Delegates get together

Shamey Cramer helped Emy Ritt get up on the piano to welcome the crowd alongside Kurt Dahl

The Federation of Gay Games is made up of organizations from every continent. As such, opportunities to meet face to face are rare. One such opportunity, of course, is the Gay Games. For the first time, this edition of the Gay Games will be immediately followed by the 2010 Annual General Assembly. This meeting, where elections are held, motions debated, bylaw amendments approved, usually takes at least four days. In order to allow as many delegates as possible to attend this year's AGA, and to avoid obliging members to make a second long trip this year to be present,  a condensed one-day version of the AGA has been planned immediately following closing ceremony.

Los Angeles's Shamey Cramer, Team Munich's Bettina Dietmann-Winter, and EGLSF co-president Pepe Garcia-Vasquez

To allow delegates old and new to meet each other, an informal get-together was held on Tuesday at the Pullman hotel. Delegates were excited to see old friends, and to share their first impressions, overwhelmingly positive, of Gay Games VIII.