Manchester Pride are inviting the LGBT community to ‘get involved’ in reshaping the future of the charity – yet some Gay Village groups are criticising its late arrival.
Be Involved, which includes an online survey and the opportunity to join a Community Collective Panel, will be set up in the New Year and will act as an advisory board to Pride.
Listening groups are also to be launched in 2014 with Director of Queer Youth Network, David Henry giving the proposals a cautious welcome.
“We welcome Manchester’s Pride’s move to increase involvement with the local LGBTQ community in the planning and design of the event,” he told MM.
“Over the years many of the smaller organisations that exist with little funding and no paid staff have felt locked out of the planning process.
“We look forward to contributing towards Pride’s revamped engagement initiatives and ensuring the whole community can once again feel like Manchester Pride is an event they are fully a part of.”
However, others such as Stephen Smith, who set up a petition calling for the board of Pride to step down which currently has more than 1000 signatures, was more scathing in his assessment of the measures.
“Why should we believe that they will engage with the community when they have failed to do so for so many years,” he asked in an email to MM.
“Their pure arrogance on this matter has been unbelievable.
“I have sent hundreds of tweets, Facebook messages, numerous emails and voice messages and no one ever gets back to you.”
In the statement announcing the new initiatives Mark Fletcher, Director for Manchester Pride, said he wanted to reconnect to the LGBT community.
“Our Be Involved campaign is a hugely important step for us to re-engage with our community and gain a real understanding of our audience,” he said.
“2014 will see a strong focus on initiatives to increase the amount of donations that Manchester Pride is able to make to LGBT and HIV projects in the region.”
But Mr Henry, who has experience of past attempts by Pride to take account of opinions in the community, wants further changes to be made to make the event more accessible to a wider range of groups.
“I was involved with the former Pride Stakeholder Group in 2004 which was often under-attended and in which we were told was a purely ‘one way processes’,” he continued.
“[The Queer Youth Network] have also been unable to participate in the ‘Lifestyle Expo’ after a fee was introduced to have even the smallest stall (even for unfunded groups like our own).
“We believe there needs to be more concessions on pride wristbands for the unemployed and those involved in community groups as being prevented from being a part of the festival due to financial hardship goes against the very ethos of pride.”
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