Fonds MS-15-19 - Scott MacNeil fonds

Scott MacNeil was a business manager and LGBT+ activist based in Halifax. MacNeil was born in 1953 in New Glasgow and raised in Plymouth. He attended a business program at the Eastern Institute of Technology in Sydney from 1971 - 1972 before moving to Dartmouth in 1974. He was manager of The Metropolitan Store in Dartmouth, and later worked at the Dartmouth Holiday Inn and The Barrington Inn in Halifax. He moved to Halifax in the early 1980s, where he managed Rumours, a bar owned and operated by the Gay and Lesbian Association of Nova Scotia [GALA] from 1985 - 1991. Following his time at Rumours, MacNeil worked in the catering department at Events East from 1991 - 2018, when illness forced his retirement.
MacNeil was an empathetic activist who participated in many LGBT- and AIDS-related causes. He was co-founder of the Gay Health Association [later called MACAIDS/AIDS Nova Scotia] along with Dr. Bob Fredrickson, John Hurlbert, Arthur Carter and Darrell Martin in 1984, spurred by the death of his close friend Graeme Ellis. He sat on the management board for GAE/GALA during the 1980s, and on the Nova Scotia Task Force on AIDS from 1987 - 1988. MacNeil's commitment to his community is most accurately reflected in amount of time he dedicated to supporting persons with HIV/AIDS during their end of life stages. He published his memoir “Reflections In A Mirror Ball” in 2008.