Meetings & Events

Please join us to chat and listen. We are here to greet you and offer friendly support through questions, answers, and conversation.

2025 August 21 (7 PM). We have chosen to meet again without any agenda except to support each other with listening and understanding.

At some future time our gatherings may include presentations. But there seems to be No Rush. (We are transitioning to something new -- to be defined by our lives that seldom follow the calendar regularity imposed by organized groups.)

[Editor asks us to remember that the SUM of participation is much greater than any event's tally.

 We see that times have changed. Today's lifestyle is like an a la carte menu. (For example, Route 66 Diner counts me a customer though I eat there just a few times a year. Likewise, my physician counts me as a patient though I come only for annual exams.) I propose that we look at "membership" the same way -- as the sum of us who participate over a broad time.

Our core mission of outreach, support, and education holds steady, allowing people to count on us being there when needed, standing ready to help.

As an English professor, I quote poets who have said things well: "They also serve / who only stand and wait" (says John Milton in 1652, of Manor-house servants and Heaven's angels).]

2025 July 16.  We met at our usual time and place, though we are no longer "affiliated with" national PFLAG^® . We enjoyed and appreciated the hospitality of our host, the Mpower outreach of Planned Parenthood. The informal consensus was...that we should meet without agenda for "some time" as we consider circumstances; that we should see this as a chance to recover [from what all might prefer to forget-- the COVID pandemic that killed a million Americans, put classrooms "online" and disrupted and altered everything that had been designed before].

[Editor: To the COVID years, Do see the "big picture" of social changes already in motion. E.g. "remote" and solitary entertainment (TV, then the web); separate "eco-systems" of news and beliefs (long before billionaires owned FOX and X); the destruction of truth by "influencers," whose opinions shout-down experts and science; corporate "warfare" supplanting respectful competition; sheer force suppressing dissent; cooperation seen less and less.

Now "monster-Money" gobbles-up pieces of small businesses that it breaks; wealthy "funds" and foreign governments buy-up American houses (kept empty) while families go homeless. So-called "solitary actors" become an increasingly threat to public safety, like lightning-strike wildfires and "unexpected" floods. Broken communities struggle to cope, or to even agree on solutions. Careful listening and cooperation and patience could help now.]

2025 June 29 (Morningside Park). Alex and Sheila had called for a Picnic meeting under the trees, since we had done this often before, sitting on blankets & lawn chairs. The day was very pleasant, under the shade of large trees, for the dozen of us gathered there chatting. Around us were sculpture and plaques memorializing Albuquerque's small first Gay Pride March fifty years ago. Some of us, as long-time residents, briefly reminisced about how the area has changed.

But our goal was to meet and discuss "Where can we go from here? How can we respond to people's needs?" We noted how the social and political landscape has changed and continues to change rapidly. We must stay aware and be ready to respond.

2025 June 18. This was a joyful gathering in remembrance -- and our last formal meeting as an affiliate of PFLAG ^® National. We discussed options such as continuing as an independent non-organization doing precisely what we have been doing for years, without any "affiliation." OR looking into "connection" with any of the large number of groups whom most of us, as individuals and families, support. [I (Peter) personally support UNM Food Pantry, Roadrunner Food Bank, Planned Parenthood (whose MPower program supports OUR group now) and many environmental and political organizations. We all have such personal connections; a "network."]

Our local Chapter very likely has helped each of us over the many years we have met in mutual support and outreach, starting in those early years when the letters "PFLAG" meant "Parents & Friends of Lesbians and Gays" [before other names were added, then removed, and PFLAG^® got diminished to a trademark].

We all have stories to tell, so lets!

Think of the many people who have contributed their presence and thoughtfulness, help and attentiveness-without-judgement. And the frequent potluck treats that we -- sometimes a few but often many -- enjoyed each month in places we would come to consider 'homes.'

PFLAG^® set a new course, and will not let us continue as we have. Their evolving expectations led us reluctantly to say "Goodbye."  This meeting was therefore our last as an affiliate of that organization.

So we begin a "new chapter" in our history, turning the page but not without remembering-- in joy and with gratitude --what our members have meant to each other over the years, and what we have accomplished in our communities through our mutual support.

We remain friends.

[Peter Lundman, web editor. On June 14.

2025, May 21. We learned more about "RIO RANCHO Pride" activities, which was re-designed to be a family event -- fun for kids as well as elders.

2025, April 16. During our last meeting we heard from the Older Rainbow Community of Albuquerque, and heard some perspectives on what is happening Now -- from those who have lived through similar troubled times in the past.

2025, March 19. Last month's guest was from Albuquerque's Transgender Resource Center.

2025, February 19. Our speaker came from Albuquerque's  Bataan Chapter of  American Veterans for Equal Rights (AVER).

2025, January 15. Our guest from Equality New Mexico explained issues that face this year's "long" (60 day) New Mexico legislative session (which began Jan. 21).

Previous Meetings...

Previous year calendars are in NEWS ARCHIVE below.

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