.com/

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SPECTRUM News

Volunteers Required For Anti-Conversion Therapy Steering Committee

SPECTRUM, Waterloo Region’s Rainbow Community Space, is helping to put together a steering committee of volunteers from the municipalities of Kitchener, Waterloo, and Cambridge to work for bylaws that would prohibit conversion therapy in our community.

Sexual orientation and gender identity and expression change efforts (SOGIECE) or conversion therapy (also known as reparative therapy or conversion practices) is any treatment, including individual talk therapy, behavioural or aversion therapy, group therapy treatments, medical or drug-induced treatments, which attempt to change, suppress or deny someone’s sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.

We believe this type of cruel abuse has no place in Canada.

Ideally, the steering committee will include 2-3 representatives from each municipality. The committee is expected to have its first meeting by mid-April 2021. Initially, committee members would be asked to attend 3-4 meetings per month.

Survivors and allies both are welcome to join these efforts. Survivors who would be willing to share their stories with our municipal councils in person or anonymously in writing are also encouraged to reach out to the steering committee. You can share as little or as much of your story as you are comfortable with.

If you would like to join this steering committee to help advance this work, or if you have questions, please email Mark Hartburg at mark_hartburg@yahoo.ca.

For more information about the nation-wide efforts to ban conversion therapy visit https://www.noconversioncanada.com/

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