Join us to celebrate 21 years of Diversity & Networking
Fruits in Suits® Thursday 19th October, 2017
Join us at The Beresford Hotel to celebrate 21 years
Tickets:
Members: FREE
Guests: $15* when ticket purchased online
Guests: $20 at the door, pending availability
Venue: Upstairs Beresford from 6:00pm
Upstairs Beresford is located on the 1st floor of the Beresford Hotel, 354 Bourke St, Surry Hills NSW 2010. The venue provides for wheelchair access via an elevator.
The gorgeous Shauna Jensen will be performing live on stage.
Photo Credit: Ann-Marie Calilhanna, Star Observer
Shauna Jensen is an Australian singer. She has been a member of multiple bands including Purple Vision and Flake.
She was a cast member of Australia’s Jesus Christ Superstar and appeared on the Original Australian Cast Recording album in 1972 and she toured nationally with the Long Way to the Top concert tour.
She has performed backup vocals for many acts such as INXS, Jimmy Barnes, Billy Thorpe, Powderfinger and Hugh Jackman and she provides the vocals for many advertising campaigns. She sings on a number of tracks on the 1985 Rebel: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack. In 2004 she became a judge for the fourth season of Australia’s Popstars, titled Popstars Live. She is now known as a Sydney gay icon.
SOURCE: Wikipedia
Birthday Bubbles for Everyone
All guests receive a complimentary first drink* until 6:30pm.
Members receive a receive a complimentary first drink* until 9:00pm.
*House red or white, sparkling white wine or house beer.
Where did Fruits in Suits® begin?
The idea for Fruits in Suits arrived one Friday evening in the middle of 1996. I’d been working late and wandered in to the (sadly) now-defunct Midnight Shift to unwind, still wearing my business suit and feeling like a real fish out of water.
A kindly young man struck up a conversation with me, despite my very non-scene attire.
He asked me what I did for a living and when I told him I was head of strategy at Qantas he replied, with genuine concern and pity: “But could you become a flight attendant if you wanted to?”
What really struck me in that moment was that for this perfectly delightful gay man, being a flight attendant represented the pinnacle of ambition and that, to him, the notion of an openly gay executive, wearing a suit in a gay venue, was so foreign as to be a cause for pity.
Thus the idea for Fruits in Suits was born.
At that time, SGLBA was trying to come up with a vehicle with which to reach the gay & lesbian professional community and suddenly, the answer came to me. Once a month, we would take over a venue and host a stand-up cocktail party with the theme: after work drinks – come as you are.
Come as you are. As in: don’t hide, don’t pretend to be something you’re not – not at work and not within the community either. You’re a dyke or a fag. You wear a suit each day, you work in the mainstream world and you are not alone.
Far from it, as it turned out. I thought I’d seen every gay face in Sydney but Fruits brought lesbian and gay professionals out of the woodwork in their hundreds, if not thousands. In doing so, it transformed SGLBA’s membership base and created a lasting rallying point for an entire tribe.
So…congratulations Fruits in Suits, on reaching your 21st birthday! May you have many happy returns.
Get your paparazi hardware ready as our Event Fashion Partner, Daly Male presents this season’s hottest fashions with our very own SGLBA models.
Ivan Flinn
Arun Issac
Annika Pernelid
David Shoemaker
Event Partners
Fruits in Suits – 1996 to Today
