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As far as suggestions go for the LGBT sessions, I would strongly recommend doing an overhaul on how the daters are organized and paired up.

Last year's LGBT sessions weren't "LGBT" so much as they were just "LG". Simply put, there was a table for gay men and a table for lesbians - and that was it. Any bisexuals (male or female) and transgendered people in attendance weren't taken into account, which really works against the inclusiveness of these kinds of events.

I think the best way to solve this problem would be to have participants fill out a chart outlining who they'd be interested in dating.

So if a lesbian is comfortable with dating a bisexual woman, or a bisexual man is comfortable with dating a transgender woman, or a transgender man is only comfortable dating women; they would need to fill out their charts accordingly to be paired up with suitable candidates. This would present a challenge with organizing each demographic efficiently, but I think it's necessary if the LGBT sessions are going to be as inclusive as they should be.

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The only method of organization I can think of off the top of my head would be to first have 2 main areas set up; a men's table and a women's table. Initially, the groups would just be divided into men and women (bisexuals included) and the dating would start. Once everyone's made a full circle, the gay and lesbian-only participants would turn in their dating cards and leave (since they'd have essentially completed their rounds at that point), and the remaining bisexuals would regroup to begin their sessions with the opposite sex.

The big problem I have trouble figuring out is how to accommodate transgender participants. Since being transgender doesn't really involve the person's sexuality, a trans dater could essentially fit into any group. That's perfectly fine, but a problem arises when you consider that other daters may not be interested in dating trans people. So in order to accommodate them, you would need to have the trans participants state themselves as being transgender so as not to mismatch anyone. But that could put trans daters in an uncomfortable position since not all transgender people are willing to do that (for good reason).
If anyone has any input on how to solve this one, I'd be interested to hear it.

Anyways, that's my 3 cents. Sorry for the long post, I just want to help make this event better so that everyone gets their fair chance at romance.

Transgenders participated last year, although they identified as Gay and Lesbian.

All things considered, i'd be surprised if two full LGBT groups showed up.

And while you in theory could run a full bisexual/asexual group, it would be incredibly limited by both size and time, which is why the LGBT groups last time were done as two half tables rather than one full table, considering that having everybody meet everybody adds a lot more to the time requirements than people would be willing to commit to.  Unless you ran like two smaller groups side by side, it gets really complicated, honestly.

True, last year's LGBT group was very small. But because it was so small I don't think it was a very accurate representation of the amount of variance in the LGBT community. I still think more effort should be put into matching daters in these groups properly; and if there's more participants this year, there will be a greater need to make things work better than last year.

If all the transgender participants end up falling into the other groups like last year, then that's excellent. But if not, it would be smart to have a plan on how to organize transgender daters with the others so that nobody feels left out.

As for the bisexual group, I don't think 'everybody should meet everybody'. I made the suggestion that after having the gay/lesbian-only tables make their rounds, anyone who was not bisexual could turn in their match sheets and leave. Which would then leave the bisexual participants from each table to join at a single table and continue. I don't think that would be terribly difficult or complicated.

The entire LGBT group deserves to be taken into account, and just having a gay-only table and a lesbian-only table doesn't cut it. (IMHO)

As far as suggestions go for the LGBT sessions, I would strongly recommend doing an overhaul on how the daters are organized and paired up.

Last year's LGBT sessions weren't "LGBT" so much as they were just "LG". Simply put, there was a table for gay men and a table for lesbians - and that was it. Any bisexuals (male or female) and transgendered people in attendance weren't taken into account, which really works against the inclusiveness of these kinds of events.

I think the best way to solve this problem would be to have participants fill out a chart outlining who they'd be interested in dating.

So if a lesbian is comfortable with dating a bisexual woman, or a bisexual man is comfortable with dating a transgender woman, or a transgender man is only comfortable dating women; they would need to fill out their charts accordingly to be paired up with suitable candidates. This would present a challenge with organizing each demographic efficiently, but I think it's necessary if the LGBT sessions are going to be as inclusive as they should be.

---

The only method of organization I can think of off the top of my head would be to first have 2 main areas set up; a men's table and a women's table. Initially, the groups would just be divided into men and women (bisexuals included) and the dating would start. Once everyone's made a full circle, the gay and lesbian-only participants would turn in their dating cards and leave (since they'd have essentially completed their rounds at that point), and the remaining bisexuals would regroup to begin their sessions with the opposite sex.

The big problem I have trouble figuring out is how to accommodate transgender participants. Since being transgender doesn't really involve the person's sexuality, a trans dater could essentially fit into any group. That's perfectly fine, but a problem arises when you consider that other daters may not be interested in dating trans people. So in order to accommodate them, you would need to have the trans participants state themselves as being transgender so as not to mismatch anyone. But that could put trans daters in an uncomfortable position since not all transgender people are willing to do that (for good reason).
If anyone has any input on how to solve this one, I'd be interested to hear it.

Anyways, that's my 3 cents. Sorry for the long post, I just want to help make this event better so that everyone gets their fair chance at romance.