Ron Byers
Reverend Charles Bidwell, PhD
On Tuesday, November 22, 2022 Dr. Charles Bidwell passed away peacefully surrounded by the love of family. Charles had just recently marked his 87th birthday in November and leaves a legacy as a father, partner, spiritual leader and companion to so many.
Reverend Charles Bidwell, PhD was an ordained minister with the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) in Edmonton beginning in 1978 and was active in advocating for the LGBT community within faith-based organizations starting in the early 80’s and into the early 2000’s.
In 1981 Charles was one of the organizers when more than a hundred lesbians and gay men from the four western provinces attended the Prairie Gay Conference held April 17–20 in Edmonton. Events included workshops, a gay roller-skating party, an Imperial Court drag show, and a large dance. Edmonton’s four gay groups – Dignity Edmonton, the Catholic based Spiritual group, the Gay Alliance Towards Equality (GATE), the Imperial Sovereign Court of the Wild Rose (ISCWR), and the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) sponsored the conference.
In 1983 Charles brought the MCC into celebrating Pride for the first time by holding a special Pride service along with Dignity Edmonton.
Charles was an active member of the United Church of Canada’s support group for GLBT folk – Affirm United. He was also a Spiritual Advisor to the youths attending Camp fYrefly for many years and worshiped and served among the GLBT-supportive faith community at Southminster-Steinhauer United Church in Edmonton. He was also an instructor at St. Stephen’s College on the University of Alberta campus.
Charles was a longstanding contributor and leader within the St. Stephen’s community, serving as convenor of the Theological Studies Committee (1997–2021), as a member of the Awards and Honorary Degrees Committee (2005–2022), as member and longstanding Chair of the Academic Senate (2001–2021; Chair 2005–2018), and as a member of the Board of Governors (2005–2022).1Thanks to St. Stephan’s College for the note on his work there,
In addition to his spiritual work Charles Bidwell was an active writer of poetry, fiction and plays for church. Check below for a link to some of his collection of writings relating to spirituality and sexuality. Not all links are still active, we may look at acquiring the rights to preserve these before they are lost
One of Charles other passions was acting. He enjoyed acting as the “Standardized Patient” in roles for teaching and testing health professional students, as an “Older Male Patient” according to his IMDB profile and performing in commercials such as a grumpy farmer at a car dealership complaining for Southside Mitsubishi.
Recently he loved performing as a member of the GeriActors intergenerational theatre company and in January of 2022 talked about sharing some of the true stories of aging through the work and performances of the GeriActors in an interview with Global News.
https://globalnews.ca/video/8515687/geriactors-theatre-company-encourages-any-age-to-the-stage
Charles Bidwell was an important leader of the LGBT community in Edmonton advancing acceptance of the community within faith organizations. To read more of Charles in his own words check out his space on the University of Alberta archived pages.
https://sites.ualberta.ca/~cbidwell/cmb/
And here is the link to some of his early writings: (Note not all links will work)
https://sites.ualberta.ca/~cbidwell/cmb/cmb-writ.htm
Thanks to Southminister- Steinhouser United Church, GeriActors and Edmonton Queer History Project for some of the content.
Ron Byers
Ron Byers is a community leader and storyteller. Decades of work in Edmonton’s non-profit sector have given him an extensive resume of service as well as a unique viewpoint on our city and its history.
He has left his mark with many groups such as the Alberta’s oldest 2SLGBTQ+ organization the Imperial Sovereign Court of the Wild Rose where he was a Founding Member, the Pride Centre of Edmonton as part of developing its Aging With Pride Program and the Edmonton Pride Seniors Group. He also worked with the Edmonton Heritage Council and its Edmonton City As Museum Project (ECAMP) to bring stories of our Queer history to the public space. Ron also helped develop and monitor the Harm Reduction Program, PeerNPeer managed by the Queer & Trans Health Collective – QTHC (formerly Edmonton Men’s Health Collective).
He is also a positive speaker for HIV Edmonton, founder of Pride Edmonton and Rainbow Story Hub and the Cultural Events Lead for the 2030 Gay Games Bid Committee.
Kyler Chittick
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