News Archive

We are very pleased to announce that we have a new patron, Mr James Wharton.

James was the first openly gay person to appear on the front cover of Soldier magazine, the British Army's official publication, which also had an in-depth article on James' life as its feature.

Marrying his long term partner, Thomas, in March 2010, James and his husband became the first gay couple to be united by civil partnership, in the Household Cavalry's 350 year history.

In August 2010, James was ranked 19th in the Independent on Sunday's Pink list- the 101 most influential gay men and women in the country.

James is currently touring secondary schools as a positive role model for Stonewall in their Education campaign, talking of his experiences as an 'out' gay soldier in the British Military.

You can read more about James by visiting his website http://tinyurl.com/688zh6x where you will find details of the excellent work he is doing for Stonewall and the "It gets better" campaign http://www.itgetsbetter.org/ 

The It Gets Better Project was created to show young LGBT people the levels of happiness, potential, and positivity their lives will reach – if they can just get through their teen years. The It Gets Better Project wants to remind teenagers in the LGBT community that they are not alone — and it WILL get better. 

It is with great pleasure that we welcome James as our Patron, we are very honoured to have his support.

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UNISON has been heavily involved in consultation with its members regarding the proposed transfer of services from the Crescent to the organisation HertsAid. Faced with an impossible decision, potential redundancy with the new employer or potential redundancy when the funding for the Crescent dries up, staff and management have made the courageous decision not to transfer to HertsAid.

This decision will involve strenuous efforts on the part of the Crescent, to secure new funding to allow its services to continue unchanged. UNISON will support and assist the Crescent where possible and help them achieve their goal of a continuing first class service providing advice and services that include HIV and Chlamydia testing, health promotion, counselling and emotional support, Peer Education, therapies and training in educational and private organisations.

UNISON wish to state the following:

“The Crescent has had the majority of its funding removed by the County Council and the Local Health Authority without due regard to the people who use its services. The process followed by both funding parties was in breach of there own official procedures and the service review was undertaken by the organisation that ultimately was set to benefit from the change in service provision. Issues around sexual health and people contracting HIV/AIDS is a growing problem within society and UNISON believe this “cut” in funding and service is both short sighted and motivated purely by financial constraints. This is a further example of the Con-Demn government charging the people, for the failure of successive governments to bring the Greedy Bankers to book.

UNISON wishes The Crescent good luck for the future and will support its members in helping to secure the long term success of this highly thought of service based in St Albans.”