This Week on Orange Ribbon Wednesday 1 July

This week we will be speaking to a Joy 94.9 presenter about his early life in Malaysia and moving to Australia.

David will talk about his Christian religion in Malaysia, coming to Australia and finding his relatives here had different ideas about their religion. He will tell us why he and his family moved to Melbourne and what they wanted to escape in Perth.

David's story is very interesting and he will tell you what happened when he decided to come out to friends, family and his parents.

This is a show you should not miss on Joy 94.9

This week... Interracial relationships

This week Hugh and Allan will be speaking with two current on-air JOY program presenters about their respective relationships.

Jade is Australian-born and lives with her American partner. And Alex is Scottish, and lives here in Melbourne with his Hong Kong Chinese partner.

The discussions will cover everything from the first meeting, parents and in-laws, moving in together, contact with families back home, sharing of household chores, cultural differences and adjusting to same, together with a number of other issues.

Many gays and lesbians in Melbourne, and around the world, live in interracial relationships and there are always some adjustments that need to be made on both sides when such relationships develope and mature.

Hear how Jade and Alex have addressed these issues during the development of their respective relationships. Join Hugh & Allan, with Jade & Alex... this Wednesday (24th June) at 7:00pm om JOY 94.9FM.

Multicultural alphabet soup... this week

Allan has just spent the past few days in Sydney, and while there he caught up with Ty and Min Chuan. Ty is the Australian owner and operator of the popular Sydney gay sauna located right next door to China Town, and Min Chuan is his Malaysian partner who has come to Sydney as a university student from Kuala Lumpur.

Here is a real story of opposites, and a good example of the multicultural soup that your Orange Ribbon team serves up each week on JOY. Here we have:

• an interacial relationship (Australian & Malaysian)
• a beefy/beary build Aussie vs. steretypical tall slim Asian guy
• an Aussie partner more than twice the age of his partner
• HIV+ partner living with an HIV- partner
• a working Aussie with a student partner

We get to discuss the various aspects of their lives, how they met (and this is certainly an interesting little story...), moving in together after two years of getting to know each other, living and sharing a life where one is HIV+ and how this disclosure came about, the often-assumed (but totally incorrect...) "sugar daddy" arrangement and how they deal with it, and a large number of other life topics.

This weeks story is a very typical multicultural alphabet soup story which your Orange Ribbon team has been trying to serve up over the past 11 years. And this week is JOY's annual radiothon, so we encourage all of our listeners (regular and occasional...) to continue to support JOY by becoming a member, or renewing your membership, or even adding an additional donation to your renewal.

Many thanks for your support of Orange Ribbon over the years, and please do join Allan on Wednesday night (17th June) to hear this great story about Ty and Min Chuan.

Our international alphabet soup

JOY's annual Radiothon is NOW ON.

The Orange Ribbon team strongly encourages all JOY listeners, and particularly regular Orange Ribbon listeners, to support the station during the Radiothon so that we can continue to bring you an interesting mix of interviews and discussions that cover the multicultural alphabet soup.

All of us at Orange Ribbon are volunteers, and are just a very small part of the much larger volunteer base that holds JOY together each week, who look after the technical, production, presentation, back office, website management, podcasts, blogs, and the innumerable other activities that are necessary to keep a community radio station on air 24/7. This huge volunteer base saves JOY millions of dollars in labour costs each year.

HOWEVER... even allowing for the huge volunteer labour base, there are still additional huge fixed costs necessary to keep JOY on air. Phone calls, rent, equipment maintenance, insurances, stationery, postage, printing, ISDN line costs, equipment replacements and upgrades etc. etc.

So we encourage all of our listeners to phone and and sign up as a new member during the course of our Radiothon. If you are already a member then we sincerely thank you, but why not renew during our Radiothon and your membership will be extended from its current expiry accordingly.

With thanks to our many business, and other, supporters there will be many thankyou gifts and prizes available to be won for every new/renewal membership. Keep tuned to JOY each day during this 10-day Radiothon and hear about the daily prizes.

And if you can make an additional donation as well as your new or renewed membership, then that would be absolutely fabulous.

Aline, Ka Fam, Hugh and Allan strongly encourage your support during JOY's current Radiothon, and that support will help keep Orange Ribbon, and all your other favourite JOY programs, on air at JOY...your favourite multicultural alphabet soup community radio station.

Oh... and in next weeks program we have a fascinating interview coming up which will be representative of some of the multicultural alphabet soup that Aline, Allan, Hugh and Ka Fam serve up for you each Wednesday night. (More details later.)

Italy... Yes, it's Italy again.

Three weeks ago we chatted to Cinzia (from Arcilesbica) and the The flag Sisters (Le Sorelle Bandiera) in the leadup to the major Italian GLBTIQ fund-raising social event.

Well, we're going back to Italy again this week because Cinzia's brother, Serafino, will be joining us in the studio for a chat. While brought up and educated in Australia, Serafino decided to return to Italy after completing university studies here, and has lived there ever since. But he tries to get back to Australia to visit the family on a semi-regular basis.

Serafino is back in town at the moment, but returns to Rome at the weekend. He runs two Pilates gymnasiums there, and also travels to various parts of the world training and lecturing on Pilates and general wellness issues. And we will hear about some of the celebrities who have used his services over the past few years.

Serafino knew he was gay well before he left Australia after completing university here, and says that he came out before his sister (Cinzia) did. Yes, a gay brother and gay sister in the one family!

Another really interesting chat coming up on Orange Ribbon this week. Let's talk about being gay, being Italian, comparison of living in Australia vs. Italy, and of course Pilates will get a going over as well.

Orange Ribbon... 7:00pm Wednesday 3rd June, on JOY 94.9