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CLAWS TO ENSARE BRITISH GAY PEOPLE "The situation deteriorates every day. I refrain from making prophecies only for them coming true. We have to get organised. We have to establish a nonviolent civil disobedience action campaign. We have to stand in the honourable reactions of the women's sufferage movement to assert our rights and our dignity as people, empowering ourselves in the face of those individuals that would still further oppress us. For us, as for Martin Luther King, "The choice is between non-violence and non existence." Thus writes Simon Watney (March 1988 issue of Gay Times, London) about the WHO Programmes for AIDS Prevention in the context of Clause 28. Clause 28 of the UK's Local Government bill has outpaced even AIDS as the single biggest threat to British gay people's very existence. Recently voted through the House of Lords (see GCN Issue 1) this obnoxious piece of legislation is due a final reading in the House of Commons sometime late March/early April and yet opposition to the Clause is snowballing every day.

LONDON CENTRE IN TROUBLE The London Lesbian and Gay Centre which cost STG£1,000,000 to open three years ago, is on the point of collapse unless there is an immediate and major injection of cash. This is the feeling of some angry and frustrated members from the Centre who have called for an Extraordinary General Meeting on Monday 21st March when an aggressive plan will be proposed for saving the Centre. Among the decisions being proposed are: • a reduction in existing numbers of staff: • the resignation of management committee members who served prior to 1988; • proper financial controls and the appointment of a qualified accountant and skilled business managers on eh management committee; • a new grant from the London Boroughs Grants (Richmond) Scheme; and a proper Business Plan. The London Centre has been plagued with problems since it opened, despite the Stg £140,000 funding it has received each year from the now defunct Greater London Council. An independent management report carried out some time ago was severely critical of staff management, stock control and hygiene. The report, issued last October, criticised "basic design faults” such as lighting, venting and drainage. There was also criticism of financial management and stock monitoring in the operation of the Centre's bar and cafe - last year the bar alone incurred losses of up to Stg. £4,000 per month. Concerned members of the Centre have said that unless the Centre receives grant aid as usual this year there is no chance it can be saved. All eyes will be on the March 21st meeting.