Meet Tabby - our coordinator behind all the e-mails you’ve been getting! Right now she is very underslept and has a lot of things to do, but she is very excited that the hui is just one sleep away (if she can sleep!).

Tabby is a queer femme who grew up in England and Nelson and now lives in Wellington. She is the National Coordinator of InsideOUT and also works with Wellington Rape Crisis and PrideNZ. When she’s not working on queer stuff, she’s obsessing over astrology or adding to her collection of all things polka dot!

Sign: Taurus with a Cancer Rising and Aries Moon
Favourite colour: Purple

Describe yourself in 3 words? Polka Dot Queen

What is your favourite pizza topping? Hummus and veggies! So yeah mostly I don’t eat pizza.

Why do you enjoy Hui? Hui have been some of the most magical experiences of my queer life! I love that they bring people together to connect, share and learn in a lovely environment and there is so much freedom to be yourself.

What is your favourite smell? Hmm, the berry and rose scented candle from The Warehouse

Special thing you do to make you feel good about yourself: Wear/surround myself in polka dots.

Meet Nathaniel from our organising team - he’s going to be running to the ‘Creating Inclusive Spaces for Takatāpui’ workshop at the hui!

Nathaniel is a Fine arts Major at Massey University and comes from the big ol city of Auckland. Loves flowers and zines.

Favourite colour: Black

Describe yourself in 3 words? Hip pretentious townie

What is your favourite pizza topping? Cranberry sauce and cheeeese

Why do you enjoy Hui?  Meeting new people, having the best discussions and giving back to the community

What is your favourite smell? Other people’s smells on Jackets that are lended to you

Special thing you do to make you feel good about yourself: Cuppa coffee and a good movie in bed.

Meet Tarn from our organising team - this fab lady came up with the concepts for all our lovely flower groups which you’ll get to hear all about at the hui tomorrow!

Tarn is a lady who loves all things femme and identity related. She’ll most often be found at home reading sci-fi novels or putting off studying for her social work degree by making upwards of a thousand coffees. Despite constant feelings of medium to high level feminist rage she is an optimist and is really looking forwards to spending time with wonderful people at Shift.

Sign: Taurus.
Favourite colour: Naturey green like sea greens and forest greens.

Describe yourself in 3 words? Femme hillbilly lady.

What is your favourite pizza topping? Ummmm too many coz I <3 pizza .A good margherita is amazing.

Why do you enjoy Hui? Meeting all the incredible people and hearing their thoughts. Also the chance it gives our community to spend time together.
What is your favourite smell? Fresh cut grass, the sea, coffee, rivers, vanilla aaaand coconut.

Special thing you do to make you feel good about yourself: Read my fave books, cook yum food, have a long bath and a good ugly cry.

Meet Connor from the organising team and have a chat to him at the hui if you’re interested in him recording your story for PrideNZ!

Connor Mcleod:

Connor is a second-year psychology and anthropology student at Victoria University of Wellington.

Since the beginning of 2012, Connor has been involved in community work by leading the queer straight alliance at his high school (NAGS), being on the board of Nelson’s community group Q-Youth Inc for two years, as well as being a part of projects such as Legalise Love campaigns, education workshops, and being an active participant and/or leader in the various regional and national youth hui. Connor has been on the InsideOUT board since moving to Wellington in 2014, and hopes to one day promote people’s better understandings of gender and sexuality.

Sign: Cancer

Favourite colour: Sea foam

Describe yourself in 3 words: Sleepy, emotional, slimy

Favourite pizza topping: Spinach and feta!

What do you enjoy about Hui? I love listening to people’s stories and getting energised for our work!

Favourite smell? Crisp air from the mountains of Babylonia

Thing you do to make you feel good about yourself? I drink tea and take naps

Meet Bella from our organising team - her and Vee will be running a workshop on body positivity and self care at the hui!

Bella is a sassy takes no crap from nobody Transgender female. She is studying to be a beautician and has a small youtube channel to teach others about the inequality our trans folk receive. Bella is a MAC hoarder who believes that having a different coloured lipstick for every day of the week is a necessity.
Sign:

Cancer
Favourite colour:

Pink

Describe yourself in 3 words?

Sassy, Food, Love
What is your favourite pizza topping?

Cheese and Pepperoni.

Why do you enjoy Hui?

I love meeting new people and learning new things. Hui are a chance to be free and and happy, you can be whoever you want and no one judges. The food is also pretty exciting.

What is your favourite smell?

The fresh vanilla smell of MAC lipsticks.

Special thing you do to make you feel good about yourself:

I wear like 4 layers of spanx everyday to not only turn my bakery of rolls into one big ball, but also because it feels like a big hug for my tummy. 

Meet Alex from our organising team who will be filming the hui and capturing this magic forever!!! You might recognise his face from our Day of Silence posters last year!

Alex is a transguy who cares about animal rights and drinks lots of tea. He likes to run, cook vegan food and make films about his dog and other great things in this world. He hopes to encourage others to share their positive experiences in order to smash LGBTQI stereotypes in the media and general society.

