| 1. Welcome to the Queery site! |
| 2. NOTE to Community Groups and Service Providers |
| 3. How the Queery site came about
- through the 'Turing Project' |
| 4. Aims and Achievements of
the Project |
| 5. List of LGB Helplines who are Project Partners |
| 6. The 'CD System' on offer to LGB Helplines |
| 7. Benefits of the CD System for LGB Helplines |
| Welcome
to the Queery site! |
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This site provides listings for the
lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans communities in the UK and Ireland
- entries in the database cover the gay scene plus a wide range of non-profit services and non-scene community groups, as well as commercial business
services - use the Search box above to find what you're looking
for. The site is the result of a project funded by the Lottery that was devised and planned by volunteers at London Lesbian and Gay Switchboard (LLGS) as part of efforts to improve the service provided.
In addition, the project has been carried out in partnership with a
Steering Committee of LGB Helplines from around the UK with the goal of creating a shared national resource of information. This site makes that resource directly searchable,
with privacy safeguards enforced to ensure details are only available on the site with consent.
Of course, complete national listings - including entries
we have been asked to withhold from the site - are available by calling
any of the partner Helplines involved in the project. See also our Advice and
Support section for a complete
listing of all the LGBT
Helplines, plus help on coming out and on sexual health.
The site was developed on a limited budget and awaits further
enhancement.
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| NOTE to Community Groups and Service Providers
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Queery is the quick way to pass on up-to-date details of your service to London Lesbian and Gay Switchboard and other LGB helplines
now sharing the same information system!
If you do a search and find you're already listed on the site, why not go into the entry and send us an update by clicking on the 'Tell Us About a Change' link
on the detail screen - you can edit the entry on the form provided. If your service is not listed on the site, perhaps you haven't yet given your consent for it to be shown - please help by submitting
a 'new entry' if necessary from the Contact Us page.
When sending your update, you can indicate where your information can be
given out - i.e. just to helpline callers and / or in the listings on
this Web site. All submissions are checked before being
published. Please let us know about changes and closures as well
as new services - that way we can be sure to provide callers with
up-to-date information! And by using the site rather than sending
information by post, you save so much time for the helpline
volunteers.
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How the Queery site came about - through the 'Turing Project'
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This site is the result of efforts by volunteers at London Lesbian and Gay Switchboard to reach the many callers who can't get through to its phone line. About half of all calls to the line are purely information calls, so the site now serves the important function of helping to meet this demand. But the project also had wider objectives besides the Web site since about half of calls to LLGS come from outside London or abroad, so
LLGS set out to improve the information resources of other LGBT Helplines who wanted to work in partnership by sharing a common database when answering calls. Lottery funding was received in June 1999 for a 3-year project with the aim of creating a shared national resource updated by these grassroots organisations with the benefit of their local knowledge and available to them to use on local PCs. A National Steering Committee was set up consisting of volunteers from interested Helplines around the UK. This volunteer-managed project, with one paid worker, was named the 'Turing Project' after Alan Turing, the gay mathematician, computer scientist and code-breaker.
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| Aims and
Achievements of the Project |
The first objective of the Project was a new database and intranet system
for London Lesbian and Gay Switchboard, installed in 2000. The second
was a stand-alone version of the same system for other LGB Helplines to run on a
PC provided by the Project. Nearly 20 computers were
distributed to partners during 2000 - 2001 and updates to the data are
now sent monthly. There were insufficient funds
to pay for more PCs, but the system itself is still being distributed
on request to Helplines who have a PC of their own. The third aim of the Project
was this web site, making information directly searchable. The site was commissioned
on a limited budget at the end of the first phase of funding and developed by
Bond Technologies in liaison with a design company they selected. The site
was soft launched in October 2001 with about 50% of the database entries searchable on the site.
Since then, the efforts of volunteers have focused on making more information available on the site
by seeking consent from organisations and services, etc, to show their details on it.
The update forms on the site finally provide a quick and efficient way to update LLGS
and partner helplines about these services - for anyone able to spend a few minutes
filling one in. By encouraging people to submit updates on the site, it is hoped to
reduce the amount of information sent to LLGS on paper which, though appreciated, takes
far more time to process. In this way the quality of information available can continually improve.
Further funding for the project is currently being sought.
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List of LGB Helplines who are Project Partners
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Find phone numbers for these lines by using the search box at top of this page
or see complete
listing of all LGBT
Helplines - the following Helplines share London Switchboard's
database system and contribute information on their local areas:
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- National Steering Committee members:
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Foyle Friend - Derry (www.foylefriend.org)
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Hereford & Worcester Lesbian and Gay Switchboard
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Hull Lesbian Line
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London Lesbian and Gay Switchboard (www.llgs.org.uk)
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Lothian Lesbian and Gay Switchboard - Edinburgh (www.lgls.org)
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Milton Keynes Lesbian and Gay Link
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North Wales Lesbian Line (www.lesbian-line-north-wales.org.uk and www.same-sex-support-services.org.uk)
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WightOUT - Isle of Wight (www.wightout.org.uk)
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- Other partners:
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Bedfordshire Friend
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Belfast
Cara Friend (www.cara-friend.org.uk)
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Blackpool, Fylde & Wyre Lesbian & Gay Switchboard / BLAGS
(www.blags.org)
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Cambridge Lesbian Line (www.cambridgelesbianline.org.uk)
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Colchester Gay Switchboard (www.gayessex.org.uk)
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Derbyshire Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Switchboard (www.gayderby.co.uk)
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Grampian Lesbian Gay & Bisexual Switchboard - Aberdeen (www.glgbs.org.uk)
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GYL Project (Gay Youth Line) South Wales (www.thegylproject.co.uk)
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Isle of Man Lesbian and Gay Switchboard (www.gayinfo.org.im)
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Lancashire Friend (www.ellgas.org.uk)
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London Friend (www.londonfriend.org.uk)
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Manchester Lesbian and Gay Foundation (www.lgfoundation.org.uk)
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Young LGB Peer Support Project, Manchester (www.peer-support.org.uk)
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Rotherham Young LGB Line
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Woking Outline (www.outlinesurrey.org)
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| The 'CD System' on offer to
LGB Helplines |
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The 'CD System' is an information
retrieval and call logging system delivered on CD to load on to a local PC.
It gives you access to a national database of LGB resources based on the national database of London Lesbian and Gay Switchboard and partner Helplines.
It has 3 ways for you to search for information for your callers - text search, search by categories, search by keywords.
Designed primarily for use by the Helplines, it has a Call Log screen so you can quickly log details of each call taken.
It automatically records volunteers' shifts. Statistical reports are available on the number and type of calls taken, on shifts, and to help with updating the
information for your area.
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| Benefits of the CD System for LGB Helplines |
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This Web site gives access to about half the information on the CD
system. LLGS works in collaboration with organisations who want
the local system so as to update the database comprehensively
for their local areas before they receive it. New project partners are bound by a confidentiality agreement and are sent the database system on CD to load on to a PC, together with user and administrator manuals.
The partner must commit to submit updates for their locality via this web
site when changes occur and is supplied in turn with a regular update of the
data file for their
local PC.
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This Page Last Updated: Summer 2002
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