President’s Message for August

What Great Things We Do Together!

I want to thank all of men that came to the special meeting on Monday, August 18th to deal with a very difficult situation. Your input, questions, and concerns were very important to the board. We have heard you. We heard your disappointment, sadness, anger, and especially your compassion. I was very touched by the amount of caring and concern that men expressed for Jay.

I was totally in awe at the end of the meeting when we all came to a place where we could move on and begin the healing process. We are a great group of men and will continue to be as long as we can be open and honest with each other. We must always have open lines of communication.

I can tell you that your board is very willing to have good dialogue with the membership. I think that is obvious from our open forum we held to deal with the unfortunate situation we were faced with.

I think the rest of the board will back me when I say SGM has no intention of hiding or going back into the closet (gasp!). We will continue to be a presence in the community and continue doing good things for our GLBTQA (God, I hope I didn't miss a letter) community.

To my fellow board members I need to say I have never worked with a group of men that I admire and respect more. You are the reason I will always be an out and proud gay man, with a big mouth!

Proud to be your president,

Joe

PS. I heard from the Portsmouth Detective who took Jay's computer and she assured me that our confidential database has not been compromised.