Name: Alex
Sign: Borderline Sagittarius/Capricorn
Favourite colour: Dark blue

Describe yourself in 3 words? Nature-loving kid

What is your favourite pizza topping? Basil, or spinach, or anything green

Why do you enjoy Hui? I’m not sure as this is my first time! But I can predict that I will enjoy this one because of the cool people and inclusive environment.
What is your favourite smell? Smoke from a campfire, or old books

Special thing you do to make you feel good about yourself: I like to hop into bed with a cup of tea and watch an episode of The Great British Bake Off.

Meet Maggie, one of our fab organisers and tuakana at the hui! She is super helpful and today she’s been working on gathering heaps of awesome resources for everyone to take away from the hui!

Maggie is a youth worker and phone counsellor for Youthline and a trustee for InsideOUT. She’s currently studying at Victoria University and probably will be until she’s so old and grey that people just assume she’s a lecturer there. She’s an avid reader and absolutely loves Buffy the Vampire Slayer.


Sign: Leo/Virgo Cusp
Favourite colour: Purple

Describe yourself in 3 words? Flamboyant, Maniacal, Quiet

What is your favourite pizza topping? The Godfather

Why do you enjoy Hui? The accepting and amazing atmosphere that it provides and meeting new people who also have crazy cat tendencies.

What is your favourite smell? Fresh bread or old books

Special thing you do to make you feel good about yourself: Looking through my box of mementos that I’ve kept over the years or watch funny animal videos till I cry laughing.

Meet Vee from our organising team - they have been organising all the delicious food for the hui and will be one of our tuakana!

Vee is a babe femme sea mammal who spends a lot of time thinking about chicken nuggets and how to capture the best angle of their face while taking selfies. They blog about make up and fashion from a queer feminist perspective.


Sign: Scorpio
Favourite colour: Leopard Print

Describe yourself in 3 words? Fat, Femme, Queer

What is your favourite pizza topping? The tears of my haters (jk as if I’d have h8ers)

Why do you enjoy Hui? Getting to meet beautiful, amazing, inspirational people and being able to share all of our experiences - sharing and learning is the most important thing to me
What is your favourite smell? Roses!

Special thing you do to make you feel good about yourself: Binge watch trashy TV, have a bath, go for a walk in ~nature~, put on make up, TAKE SELFIES!

Meet the organisers of Shift Hui!

Charlie Voong:

Charlie is a potato. Unsure what house in Harry Potter he is in tho, his m8s think he’d be in Slytherin or Hufflepuff. He’s pretty good with languages and may cry at loud noises. Other fact he also likes eating potatoes cause they’re p tasty. He studies at Victoria Uni, majoring in Japanese and Linguistics.


Sign: Scorpio
Favourite colour: Orange

Describe yourself in 3 words? Alien, bilingual/(Multilingual?), queer

What is your favourite pizza topping? (I actually like Pineapple on pizza), spicy stuff ??

Why do you enjoy Hui? m88, it’s just a really great environment to learn and meet new people, i’ve learnt a lot and figured out a lot about myself from hui. They’re pretty amazing.

What is your favourite smell? Clean musk and citrusy smells

Special thing you do to make you feel good about yourself: Baths with bath bombs and marathoning through cartoons.

DRAGON PATCH

Dragon – Dragons appear frequently in mythology and folklore. They are ginormous scaled creatures that breathe fire. Traditionally, dragons symbolise power and strength. Some varieties of dragon you may be familiar with are; Hungarian Horntail, Swedish Shortsnout, Chinese Fireball, and the Norwegian Ridgeback. Some, such as Toothless, are especially awesome. Don’t get these folks angry, or they’ll really heat up your toast!

PATCH LEADER CONNOR M.

I’m 22 and doing a Bachelor of arts, majoring in English literature (read: advanced reading and writing) at Vic uni and work a part time job so I don’t have to subsist on lentils and rice. In my spare time I do lots of stuff in the queer community, read stupidly long fantasy novels and play board games with my flat family. I’m a volunteer facilitator and member of the management team for School’s Out!, and until recently have been the coordinator for Tranzform. Sorry to sound so cliché, but I work with queer youth because I never had anything like School’s Out when I was growing up and it would have made life just that little bit easier if there had been someone to validate my own identity. I’m looking forward to everthing at PatchwerQ! I love hui so much and I wish they happened all the time!! I can’t wait to meet new people, hang out with old people, have fun times and great conversations.

J PATCH HAZZ

19, currently a victoria university student majoring in Media studies. I started going to schools out when I was 13 and it all kinda blossomed from there. Because of the amazing things schools out did for me, I would like to be apart of and to help other young people like myself. That and it’s heaps of fun alot of the time! I’m looking forward to getting to meet some cool new people and learning some new things that would help be have a better understand of what to do to help said young people PLUS having an awesome time.