At the NZ AIDS Foundation Gala 20th birthday celebrations, marking the end of the Pan Pacific HIV/AIDS conference, Wellington activist and strategist Bill Logan was amongst those honoured with a life membership for his outstanding contribution to the work of the Foundation and to the fight against HIV. Logan used the opportunity of being honoured by the Board to sound a warning about changes to the nature of the Foundation being contemplated by that same Board. Here is the text of his acceptance speech/lecture. This award is totally unexpected, and a real thrill. Thank you. Over the last twenty years the queer communities have done amazing things in this country. We've done it with the support of the AIDS Foundation and its brilliant staff. As well as anywhere in the world we've kept HIV/AIDS at bay. But for much of the last twenty years, while this wonderful work has been going on, what I've done is look for problems, and warned. I've fought with the board and argued with its directors. I've been persistently difficult and undiplomatic. So I am completely taken aback to receive this award. It's a delightful surprise. But I'm afraid I'm going to take this as a license to go on being very difficult and rude and undiplomatic. And I'm going to start right now... because we face a huge challenge. The AIDS Foundation has never been exclusively gay and should never be exclusively gay. We work with all communities. However, the AIDS Foundation was founded as a gay-centred organisation, and the gay-centred character of the AIDS Foundation is fundamental to the necessary HIV strategy in this country. The fact of the matter is that the gay communities are where HIV is spreading. 89%of the HIV transmission within this country is through sexual activity between men. There is no significant change since the time of Bruce Burnett [the mid-1980s]. And it is urgent to register that actually today the spread of HIV is accelerating among men who have sex with men. Queers remain our core constituency, and we'd better not forget it. This is strategically fundamental. Only a gay-centred organisation can have the authority to lead and consolidate changes in the sexual culture of men who have sex with men. We're certainly not going to listen to a non-gay organisation tell us how to have sex. Now, I have to tell you this: there are strong indications that the current Board is strategically disoriented. It has put the gay-centred character if the AIDS Foundation up for reconsideration. In this the board has placed an i important danger before us. The achievements of the last twenty years are superb, and I thank you for inviting me to participate in celebrating them in this way. But the challenges ahead are enormous. The AIDS Foundation must enhance its reputation in the gay communities; it must renew its leadership's roots in our core constituency. Well then... I guess that someone, somewhere, thought that Life Membership for me was a good idea. But I warn you... I plan to live a long time, and I plan to use any privileges offered by life membership to speak my mind. Thank you for listening. - 30th October 2005