Views on Pride

We present the first of 3 views of the current form of Manchester Pride..To kick us off, GEOFF STAFFORD co-founder of Facts About Manchester Pride.  highlights some of the issues that he beleives need to be addressed.

"A cheer went up around Bloom Street on the evening of August Bank Holiday Monday 1991. We'd received a good luck telegram from none other than Diana, Princess of Wales.

The event wasn't called Pride in those days, it was the Carnival of Fun Weekend. But we did feel proud. Proud that Manchester's LGBT community had come together like never before to raise money to help people who had HIV.

The charity fund is still an important part of the August event but, after an initial boost when they were first introduced, tickets didn't lead to the kind of year on year increase in money for good causes that some of us expected. And, though better than nothing at all, this year's amount of £52,000 is a bit of a disaster.

Nor in recent years has there been the transparency and open debate that you would expect in a vibrant community like ours. Why not? That's how organisations build trust and a reputation.

Many of the village businesses raise money for charity, year round. A few raise nothing at all but we hear little of either and it's about time we did.

Where's the discussion about the City Council cutting Pride's grant completely this year or the 162% percentage increase in the policing bill that happened between 2004 and 2010? In the four years to 2011 Pride's own costs went up by 36%.

These are some of the reasons why the charity fund doesn't increase much. But it's left to bloggers and a Facebook group to ferret out this information. Some publications and websites only tell one side of the story and comments that say anything different are censored.

Personally I'll never accept fences and tickets at a Pride event. Fencing ourselves into the village for a weekend is simply an admission that the gay village isn't a safe space anymore. We need to talk about that too and take robust action to correct matters. The good news is that reported crime is down by 30% compared to a year ago (though how much isn't reported?).

As Mrs Merton would say: "let's have a heated debate."

DO YOU FEEL STRONGLY ABOUT THIS ISSUE?PLEASE EMAIL YOUR THOUGHTS TO RESPOND@CANAL-ST.CO.UK

Next week we have the response from the organisers of Manchester Pride

Published: 10-Jan-2013: (1698)