IDear lesbians, dear volleyball-players!
Welcome to Vienna! Vienna is different … Servus – servas!
We finally made it. Lets face it – we are worked and worn out, mia san am Semmerl (in good old viennese slang).
All of us but Gisi hesitated to organise the next lesbian volleyball tournament. Back in Haarlem we were quite surprised when Gisi got up and declared: WE DO!
At first even the thought of organising such a huge international tournament shocked us completely. We soon recovered. In a short period of time, thanks to Gisi the main goal was achieved. Our frankness to organise a lesbian volleyball-tournament in Vienna’s one and only 5 court gymnasium made the “boys” in charge hesitate, kind of confused and speechless. But we made it and got the final okay.
This was the first step (to heaven) and we had to start to get organised and organise. We founded 7 small working groups each in charge of different duties. In order to discuss the results and ideas of each group, we all met once a month at the plenary.
Most difficult for us to cope with was the non existing financial support by institutions. Therefore we especially thank: Rosa Lila Villa and Café Willenorf, Frauenbuchhandlung – women’s bookstore, Café Berg, and one bank (which prefers to stay anonymous) for their material and ideal support.
We also want to thank the teams which were willing to pay an additional fee for the women from Riga and Prague, the volunteers and all the women/lesbians who provided sleepingplaces.
Since the team from Riga wouldn’t have been able to come unless we provide for the costs we organised a fund-raising dance “Let’s dance for Riga” at the Frauen/Lesbenzentrum Beisl. The entrance tickets and fee symbolized the financial support for some kilometers of the route Riga-Vienna. The dance was a big success. The visitors were very generous and Margarete did a great job in fund-raising. So we were proud to contribute the dance’s profit of AS 13.500 to the Riga team.
So today is the day! Vienna’s first international lesbian volleyball tournament is about to start.
