December was an exceptionally busy month at Lunch Positive, the weekly lunch club for people who are HIV positive. It started with huge appreciation given by the members and volunteers following the empowering speech made in Parliament by Kemptown & Peacehaven MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle about being HIV-positive for the last ten years.
Things are changing at Working to Connect (WTC), the organisation that supports and represents smaller LGBT+ and HIV groups in Brighton & Hove.
“I am so grateful and happy to have received the Princess Diana community award at the Golden Handbag Awards – most especially because of all the wonderful citations that people have written. Reading those, it feels quite overwhelming, in a good way! I am so grateful to everyone that contributed – and for all the kind and supportive words.”
HIV hasn’t gone away, nor the complexity of issues that it can present. We’d be doing ourselves and our community a disservice to take the comfortable view that it has.
Once again this year, Lunch Positive will be staging a Community Café at Brighton Pride in Preston Park on Saturday, August 4. The Café will be sited in the Community Village near the centre of the park and will have a seating area, designated tables and assisted table service for people with access needs.
Gary Pargeter, manager of Lunch Positive, named a Brighton & Hove Food Partnership Food Hero. Brighton & Hove Food Partnership Food Hero awards celebrate people in the city who go above and beyond the call of duty to improve our food system and support others to access healthy, sustainable food.
“Arthur Henry Law was a powerful presence in every group and campaign he participated in. He brought big ideas, huge amounts of energy and drive to the table…….” Dani Ahrens.
Lunch Positive volunteers met in February to start planning delivery of the HIV lunch club over the next 18 months. Starting with a group reflection of 2017 to learn from and build upon experiences, the team expressed deep appreciation to all their supporters and members, before moving on to key priorities for the year ahead.
Lunch Positive is a local charity, providing a community lunch club to people with HIV, with a wide range of support activities. Like most charities, funding to provide and develop services is increasingly stretched, with fewer funding sources and those that are available having greater overall pressure on their funds.
Lunch Positive respond to Universal Credit implementation in Brighton & Hove. As the implementation of Universal Credit enters its final stages, there are big changes ahead with the longstanding link between disability benefits and higher levels of other benefits decreasing.
