Wed 17 Jun 2015 In: Our Communities View at Wayback View at NDHA
In mid-April GayNZ.com Daily News approached the Auckland Pride organisation for an in-depth interview. At the very least we hoped to use it to bring to the glbti communities a review of how the 2015 Auckland Pride Festival, then already six weeks gone, had fared. We also wanted to look back at the organisation itself which we last year progressively discovered had quietly changed in form, board membership, leadership and management. We wanted to touch on questions which had remained unanswered regarding Auckland Pride's accountability to the glbti communities, questions we had put to one side in the months leading up to the February 2015 Festival in order to avoid compromising the creation and running of the festival. We wanted to look at what happened regarding a number of difficult issues such as the effect of the controversial loss of the previous festival organiser, the high-profile protest action at the Parade and the underwhelming Proud Party, a cornerstone event of the festival. And, having been already approached by a number of people voicing their own concerns about these and other aspects of the Board and Festival, we also wanted to discuss their concerns. We also wanted to talk publicly with Pride about how it will move forward, the successes it will build on and and changes it will institute to continue the development and refinement of New Zealand's biggest, and partially publicly-funded, glbti event. To date, despite numerous follow-up approaches from us, and either periods of silence or unfulfilled assurances of action and an interview, nothing has happened. The latest agreement, of an interview with a board member and the executive officer to have taken place at 1pm last Friday was, just hours beforehand, unilaterally “postponed” - with the assurance of an announcement of good news to come if a replacement interview could be arranged in “in about two weeks' time.” GayNZ.com Daily News was at one point invited to submit some written questions should we wish. As professional journalists we did not wish. Written questions are all too easily responded to by narrowly-focussed, self-serving, committee-created and pr-groomed responses. Follow-up questions can take days for replies to appear, thus stretching out the 'interview by email' process week after week. It's a tactic most often used in a manipulative way by organisations wanting for a variety of reasons to exercise extremely tight control of the timing and message. We feel the glbti communities deserve better than that. We therefore advised Pride that instead of submitting written questions we preferred to wait the week or so until the face to face interview they assured us was being discussed and arranged could take place. It hasn't taken place. Meanwhile, just on four months after the end of the Festival, the Pride organisation has not of its own volition reported to the glbti communities it was formed to represent and serve. And so the questions have kept mounting. Several weeks ago we asked when Pride's next AGM will be held and if it will be a meeting people from the glbti communities can attend, or if GayNZ.com Daily News can be present to report on it to the glbti communities. We still await an answer. Having waited, more or less patiently, week after week, month after month, we have decided after the latest delay by Pride to go ahead regardless. We have explained to the Board member who was to have been interviewed on Friday that we will run a series of articles giving public voice to the ideas and concerns contributed by some of those in the community. These are people who have insight into the Pride organisation and the Festival and a commitment to them being as well-run, community-aware, responsive, representative and wide-ranging as possible. We issued him an invitation to join in this 'public conversation' as, when and how the Auckland Pride Festival board sees fit. The first of our public conversation articles on Auckland Pride will appear in a few days. Meanwhile, we invite you to leave comments on our Facebook page about what you'd like see from Auckland Pride Festivals of the future, or what you'd like to know, or your thoughts and observations. Alternatively, you can email us less publicly at news@gaynz.com. Jay Bennie - 17th June 2015