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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 7, 2011)
JW_Ü OCTOBER 7, 2011 Lenington [financial McVittie-Law PC ATTORNEYS AT ------- • profile • --- W W W .J U S T O U T .C O M LAW BU ILDING WEALTH AND WELL BEING Trust the Specialists. Providing fee-only advice to the LGBTQ community. We receive no commissions. We sell no products. We require no minimums. The State of Q Center Living Trusts Healthcare Directives Retirement Planning Investment Advice Budgeting Domestic Partner Planning Exec. Director Barbara McCullough-Jones examines her first four months at the helm Hospital Visitation Power of Attorney BY RYAN J. PRADO Domestic Partnerships Probate & Trust Administration 1841 NW 23 rd Ave., Portland Licensed Derek Lenington, CFP ", RLP™ C i r i im i « w mm n F in a n c ia ! P lanner * Professional I in Oregon & Washington ,% e VISA 503 . 928.5585 www.McVittie-Law.com w w w .lc ì l i tig lo n ( in a m id i, com r.r ea su res je w e lr y U estqner ( m i) 5 2 2 -4 X 9 # www. / 'ime/ess/reasuresby. Ji alhy (1/iea com Barbara McCullough-Jones’ introduction to Portland’s LGBTQ_community, and her position as a leader at Q_Center, was put to the test almost immediately upon her arrival in the Northwest. That same week in early June, the Portland City Council voted unanimously to approve trans-inclusive health care for city employees, and Pride was just days away. Gay hashings in Old Town were all over the news. She had little time to adjust. McCullough-Jones’ poise in the face o f an expectant LGBTQ_population, however, has been impressive, as new user-friendly inte grations have been implemented into the Center system to encourage more individual leadership among those in the community. And while the debate over Q s decision to foster a dialogue with the evangelical Mars Hill Church has dominated media stories involving the center, McCullough-Jones, 53, hasn’t lost the focus o f sustaining and grow ing Q_as it heads into 2012. How has her influence been felt within the community? How has she improved the infrastructure o f Q_Center since taking on her role as executive director? Read on. vide more leadership in terms o f not just waiting for folks to come here and organize, but helping put out some o f those ideas and some o f those ways that our community and our allies can organize and use (^ C e n ter as that hub. One o f the things that came out o f this tour is that we now are able to talk about four core program areas that we work in. Those are health and wellness, education and training, advocacy, and arts and culture. What we were able to then identify is that we support over 40 different affinity groups that meet at Q_on any given month. Once we started identifying those groups, and marketing that more as “this is what Q C e n ter does,” now we’re getting calls from people saying, “I didn’t know all that was going on there. Now I wanna do this group.” We opened ourselves up and created some inter nal processes that allowed a smoother path for folks who want to raise their hand and have an idea to come in. Now we have a much more systematic way o f integrating those ideas into what Q_Center presents to the community. I’m really happy with that. When we last spoke, you mentioned that one o f the larger ways Q^can be effec tive is as a model for smaller community centers statewide. In what ways have you instituted pathways to ensuring that kind o f leadership? BM -J: Within our service area, we’ve started a partnership with [Portland Com munity College], specifically the Rock Creek Campus. They’re launching a [queer] resource center October 11. They came [to Q] and learned a lot about how to operate a center in their academic context, which is different JO : How have you been handling this busy start at your new position? Barbara M cCullough-Jones: For the first three months, I did what I called a listening tour, meeting with individuals, donors, differ ent organizations and different businesses to get their sense o f who they perceive QCenter to be, what they think we ought to be, and trying to learn more about those unspoken expectations people always carry. It was really time well spent. I learned a lot about other organizations, learned a lot about Q_Center and our position in community, and the places where there are possibilities for col laborative work, partnerships, or programs. 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What kinds o f concerns did you hear most on this listening tour that had gone unspoken before? BM -J: Probably the best thing [I learned] was that Q_Center has a very good reputa tion in the community. For a young organi zation, it has a really great foundation in that there’s a lot o f people that look to Q_ Center as a place to gather and to organize. But one o f the consistent things I heard was that they would like to see (^C en ter pro- JO : “ For the first three months, I did what I called a listening tour, meet ing with individuals, donors, dif ferent organizations and different businesses to get their sense of who they perceive Q Center to be, what they think we ought to be, and trying to learn more about those un spoken expectations people always carry. It was really time well spent.” -BARBARA McCULLOUGH-JONES
